Comments for FourLabs Blog: Viget Labs

Comment on Viget Will Sponsor and Host iPhoneDevCamp by kevin powers

kevin powers — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:22:25 -0400

Any insight as to skilset required (e.g. beginner, novice, expert, etc) either with iPhone dev or Dev in general?

Comment on Build a Playspace with KaBOOM! by Carlos

Carlos — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:10:50 -0400

It all starts with a playground ... and seems to end there as well! More power to KaBOOM!

Comment on Build a Playspace with KaBOOM! by Janet

Janet — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:00:07 -0400

KaBOOM! playgrounds are a cool concept, and it’sa non-profit organization as well? Great!

Comment on The Point of Pointless Corp. by Brian Wynne Williams

Brian Wynne Williams — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 08:48:19 -0400

@Nicolas - thanks for the link. The “self-organized” part of the project teams was actually one of the first major lessons we learned. Our first attempt was to pick a project team first, then have that team pick an idea to work on. We had a lot of good ideas, but ultimately had to pick one that not everyone was excited about—so progress was a struggle. By letting the teams form around ideas instead, everyone participating is excited and motivated.

This model works because these are “volunteer” projects, largely dependent on “extra” time. I think it would be hard to apply this model fully to our core business (services). We are fortunate to be somewhat picky about the clients we work with and we try to match client projects with the interests of people on our staff, but efficiently staffing projects is always a struggle. People certainly push for the projects they’re excited about and we always try to accommodate, but people also have a great attitude and do great client work regardless of the assignment.

@Dayo - yes, Google’s 20% time is a great example, though they seem to use it as real “R&D;” for product development. We’re not trying to become a product company. We do have a similar concept in terms of time, but Viget’s “20% time” is a bit more broad to include learning (training, reading, experimenting, etc.), sharing (blogging, speaking, etc.), and connecting with peers (attending conferences, online discussions, etc.).

Comment on The Point of Pointless Corp. by Dayo Osikoya

Dayo Osikoya — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 08:30:39 -0400

Great post! Google does something like this too. Only that they give their staff a day off official work every week to work on their ideas. I learnt that was how Gmail came to be.

Anyways, Google ain’t a consulting firm…

Comment on The Point of Pointless Corp. by Nicholas Tolson

Nicholas Tolson — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 12:59:31 -0400

This project structure reminds me of how Meetup.com runs their entire company as “self-organized” and have seen gains in product development and, more importantly, morale.

Their session about how they work at SXSW was among my favorites. More info here: http://www.meetup.com/boards/thread/6732513/10

It would be interesting to experiment how you could adopt this to a service organization like an interactive agency.

Comment on The Point of Pointless Corp. by Brian Wynne Williams

Brian Wynne Williams — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 11:26:30 -0400

@Chuck - thanks. We’re doing our best to learn from other shops who have tried similar things over the years. Looking forward to kicking it around with you more as we go along.

Comment on The Point of Pointless Corp. by Chuck

Chuck — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:45:59 -0400

Brian - Great post. I love the idea of Pointless Corp. It’s incredibly hard to run and consulting company and give love to your own projects. Your approach of giving ownership to the team and making it fun is great!

Comment on Build a Playspace with KaBOOM! by Forex News

Forex News — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:50:39 -0400

This is a great program! A great cause, and they promote diversity. I wish them all the best of luck :)

Comment on Viget at the ADCMW Annual Show by Deborah Gray

Deborah Gray — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:29:52 -0400

Congratulations on the nominations and the award! The blog should have won as well. :)

Comment on Samantha Appears in Practical Web Design Magazine by Sphinx Web Design

Sphinx Web Design — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:11:06 -0400

Congrats Samantha.

thanks a lot for sharing the information.

Comment on Samantha Appears in Practical Web Design Magazine by Web Design

Web Design — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 09:45:49 -0400

Congratulations Samantha. It looks as though you may have hit the big time.

Comment on Ficlets Relaunches as Ficly. And There Was Much Rejoicing. by Josh Chambers

Josh Chambers — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:19:12 -0400

Ficly looks rad! Nice work team.

Comment on Ficlets Relaunches as Ficly. And There Was Much Rejoicing. by Jason Garber

Jason Garber — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:24:43 -0400

Tom (and the rest of the Viget crew), I know I speak for Kevin when I say “THANK YOU!” for your team’s help in bringing Ficly to life. We certainly couldn’t have done it without you!

Comment on Samantha Appears in Practical Web Design Magazine by Justin Thorp

Justin Thorp — Wed, 27 May 2009 11:08:58 -0400

Congrats Samantha. That rocks!

Comment on Samantha Appears in Practical Web Design Magazine by Martin Ringlein

Martin Ringlein — Tue, 26 May 2009 14:39:10 -0400

Congrats Samantha, very “Bad Ass” of you. I can’t wait to read the issue.

