Tales from the Interactive Trenches

by Evan Blomquist

One story goes something like this…

We contracted with a web developer over six months ago and still do not have a functional website. We’re way over budget, investors have abandoned us, and our developer will no longer return our phone calls. The site is 90% finished, so we just need someone capable to make a few final changes, could you do that for us?

At Mindspace, we believe in being a can-do organization, but that doesn’t mean we have super human powers. (It only appears that way most of the time) We’ll sympathize with your pain, but you need to understand that no amount of work will violate known laws of physics and get your site completed by last week. We’ll run triage on your project and provide you with a realistic assessment.

Here’s another one…

Our site was built by an off-shore company, but we are tired of being up all night in telephone conversations with ‘Ernie’ from ‘Bakersfield’ only to get the wrong deliverable several days later. We want to hire someone local that we can work with face-to-face.

Ah! The perils of Bangalore. Yes, they are cheap labor. 200,000 Engineering grads competing for 5,000 call center jobs in a country where you can live a middle class existence for $5,000US/year. There are good and bad stories of New Delhi software, and unfortunately we only hear about the bad ones. Sure, we can take over development and give you face time, but note that our middle-class geeks simply cost more than their hemispherical doppelgangers. Our developers are our product, and keeping them happy and productive is a high priority for us. Rest assured that any premium is more than compensated for by top quality software by the best minds in the business.

Another fav…

I want a social networking site that can interface with Norad and air traffic control centers around the world. My nephew Malvern said he could do it on his summer break were it not for his accordion camp.

Perhaps you should convince Malvern that being a dot-com zillionaire will get more chicks than wielding a mean squeeze box. All kidding aside, one of the biggest misconceptions of website construction is the amount of multi-disciplined effort required. Building a production-grade website requires a skill set that includes knowledge of multiple programming languages, networking protocols, database and operating systems administration, all tied together by some form of project management. While we don’t doubt that Malvern is a prodigy who balances his checkbook in hexadecimal for kicks, it’s very rare to find a single person these days with the skillset to build the next Internet shrine single handedly. When you retain Mindspace, you’re securing an experienced team of developers who span the entire spectrum of Internet technologies.

Have Malvern send us a resume. Besides attracting the best and brightest for our team, we could use his accordion skills on polka Fridays.

Then there’s this guy…

I have a list of 25 million, double opt-in email addresses that I’d like to broadcast my message about medication to help men build their self esteem.

It sounds like a noble cause, but we’d find that many opt-ins on any list to be a bit dubious.

Let’s face it, as a civilization we’re still in the infancy of the Information Age. And with any revolution, there’s a lot of misinformation and rogue frontiersmen to be wary of. As innovation continues at breakneck speeds, Mindspace will be working diligently on the front lines of the new media in a perpetual effort to sift the value from the hype.

Stay tuned for more Tales from the Interactive Trenches!

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 20th, 2010 at 10:16 am and is filed under Interactive. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.