Watching a designer make something out of nothing is a pretty amazing process. Even after 10 or so years of watching Andrew ‘create’ a vision based on someone else’s broad description of ‘how it should look’ and ‘I kinda think it could maybe look like, you know, that…kinda’.. I’m still impressed by what he comes up with day after day. Over the past week we’ve pulled the team together for quick 5 minute bull sessions to bounce ideas off of them..he’s been running around the office with his camera snapping photos of different work environments and essentially pulling hair out of his head trying to find a free minute (nothing new). Then he’s down to our studio in the basement with a few empty cans of Red Bull. Towards the end of the week he’s sitting at his desk, music is hammering out of his headphones and he’s muttering to himself (again). I still have no idea what he’s doing, but I do know that Scott A is pushing (as expected!) to see something that is cool and different. 9:30 p.m Thursday night Andrew and I touch base…it’s pretty much the only time during the day when we can connect. 10 p.m I’m going through 5 new designs. They’re all the same, but all a bit different, to help him fine tune a few words (even the best need a sounding board). We talk messaging. We talk audience. We talk purpose. Modified designs hit my inbox. 10:30 p.m, there it is boys….the new blog layout. Very strong.

Depending upon where you live, this statement may or may not surprise you…not everyone gets Web 2.0.

Mercury Grove has offices in Ottawa, Cincinnati, and Lexington, KY. The Web 2.0 community is fairly mature in Ottawa. In our other region (the OH, IN, KY tri-state), however, Web 2.0 is a foreign concept that hasn’t been bought into (yet).

The hi-tech scene here is limited to the IT departments of plodding giants - P&G, Lexmark, Fidelity Investments, Kroger, etc… While isolated IT software groups certainly know Web 2.0 and employ limited facets (e.g. Wikis) the companies themselves are unwilling to ween themselves from low-risk, low-reward Enterprise software.

So how do we spread the word? How do we generate excitement? How do we get these people to understand the power of Web 2.0 and maybe attract the “creative class” that is so important to creating regional job growth and developing a commerce built upon innovation?

Note: I’m not expecting to be able to mobilize an entire population, but I think it’s important to showcase to the regional leaders that it should be a priority of theirs.

So here are three vehicles to help develop the community…

• Web 2.0 “unconferences” such as Barcamps/Democamps - Mercury Grove was responsible for hosting one Democamp in Lexington, KY and another in Cincinnati. The attendance was good and the participation lively but there has been no continuance. We will need to somehow convince a Community to own these events.
• Chambers of Commerce - We’ve recently joined the local Chamber and will be assessing the acceptance of the group to “innovative thinking”. I know several members of the Chamber and it seems like an humble group that recognizes its shortcomings. We hope that the primarily SMB makeup of the Chamber will be receptive to our suggestions.
• Press - We’ve had some success having our company covered in the regional papers but the lack of coverage for Web 2.0 or the IT community as a whole is dreadful. I’d like to put together a press-kit that is convincing enough to the agencies to make them realize that they, themselves, are the foundation to forming the sense of community.

If it doesn’t work. I guess we’ll move.

Seriously, though…much of our existence is based upon being able to give back to our community. If our community won’t have us, I may be forced to look for a foster city.

This is a little off topic but I wanted to share it anyway. This is an ultrasound picture of the soon to be latest addition to the Lake family. My wife Jess is doing a great job growing this little guy. Its kind of like a startup but of a different kind.

So this is almost unheard of but the images attached to this posts are our task lists, including delivery dates for this project. We wanted to share these right from the beginning so people could see what we’re doing and when we think we will be “getting stuff done”.

It takes a lot of guts for a company to be this transparent. MG has already committed to developing four applications in four months, and now we’re making public the most secret list that any software company has.

Personally, I think its about time. Lots of software companies exist under this veil of secrecy that doesn’t really benefit anyone but themselves. When you ask simple questions like “How long will that take?” - You get a response that equates the development process for the creation of heaven and earth. As far as Im concerned that is BS. We’re professionals and we make commitments. We should have no problem saying what we are going to do, then doing it.

Nearly ten years ago a small team in a small San Francisco apartment launched “The End of Software” revolution.  The fundamental concept was that companies didn’t need to “own” software code and host it within their network.  Instead people could access the software remotely via a web browser at the office, at home, or anywhere there was an internet connection.  The type of software was a logical starting point - customer management software that the salesforce could access while on the road.  And Salesforce.com was born.

Over the last 10 years Salesforce.com has led the transformation for how people use software at work.  Today most corporate applications are accessed through a web browser and many of these are hosted outside the network by external companies.  Over time, the “End of Software” revolution evolved into a new trend of ”Software on Demand” or “Software as a Service” which allows companies to rent software rather than having to purchase it.

But to the users of the software, it is not a service.  It’s software.