Comment on Jack's Back from SF Web Expo Talk by Kate Welker

Kate Welker — Tue, 19 May 2009 19:59:13 -0400

I went to this talk, and thought it was great. A lot of the content was familiar to me (though not all - there were a few very useful new ideas), but the frameworks used were very helpful and the presentation was quite entertaining. Hopefully talks like this one will help raise awareness of the value of user research!

Comment on Ben's at RailsConf (in Vegas)! by Will Webb

Will Webb — Sun, 17 May 2009 09:42:33 -0400

The house always wins in casinos. I like sports betting because there are ways to beat the bookmakers. Much more fun!

Comment on Explore National Geographic Expeditions' New Look by Pamela

Pamela — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:11:25 -0400

Nothing succeed like success. I have visited National Geographics Expeditions site and it is really a treat to eyes. I have no words enough to describe it well. Just great Keep busy to build such thing in future . Best withes form pamela..

Comment on We've Got the Blues! by deb lavoy

deb lavoy — Tue, 12 May 2009 07:02:57 -0400

nice!

Comment on Has The Web Redefined the Presidency? by Erik

Erik — Sun, 10 May 2009 23:32:58 -0400

Great post April, but based on what I have been reading lately http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/nov/01/poll-shows-media-lack-public-trust-in-election-rep/ I think there is still a trust issue around media, even web 2.0 and social streams can be controlled

Comment on Dear Internet: Women Are Way More Complicated Than That by laser

laser — Sat, 09 May 2009 02:30:00 -0400

I think, “Neat article talking about what content women want to see on websites” - and that, shock, we’re not all interested in astrology!

Comment on Dear Internet: Women Are Way More Complicated Than That by KiP

KiP — Thu, 07 May 2009 12:57:34 -0400

Just curious, have you found a magazine or other publication that meets your focus?

Unless you are looking for women’s issues specifically, why would you want information directed just to women? My experience is, when that is tried the info is watered down, the creator is talking down to me.

I look forward to following your search.
KiP

Comment on Explore National Geographic Expeditions' New Look by Justin Thorp

Justin Thorp — Tue, 05 May 2009 14:57:19 -0400

The site looks HOT! Wish the expeditions weren’t so expensive. They look amazing.

Comment on Explore National Geographic Expeditions' New Look by Doug Avery

Doug Avery — Tue, 05 May 2009 11:05:49 -0400

Thanks for the note! I’d originally used a few “hide” classes to keep the other images from displaying before JS loaded, the hope being that a user agent without JS enabled wouldn’t need to load the unseen images at all.

It looks like the class didn’t quite make it into the final implementation, so we’ll ping the client and let them know.

A lesson we’ve learned since building NG:EXP is that helper classes like this tend to be fragile when handed off to outside developers - they’re just too easy to miss. An overflow solution like yours would’ve been more stable.

Comment on Explore National Geographic Expeditions' New Look by Katy

Katy — Tue, 05 May 2009 10:26:35 -0400

From one design company to another, great job! This site is effective and a pleasure to look at. The slideshow is fantastic. We were perusing it on our machines here, and think if you added {overflow:hidden} to #home_carousel, that would hide the additional slideshow images that appear while the home page loads. Keep up the good work!

Comment on Brian is One of Washington's Top 100 Tech Leaders by Brian Wynne Williams

Brian Wynne Williams — Mon, 04 May 2009 15:46:52 -0400

@Nick—indeed it is. It’d like to think Viget’s mention in this issue is what’s causing all the buzz, but I suspect it’s actually the shirtless President on the cover.

@Debbie—me too! It was cool that they mentioned Samantha in the magazine.

Comment on Brian is One of Washington's Top 100 Tech Leaders by Debbie Weil

Debbie Weil — Mon, 04 May 2009 15:41:18 -0400

Loved seeing the designer of my site on the list!

Comment on Brian is One of Washington's Top 100 Tech Leaders by Nick Whitmoyer

Nick Whitmoyer — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 10:52:49 -0400

That’s really cool and well deserved too. Congrats Brian!

Side note: Is that Obama without a shirt on?!?

Comment on Brian is One of Washington's Top 100 Tech Leaders by Brian Wynne Williams

Brian Wynne Williams — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:39:41 -0400

@Justin - thank you!

Comment on Brian is One of Washington's Top 100 Tech Leaders by Justin Thorp

Justin Thorp — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:48:26 -0400

Congrats Brian! Very well deserved.

Comment on Observations From the Recruiting Front by Cindy Caldwell

Cindy Caldwell — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:14:10 -0400

@Martin—Great blog post idea! We’ll blog about our experiences later this summer. Thanks for reading.

Comment on Observations From the Recruiting Front by Martin Ringlein

Martin Ringlein — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:19:47 -0400

Great post and great advice.

Glad to hear you guys are bringing on 5 interns, wow! Can’t wait to see who you select (would be great to read about how you made the selections).

