Found this interesting link that provides papers written by
Monthly Archive for September, 2005
Today I am completing one year at Netscribes. As I look back, it has been a year well spent learning new things, meeting interesting people and learning some more :-).
I have always wanted to join a startup. Even though fat pay packages that IITians usually command from bigger firms are galore, yet the idea of being just another face in a big organization never appealed to me. My paradigm of an ideal organization has always been the one where you have independence of thought and working style, and at the same time the liberty to try out new things. I always wanted to be a part of something that was full of positive energy and looked favorably at innovation and new ideas. And with all these things in mind, I hoped that Netscribes would be an interesting first job.
I had my own start-up during campus days, called iDhoom Technologies, which was primarily a web services firm. The startup was just like any other startup that were blooming at those times. In our case, I and a few of my fellow batchmates from IIT got together and thought of an idea to put into practice whatever we were learning in programming and coding. So along came web projects, C++, java, security coding, designing and a lot of other programming stuff. We had a good run for two years, and after that we dissolved the firm with a unanimous decision of pursuing different fields. The basic ideology, of applying what we were learning to the real world, was fulfilled and the goal accompolished.
So, I did have a feel of the start-up environment, when I joined Netscribes. But coming here, and seeing a company that was just coming out of its formative years is an incredible experience. I have seen excellent dynamics at play in the organization; and my own experience in introducing a new concept has been very stimulating. An idea that was introduced on a very elementary level in the organization got enthusiastic attention and a lot of fillip for trying it. How we went about it and how it was embraced is another exciting story that I will put up some other time. The bottom line is that it is things like these that make working here such an EXPERIENCE.
I think that everyone wants some basic things in their work life which would essentially include a fun-filled work environment, intelligent and pragmatic colleagues, and openness towards new ideas. Well, I have been lucky to have all this in my very first job.
Talk about tense times, and I have seen them rarely in my project. It is not only about planning and operations; but the professional demeanour that people carry makes it easy to approach anyone even if you have the slightest of doubts or confusions. Right from my immediate senior to the seniors above him, everyone carries a light-headed charm and smile on his/her face. You cannot expect sunshine everyday, but the peer group always manages to find the silver lining in the darkest clouds. And I strongly believe that this is one of the unique strengths of this company.
Even though its been a year, it seems like yesterday. The time has just rolled by without the slightest notice; and I still come to work with the same excitement and energy that I started with a year back. This sounds strange from the numerous stories that I keep hearing from my batchmates about their work life. Instead of a face, I would rather want to be the spoke in the wheel. And that is the feeling I get at Netscribes.
And here is saying Hello to the start of another great year here …
Check out the new open source .NET CMS solution called
Umbraco scores big time over Community Server, as it can assign various options and tasks that can be visible to one user or another. This is one of the key features that is lacking in CS.
Will be posting more on my experience with the software.
The Blog Search tool also supports new search operators such as:
- inblogtitle:
- inposttitle:
- inpostauthor:
- blogurl:
Further, the results are available as Atom and RSS feeds. This new
I came across this article by
I’ve spoken to a number of Web teams that have used a
CMS with varying levels of success. One problem I heard repeatedly was that the project worked fine, but nobody used the software once it was available. I call this the Stupid User Argument, and it’s a favorite of IT departments. The techies did their jobs, after all: They diligently gathered requirements, scoped out the solution, carefully selected a vendor, and managed the project to a mostly on-time and on-budget conclusion.So how come nobody actually uses these systems once they’re in place? The answer is easy: People don’t like to change the way they work, particularly knowledge workers.
Knowledge workers spend years building strategies to accomplish their jobs, practices that likely date back to study skills acquired during their education. So changing those processes — no matter how valid the provided technical solution — is nearly impossible. Users will rebel, even after substantial training.To have any chance of success, a content management project must follow the same user-centered design practices as any other project. Task analysis, rapid prototyping, usability testing — all of these methods are crucial to a CMS rollout. It’s foolhardy to unveil a mammoth, nine-month project to an unsuspecting user community and expect adoption.
But there is a larger issue at play. Even the most thoughtful projects may be misguided. Over and over I’ve heard the same complaint about these projects, “Turns out, after all the budget and time we spent, we really didn’t need a content management system at all. We just needed some editors.
Also came across
Another interesting addition to this week’s website discoveries is
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