As all of our clients know, Flatsourcing is a 50/50 partnership between the U.S. side and the Russian side. With one office in New Orleans, the other in Kazan, and clients spread across the globe, we understand how important open communication is. We strive to find opportunities to take our online communication offline at least once or twice a year so that we continue to strengthen the bonds we have built over the last 4 years.

On February 22nd, Chris and I hopped a flight to Miami for Future of Web Apps 2010 and to meet up with our colleague Alex Mamaev. After an inspiring day of presentations on topics that ranged from deeply technical to highly entrepreneurial (for more check out Chris’s take on some of the presentations), we headed back to New Orleans with Alex. In the almost two weeks Alex was here in New Orleans with us, we were able to dive deeper into some of the structural issues of Flatsourcing and better understand as managers our current opportunities and challenges.

That’s to be expected and was incredibly useful, but what’s even more invigorating about these times we get to spend together is the chance to get to know each other on a more personal level. As was the case during our trip to Kazan last May, getting to see the day to day of each others work environment and lives outside the office builds an even stronger bond between all of us. The opportunity to see the office environment we have here at Launchpad New Orleans, meet the people we work around each day, as well as our friends and families gives Alex an insight into the US side of the Flatsourcing operation that is critical to our long term success.

One of the topics we closed out with was scheduling the next visit Chris and I will make to our office in Kazan for late-summer or early-fall of 2010. Last year we were lucky enough to have two of our current clients join us for the trip and we would like to extend that invitation again this year. If you’re interested in meeting the team that makes up Flatsourcing and see what makes us special, let me know and we’ll keep you up-to-date on the planning.

On a side note, Alex is also a terrific photographer, so be sure to check out his photo stream from the trip.

New Orleans City Park by Alex Mamaev

We love to receive feedback on the flatsourcing web-site and also on the small open-source projects available publicly in our fs github account. Here was the feedback that have received recently through one of the social networks:

Oleg,

I’ve checked your website (as I do once in a while) - nice interface for exams project.
And just a minor suggestion - it might be better to write ‘Ruby on Rails’
instead of ‘RubyonRails’ on your site - looks like 37signals do that, and they should know. Also you have XHTML as your specialty before RoR - not good…

Cheers,

Michael

As we are now fully entrenched in the holiday season, I’ve been thinking about how we as a company need to modify our schedules to ensure we keep things rolling for our clients and for our internal projects. The fact is, a distributed company like Flatsourcing is actually better equipped to handle this time of year than any other company I have ever been a part of.

Having an organizational structure and client base that straddles multiple countries and cultures, the pressure points that cause slow downs in most organizations are more spread out and thus easier to schedule around. For our US based staff and clients, the end of November brought Thanksgiving and its’ corresponding personal responsibilities. For our non-US staff and clients, it was a non-factor and allowed things to continue moving forward as always.

With broader, more international holidays such as Christmas, we are again in a position that is beneficial because traditionally Russian Christmas is celebrated on the 7th of January. Because of this flexibility we can schedule our holidays in a way that melds best with our clients’ needs and stagger our own scheduling so that we never have to lower the level of performance our clients expect.

This is just one of the benefits of building your team with Flatsourcing, so if you haven’t already, drop us a line and see how we can help your business.

This week has been busier than most as Chris and I prepare to head up to New York next week for the Web 2.0 Expo. While we’re  both looking forward to the keynotes from speakers such as Anil Dash and Caterina Fake, we’re really excited to get to spend some time on the Expo floor seeing what new and intersting things technology businesses are doing.  It’s easy to get caught up in the immediacy of day to day tasks and getting to attend a conference like this is a great way to get our creative juices flowing and find ways to inject more value for our clients.

The other reason for our trip is to meet one of our newest clients who happens to be based out of New York and get to know them better. Establishing strong personal and professional relationships with each and every one of our clients is an ongoing goal for Flatsourcing, so if you are going to be in New York, whether for the conference or something else, and would like to catch up with us, just drop us a line, we’d love to get to know you regardless of whether you are a client or not.

If you’re someone who manages a lot of Basecamp accounts and has a hard time remembering passwords, this post is for you.

There are a lot of authentication systems emerging, Facebook, Twitter, and Google all allow apps to let users login using their credentials.  Open ID is an open authentication system that a variety of providers operate.  It’s a godsend if you “can’t remember your passwords? tired of filling out registration forms?”

I have a lot (12, precisely) of Basecamp accounts.  We run it for Flatsourcing, and I’m pulled into a lot of client’s accounts.  I used to have to remember the URL, username, & password for each one.  That’s 36 things to remember, and countless combination of things.

Now I just remember a single URL and password with OpenID.  It’s awesome.

Here’s what you need to do:

• Create an Open ID.  I use myOpenID.  There are a lot of providers.
• Log into Basecamp and click “my info” in the upper right.
• In the area for your username & password, click “Use OpenID” and enter yours
• When you land on the login screen, click “Login using an OpenID instead” and enter yours
• You’ll be taken to your Open ID provider to enter your password and then voilà, you’re in
• HUGE BONUS - Basecamp has an “Open Bar” that is a drop down of all your Basecamp accounts (actually all your 37 Signal product accounts).  These are all now connected and easy to switch back and forth between.  This feature alone makes switching to OpenID for authentication well worth it.  That and you have 36 memory slots freed up.