Comment on Has The Web Redefined the Presidency? by jaymin kansara

jaymin kansara — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 02:51:50 -0400

Govt. of each and every nation is deploying their process on web. In my motherland india. so many processes of government like manifesto declaration, tax payments, information bureau is becoming online.

Comment on Has The Web Redefined the Presidency? by Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:52:14 -0400

The redesign of the official whitehouse.gov website is superb. An official list of all executive orders? A listing of all of his press releases, official statements and weekly addresses? Transparency within our own government?! What a concept…

Comment on Questioning the Status Quo by seo company

seo company — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:03:37 -0400

I have see many article about project manager and i have read but this article is so good so knowledge full i learn many points about project manager to read this article excellent job thanks

Comment on Keith to Speak at James Madison University by Kristin Andrews

Kristin Andrews — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 12:22:14 -0400

From our team, I know that Emma Dozier will be attending as well. Also, here’s a thread that was started on LinkedIn by Brian King. Not sure if any of these names ring a bell:

http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&gid=54620&discussionID=2035576&goback;=.anh_54620

Comment on Keith to Speak at James Madison University by Keith Muth

Keith Muth — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 11:45:24 -0400

Kristen,
That’s awesome, it will be fun hanging out. Anyone else going down that I know?

Comment on Keith to Speak at James Madison University by Kristin Andrews

Kristin Andrews — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 11:12:18 -0400

Hey Keith, looks like we will both be hanging out with the IM students throughout the day tomorrow. Looking forward to meeting up with you!

Comment on Keith to Speak at James Madison University by Keith Muth

Keith Muth — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 09:12:40 -0400

Here is more info on SMAD Day:
http://smad.jmu.edu/smadday2009.html

Comment on Keith to Speak at James Madison University by Keith Muth

Keith Muth — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 09:12:03 -0400

Hey Andrew,
I’ll be at SMAD all day but primarily hanging out with people in the Interactive Multimedia concentration. It looks like the “Interactive Media Careers” panel is at 10:30 in Harrison 0118 and then there is a portfolio review at noon in Harrison 0290 and Harrison 0101. At 3:15 there is an alumni and student mixer in the TV studio (Harrison G290) and I know students and alumni will be going to Dave’s Taverna downtown that night which was a lot of fun last year. Hopefully I can meet you at some point during the day. Thanks!

Comment on Keith to Speak at James Madison University by Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:15:11 -0400

Is keith going to be there all day? Or is he speaking during a specific segment?

Comment on Dear Internet: Women Are Way More Complicated Than That by Hashim Warren

Hashim Warren — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:16:20 -0400

Advertisers targeting women are the primary audience for Shine, not regular women.

That’s why there’s a beauty category - Shine wants to help companies sell you beauty products!

Comment on Dear Internet: Women Are Way More Complicated Than That by Julia

Julia — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:02:47 -0400

I think that Oprah.com is a good example of a site that’s targeted to women but doesn’t seem to define women by make-up tips and horoscopes. The site never explicitly says, “for women only,” but the overall focus on living your best life and includes a bunch of mom-focused articles.

Comment on Dear Internet: Women Are Way More Complicated Than That by Josh Thaxton

Josh Thaxton — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 11:38:40 -0400

It sounds like you expected Shine to whither up and die because it failed to describe *you* accurately enough. Shorten “Fashion & Beauty” to just “Fashion” and substitute Sports for Astrology and presto! it’s a men’s magazine.

I mean, no doubt promoting Astrology to the top of the stack is a questionable IA move, but while we’re assuming stuff I’ll assume that since it’s still there it draws traffic. I was kind of hoping that since you started the article talking about research you’d be able to use some to back up your point.

Comment on Developers Speaking EVERYWHERE! by Joan Piedra

Joan Piedra — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 10:09:39 -0400

Good news! Looking forward for Dev Day DC.

Comment on Questioning the Status Quo by Seo Service India

Seo Service India — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 02:03:02 -0400

Nice posting,very informative, i also interested in the seo services and web development.Thank you, very interesting to read, you should be proud of your blog. I was really enjoying to check your messages from time to time. We are looking forward to your future posts.

Comment on Samantha to Speak at Pittsburgh Design Day by Shutters

Shutters — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 02:00:45 -0400

Nice post!!!

Comment on Glimpse.org Launches New Site by jason

jason — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:22:06 -0500

Hi Kara,

I came across this blog when I came across Glimpse. Then I got curious: what did glimpse look like before you redesigned it? Do you have a link to a screenshot or so of the old version? And did the old version have similar functionality?

Thanks,
Jason

Comment on Encouraging Words from a Web Veteran by TM Selbor

TM Selbor — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 00:00:03 -0500

This financial crisis is freaking everyone out. Actually, it is freaking me out as well. Starting this January the business is real slow my income decrease a lot. I really hope this will pass, just like to mentioned on your post.