Waterloo Co-op students… Come work with me!
Do you want to make the system better? Do you want people to use your code? Do you want to work with me? It is close to the end of the first round in co-op here at Waterloo and we have a couple jobs posted. Here is the jobmine info so you can find it easier:
Winter 2009 Co-op 00092349 Software Developer
Winter 2009 Co-op 00092354 Software Developer – Q/A
Winter 2009 Co-op 00092662 User Advocate
We need some passionate students that are keen on web technology to get us to the pilot stage in the spring. Do you think you are up for it?
The technology you get to play with is mostly Microsoft – SQL, .NET, etc – but the GUI likes to use jQuery (before Microsoft decided it was cool).
What mobile development strategy makes sense?
How can you explain the state of mobile development (both web based on device installed) to non-mobile folks that are use to a windows dominated world that makes ‘adjustments’ for Mac from time to time? Here are my basic assumptions:
- CDMA devices are in some walled garden most of the time.
- Carriers don’t want to be a service provider, they want to control and profit from the whole experience.
- Long term contracts from carriers in North America slow down new device uptake.
- GSM devices are common and low barrier targets.
- Software on phones is rarely updated.
- No device is ‘easy’ to develop for, in fact most are like putting together an entire house worth of Ikea furniture along with all the little things.
- Mobile browsers suck.
- Microsoft doesn’t yet get mobile, but it will.
- RIM changed the game (with email, utility, service) but forgot about changing the rules.
- Apple changed the game further and re-wrote the rules (utility, Application store, touch it).
From those assumptions I am still at the same place I was over a year ago: supporting ‘all devices’ with regards to mobile development is not practical in North America. This includes mobile focused web sites and device installed applications. That isn’t to say there isn’t a market worth going after. Apple gives you access to a lot of people through it’s App store and you can target their browser easy enough. You can target Blackberry as well and if you target both I think you will hit a pretty good market.
The trick in my mind is defining where the market is. What developers need is good (unbiased, up-to-date) research on who is using what devices for what. Not because mobile developers don’t know their audience but because their paying clients, understandably, deserve some real numbers to decide what they need.
Last week I had the pleasure of participating in a meeting between a local mobile start-up and a mobile marketing start-up based out of Toronto. A major chunk of the meeting was spent discussing the various issues of platform and carrier issues.
The marketing group have a client that wants an app on ‘all phones’ – Bell, Telus, Fido, Rogers – but the local start-up can not justify the resources nor can they even think they could support all devices. The client wants to support all phones not because it thinks that is where their target market is but because they don’t know what devices their target market uses. If they new it would be easier for everyone.
This leaves me wondering… is it even possible to collect accurate information on device usage? Is it easier to just target the iPhone since they have data plans and are more likely to have users that want to try out stuff?
Blog for staff at U of Waterloo
Today we opened up a blog dedicated to staff issues at the University of Waterloo that is hosted by the UW Staff Association. At the moment I am the only one writing for it but that is sure to change as other Past Presidents. The idea of the blog is to keep staff informed on issues and give them a chance to have a conversation on topics important to them.
I decided to go with Expression Engine for this blog. It offers a load of options and it has a pretty powerful template engine. Where it has driven me a bit nuts is just figuring out how it works. Being use to WordPress prettiness or even Simplelog on this site, Expression Engine has a lot of features. Thankfully you can ignore them! I will post more about Expression Engine when I get a chance.
Hopefully the UWSA blog will be useful to staff in all higher education institutions. I don’t think we will post only about Waterloo although there will be a lot of examples from Waterloo 
Number 1 issue when trying to build an enterprise 2.0 apps: early stage user involvement
I don’t think people in larger organizations (maybe people in general) are use to the development processes of anything that could be considered ‘2.0’ so when they are participating in the early stages you need to be sensitive to that.
The system my team is building is essentially an enterprise 2.0 application for the higher education business of co-operative education. It is like some odd form of dating. It can seem like students are pimping their skills to the highest bidder (employer) but it’s not just about money. For students money can talk but so does being able to find a place to live for four months, having a job that isn’t just mindless work, nice office, helping their career afterwards, etc.
Oversimplifying the explanation of the project: Our goal is to create a web based application that does everything from building a resume to a job posting to applying to jobs and setting up interviews. We are designing it as a self-service collaborative environment that will eventually place the university staff in a position of oversight instead of direct service provision. This has to hook in with other university business applications.
When trying to be agile and include the user in our early stage development we have run into the fact that people that are use to business applications are not use to seeing a rough application. They treat it like it is production quality at the earliest of stages and in turn can bog down development. What happens is an overload of feedback and emotion which just takes the steam out of the user advocate and front-end team.
To add to the fun, we are an internal team so a loud backlash has political implications. We can actually get frozen in time until something at least is close to production level in the stakeholders eye. The result can be a big time sink but it may be a necessary evil of building an enterprise 2.0 application.
If you have an internal team that is replacing a Peoplesoft-like ‘take what you get’ mantra in enterprise application development you will need to account for the reality that end-users in business are use to that. In the past if they saw ‘early stage’ they didn’t see much difference once it hit production. I think it is unlikely that business users in general have been involved in truly early stage development.
Science 2.0 online tools? Join the conversation in Toronto on Sunday
Jen Dodd sent me an email about a pub night and panel taking place in Toronto on Sunday night:
Science 2.0: the future of online tools for scientists
A pub night and panel with Timo Hannay, Cameron Neylon, and Michael Nielsen, hosted by Nature Network Toronto
What does the future hold for the way we do science? Are online repositories such as GenBank and the physics preprint ArXiv, or social tools such as Nature Network, about to change science profoundly? To find out, join Nature Network Toronto for an interactive panel discussion over drinks at the pub.
Date: Sunday September 7 at 7:30pm
Place: Fionn MacCool’s
I know Michael Nielson is working on a book that is looking at the future of science and is sure to have some interesting insights to share. I think he has well defined a serious problem in academia as a whole with how information is published and how that has to change but that is whole other blog post. Not familiar with the other panelists but I am sure they will contribute to a really interesting conversation.
If you have an interest in where Science is (or should be) going, stop by the pub!