The future of software needs to be more than just forms and databases, it should actively and purposely help educate people who use the software on best practices, industry standards, and success stories on how to achieve a task or manage a process more effectively.

As we develop our software we are looking at how we can further empower the people that use our software to improve their customer relationships by providing success stories, feedback on industry ratios and norms, inspirational stories, tips from experts, quality content from the web…

I think that is the kind of service that software companies should be providing, and I hope that people will begin to expect it from their software partners.

Surely we are past the “utility age” of computing.

Some of the apps (or their features) developed by Mercury Grove, have arisen from the consulting side of Mercury Grove - either to satisfy a direct request of a Client, or in response to a need to help support a client engagement.

This puts is in the unique position of having our own “feature farm”, and our symbiotic relationship with our clientèle is what allows it to exist. Sometimes we don’t just develop applications and their features…we pick them (assuming they’re ripe).

As long as we continue to provide consulting services for our customers and continue to effectively harvest their needs and requests (more on Mercury Grove’s “Evolutionary Prototyping” approach to come later), we’ll be able to keep pace with market changes without having to spend a lot of money on market research (or just guess).

I must admit that I take a slightly different view of this project than some, or all, of the other participants. I’m not a designer or a developer, and I have no vested interest in Mercury Grove other than they are becoming a good business partner and they seem to be really good people. Day to day I’m Andrew Milne’s biz partner (he’s blogging here somewhere!) in a new media, or interactive (take your pick), marketing company called bv02 inc.

Andrew will be leading the charge on this project from a creative, design and branding point of view. He and I have worked together on and off for about 10 years and I think he’s the best at what he does, which is good, because what pumps out of his brain largely pays my mortgage. Me? I’m really not sure what my role may be on the MG project as I’m a bit of a Swiss army knife and anything I can do others here seem to do betterJ.  That said, I want and need this project to succeed because my partner and our company is heavily involved, and we want everything we touch to be as good as it can be. Plus I’m really beginning to like the team that Scott Annan has pulled together….but therein lies the challenge….

When you are a small business like bv02, you build a lot of pretty personal relationships with clients and partners. It can’t be avoided. Because of that there is always the risk that you will do too much for someone, too often, and not really make any cash. Being liked is a wonderful thing, but if you lose money in order to be liked, your business isn’t going to be around for too long. At the same time, if you are completely money driven your business will also dry up pretty quickly….your partner or client will take their ball and go home. Experience has taught me that some of the coolest, most interesting gigs are fueled by ideas, not dollars. This is a pretty ambiguous paragraph so far……I guess I’m saying that in our business you constantly try to balance personalities and relationships, against the need to earn a profit. So I suppose, now that I write it down, my role here will be to help strike that fine balance between friendship and business partnership.  The MG guys are fun and smart. Andrew and I enjoy spending time with them on personal and business levels. We learn new things, we meet new people, we laugh a lot and it’s fun to be part of something at its birth.  But I just know that time demands will be put upon Andrew and we’ll need to make sure that we deliver for our friends and partners at Mercury Grove, but that our clients and staff, don’t suffer as a result.

 Hmm…..was this too serious? I always end up sounding like the heavy. Hey Scott, I’m not really the heavy….I just played one in a movie.

One of the things that I want to do with this project is validate and idea that I have been having for a long time regarding the union of story telling and blogging. When Scott Annan talked to me about doing a launch plan for Mercury Grove, I jumped at the opportunity. I was so interested because I think how Mercury Grove works as a company is how all modern and innovative companies should work together. Also given the fact that they are just beginning the process of creating three useful business applications over the next four months, I saw this as a great opportunity for the people involved to share their experiences regarding each every aspect of their roles in the project. For me, I think that telling this story will finally break development out of the black box that is usually at other companies. It’s just going to be a great story and it needs to be told.

These days, blogs are often just a compilation of cool stuff that we find on Techmeme or Digg, although they are fun to read, they are not innovative nor are they taking advantage of their true potential. What I want to do with this project is change the way that people develop and promote the launch of their web apps and I want to do it using only social media story telling. Not because social media is cheap but because it is the smartest and most flexible tool to use to create buzz around what you’re doing. The future of marketing is learning how to create communities and mobilize people and that is exactly what we’re trying to do here.

There are a few real challenges with this project and as you can guess none of them are technology related. To make this work, we’ll have to transform the culture at Mercury Grove from one that was insular where everyone shares within the company, to one that is open to sharing their work with everyone on the outside as well. Not only that we have to do it as a a group starting now.

The best thing about this experiment though, is that I already know its going to be a success. Regardless of what the metrics, what we are doing is going to produce solid content that people can use the help them grow their own ideas. How much better can it be than that?

picture by Fabio Venni

Mercury Grove is a small core team and we rely on partnerships with great people to deliver our software.  I believe that we are seeing an unprecedented rise in the independent “consultant”

fueled largely by online professional networking tools that make it easy for people to self-promote to a large number of people - like LinkedIn, and Elance.

