Archive for January, 2009

Validation at the Disco

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

Well it wasn’t really a Disco it was TWIN TECH III at the Lux Lounge in Washington, DC produced by iStrategyLabs and NVTC. 2000 of your closest IT industry mover and shaker friends at a major networking event.

We weren’t really sure what to expect but armed with sweet new business cards and a business model to introduce, we jumped into the fray. The noise level and the crowd made it hard to hear sometimes but companies were discussed, business cards were exchanged and networking was accomplished.

Our take-away was that people love the ChumBonus model (www.chumbonus.com/about/) and are eager for the launch which is scheduled for the beginning of March. We know it is a cool model and our friends and associates tell us they agree but the validation that comes from genuine excitement on a stranger’s face when you tell them what you are up to is sweet.

Crowdsourcing and the Sharks

Monday, January 5th, 2009

Is it an art, is it a science, well sorry to disappoint, I do not actually know, as I am still on the fence.

Let me explain, we are currently running the architecture competition for the web site and the way this works is that TopCoder members that would like to compete on the architecure competition have a window of time to register. Today the registration period ended.

The TopCoder web site is very transparant on the entire competitive process, we have 40 registrants for the current contest. In the scheme of things 40 is very good.

Breaking down the 40 shows that it is made up as 26 rated members and 14 non-rated. No offense to the 14, but we’ll focus on rated members for this post. These rated members pretty much guarantee the timeline. To be rated you need to have competed on a competition in the last 90 days and had a passing submission.

26 rated is fabulous,

So, have we attracted any sharks to the contest, because as we all know a shark is the most effective eater in the ocean. The answer is a resounding yes, we have attracted no less than 10.

Art – we probably have the money right.
Science – the amount of work looks to match the timeframe.

Well that is what I read into it.

Art or a Science – we’ll see in 48hrs when the submissions come in.

Take a look at the active contests to see for yourself.