Enjoy!

The other night I was having a discussion with a few folks about Flatsourcing and how we work. After my brief spiel about working in an agile way with technically proficient clients we started discussing how user stories fit into the process.

One of the less technical people in the conversation wasn’t familiar with user stories, so we spent a few minutes explaining the benefit of the user story versus a full blown specification doc. My favorite moment was when I got to share what I think is the best quote about the downside of large specification documents:

“Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen.”
- Edward V. Berard

Once we were all on the same page again the conversation turned to what makes a good user story. Is it better to be brief and vague or slightly less brief with more detail? Do they need to be written out on a card or can you just create a quick text doc with a bunch of stories laid out in it?

It got me thinking and after doing a little searching this weekend I found this article, Writing Good User Stories, that I thought had some great insights to help me resolve my dilemma.

User stories should ultimately be short and sweet, but they can often begin as bulky and clunky…that’s the process. In the end, they should be reflective of the vision they are meant to break down. They should help a developer who may not “get” the larger picture build the blocks upon which an application is going to be based on without needing to “get” the big picture.

Hi everybody,

Don’t forget to change the clock, it should be around Sunday in US!

BTW have you noticed that clock already had changed a week earlier in Europe and Asia for example? I personally got confused with some meeting early this week

So don’t forget to adjust the clock and watch carefully the differences between timezones if you’re a global company like US, especially because it’s getting a bit confusing since different continents are adjusting their clock in different time.

Take care,

Oleg

I came across an article this morning called the 12 Characteristics of Successful Internet Entrepreneurs and it got me thinking about what aspects of the list Flatsourcing brings to the table for our clients. While several of our clients aren’t developing their own products, but rather are doing client work, those that are certainly fit the mold of the entrepreneurs in the article.

Some of the things that Flatsourcing offers to these clients are; Experimentation, Simplicity, Focus, Flexibility, and Frugality. We probably also bring a touch of eccentricity, but tackling that subject is for another day.

Experimentation and Flexibility - Both of these are part and parcel of working using the Agile methodology. We are constantly developing and refining based on the real world feedback we get from our clients’ customers. Being able to try different things and then having the flexibility to react to feedback and adjust on the fly is critical to the success of our clients and a core tenant of how Flatsourcing approaches each project.

Simplicity and Focus - Whether it is using a standard set of tools or scheduling regular standup meetings we try to maintain the focus of our team and our clients on the work. Part of the reason we have come to work solely on a retainer basis is so that we can remain focused on the task at hand rather than the ever changing scope of a given project. Simplicity of design, clean and concise code, and a process that is both simple and focused allows us to produce the best work for our clients and give them the best possible chances for success in their ventures.

Frugality - Cost is important, but not as important as value. We strive to provide value to our clients at a cost that is competitive. Flatsourcing isn’t Elance or Rent a Coder, but rather an option for the sophisticated business with development needs that can’t be filled by other options. We’re not the budget option, but the best option within a reasonable budget. To us the end goal is to provide the best value within the financial realities our clients face every day.

To find out more about how Flatsourcing can help you grow your business, drop us a line and set up a time to learn what we do and how we do it.

We’re hitting the road in 2010, and we want to meet you.  If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you know that I’m planning a conference here in New Orleans next week called TribeCon.  It’s a conference about harnessing online communities to drive offline actions for brands, causes and movements.

Since conference planning is on my brain, I wanted to share our upcoming calendar and invite you to connect with us:

We hope to meet you at these conferences.  Please contact us if you are interested in arranging a meeting!

One of my primary roles with Flatsourcing is to look at how we can grow our business in a way that builds on the things we already have. While growing the business could be translated into “sales”, that term isn’t the most accurate reflection of how we develop our business.

Our sales process is more about identifying those potential clients that are a good fit than it is about producing a high volume of new clients. The foundation of our growth is about helping our current clients expand by improving their bottom line, identifying new clients who compliment our current roster of clients and work well within the basic framework of processes we have developed over time. With that in mind, what we do on the sales front isn’t so much about selling ourselves as it is about the discovery process and determining whether we are the right fit for a client and they are the right fit for us.

We focus our efforts on transparently communicating who we are, what we do, how we do it, and what we have found it takes to successfully work in a distributed way. It’s not about convincing people how we never make a mistake or how we do anything and everything under the sun. We do sometimes make mistakes, and we don’t do anything and everything. We focus on what we do best and how we can continue to improve our level of service to our clients.

To get an idea of whether or not Flatsourcing might be the right option for your development needs, check out our Top 5 Reasons that Flatsourcing Works and our Top 5 Reasons that Flatsourcing May Not be Right for You.

If you think Flatsourcing might be right for your needs, give us a shout. We’re offering a special right now that allows you to “try before you buy”, making the opportunity to grow your team easier than ever.