I have met many entrepreneurs who are frustrated by the independence of “new age” workers and try to fight this trend by creating innovative working relationships and environments - some with great success.  Alternatively, at Mercury Grove we try to build relationships with different people on different projects where our objectives align.  Although we don’t develop a traditional employer / employee relationship, this setup has allowed us to build some great software, develop long-term relationships, and have a lot of fun.

However, as all entrepreneurs know, it is not easy building a great team.

Below are a list of personal attributes that I look for in people when building a team.

1. People who keep their egos ‘in check’. 
   I look for people who can tie their own motivations to the team’s objective, and focus on the end goal, not “taking over” the team.  I really dislike babysitting or refereeing as a manager, and I find that people’s egos cause a lot of conflict within teams.
2. People who are builders not exploiters. 
   Its important to me to find people who want to work on your project because they see how they can contribute to make it better and achieve something great, not people who are looking to improve their resume.
3. People who have the capacity for greatness. 
   I want to surround myself with people who are able to accomplish great things.  I want to work with people who will reach a little further or try something different to achieve something great.
4. People who have the tendency to push limits. 
   I love working with people who have the tendency - a habit for doing new and exciting things.  People “tend” to do the same thing over an over again.  And I try hard to separate the “habit of trying to achieve” with success.
5. People who are fun to be around 
   I love working with fun people.  It makes my life better.

Those are the personal attributes that I look for in people when building a team.  I approach team building equally from a role (technical skills) and a personal (personality) approach when trying to create the “A” team.

What qualities are important to you in the people you work with?

Meeting Topic: Introductions, Planning, Kick-Off 
Who: Scott Annan (MG), Creighton Medley (MG), Michael Marker (MG), Scott Lake (Jaded Pixel), Andrew Milne (BV02), Jud Rasmussen (BV02), Jeff Meldrum (Independent) 
Date & Location: April 22nd; Ottawa, Canada; Vitoria, Trattoria 

Group of seven, seated at a long table on the second floor of Vitoria, Trattoria, a stone-cottage style building located in the market district in downtown Ottawa.  An overhead projector is projecting on a white tablecloth hanging from the ceiling.  It’s projecting short-term strategic objectives, market analysis, target audiences, branding concepts, development methodologies, and dozens of wireframes… We’ve gathered to kick-off a daunting new project: Build and launch four revolutionary customer software applications in four months.  To be honest, the application concepts have been developing for over a year, but this is the start of the “birthing process”, and this is the team that will take it to launch.  It’s a great team.

Creighton Medley: A great track record building websites and web applications in php, ruby, java, python.  Creighton started his career in Aspen, Colorado where he worked in a production house when he wasn’t skiing.  From there he moved on to develop and run a number of major sports websites, including the NCAA and MLB.  I met Creighton at Lexmark corporate where he was developing web apps - eventually rising to lead architect and managing a significant development team.

Michael Marker: Mike manages our consulting business.  He is closest to the customer and has a lot of experience in the corporate world where he has led major software programs.  Among his current and past client projects: Tempur-Pedic, Proctor & Gamble, JP Morgan Chase, Lexmark, Fidelity, General Motors and many more small and medium businesses.

Scott Lake: Scott runs Jaded Pixel / Shopify.  Scott is an excellent CEO, a great blogger, and a huge advocate for the startup community in Ottawa.  Scott has brilliant ideas, but further is great at developing social collaboration and measuring the real effects and benefits of social networking.  In my opinion, Scott represents the future of marketing and promotion - which is almost the opposite of current thinking.  More to come…

Andrew Milne: I believe that great design - like all other great things - isn’t done by junior programmers, but by dedicated professionals who consistently apply themselves to incorporate new design concepts.  Andrew is a true craftsman with years of experience in design and a dedication to continue to grow in different directions.  Andrew will be able to find the right balance between conventional and unique.  I am convinced that his design input will help us deliver products that will inspire our customers.

Jud Rasmussen: Jud is big and tall.  When we need muscle (and I’m sure we’ll need muscle) we have Jud.  He’ll be our ringer if we get pulled into any games of pickup (basketball or hockey).  He’ll disagree, but he’s the head and heart behind BV02 (trust me).

Jeff Meldrum: When he’s not playing disc golf or hiking, Jeff writes articles, ads, press releases - and speeches for the Canadian government.  Jeff brings an edgy, modern approach to writing while maintaining a very professional image.  I’m confident he can help us find the right tone to speak to our customers - honestly, passionately, professionally.

It’s a great first day with some great discussions.  I feel like we’re going in the right direction.

But with one day behind us, we’re one day closer to launch.

Here we go.