Counting down the days

21Apr08

We’re a mere couple of weeks (well maybe three) from the public launch now – and a lot needs finishing/tidying and thankfully not too much needs actually fixing. The list is quite wide ranging and includes completely new home & interact pages – more along the lines of Facebook/Plaxo with lots of updates for friends and BookRabbit users – and a tighter design too – to integration of PayPal, which will be the first on a bookseller site as far as I’m aware.

I think the new designs are great – there does seem to be a bit of a learning curve with new social sites though (so much happening I think) so we’ll see how we do. We’re going to use Usability Exchange to look the site over, I like them a lot, you get a great report not one spewed out by a consultant and it is from people who actually have disabilities rather than following set rules.

We’ve loads of other exciting ideas to add to the site, but we really need to get it out into the real world first. The great thing with this project is that we can keep developing after launch – and at quite a pace, not distracted by 100 other internal projects like you are in a big business.

I had Will’s (the IT Director) appraisal today – which was great, but weird because we’ve been partners in this whole escapade really – when we chatted it reminded me of a quote that Michael Smith from Mind Candy/ Firebox has as one of his favourites:

“Tech start-ups are the dynamos of our society. They create new wealth, jobs and inventions – and sustain our competiveness on the world stage. Best of all, they shower wealth on the most unlikely people. Start-ups are the engines of human liberation. They’re also scary. They upset the established order. They’re risky. And they attract obsessive, difficult, headstrong people fixated on changing the world” (Wired magazine)

I think some of the team are unlikely revolutionaries, and almost anti the job titles they have. I’d be quite happy if Will called himself the anti-IT Director for example – because actually we’ve all bought into an idea and the traditional structures and titles don’t feel like a good fit – because they’re so much more than that. But hey, that’s half the fun.

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