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Code Free or Die Hard

October 22, 2008

In  1988 the Department of computer Science  instituted a yearly lecture series now know as the Paul G Sorensen Distinguished Graduate Lecture.    Since its inception an impressive list of speakers have graced the presentation stage and imparted their wisdom and experience to the undergraduates and faculty of the University of Saskatchewan and other interested parties.

This year, VendAsta’s very own CTO, Jason Collins has the honor of joining this elite group of presenters.   Those of you that have been fortunate enough to have seen Jason speak before will know not to miss this presentation titled:

 Code Free or Die Hard

Free content. Free application hosting. Unprecedented access to customers eager to use your application - and promote it to their social networks, for free. Multiple frameworks, APIs, and development tools jostling for your attention. Users are on the move, their phones know where they are and where they’ve been, they’re connected all the time - but their interactions with technology are faster, more fleeting, lighter on content but heavy with context. What does this all mean for developers? It means being able to operate in multiple environments simultaneously. It means writing smaller amounts of highly functional code. It means keeping pace with a consumer-facing software sector that is frantic, kinetic, and creatively destructive - now more than ever.

 

The event is open to all and is posted on the University of Saskatchewan’s website .

 

2008 P.G. Sorenson Distinguished Graduate Lecture

Code Free or Die Hard

Speaker: Jason Collins

Date: Thursday, October 23rd, 2008

Time: 7:30 pm

Room: Arts 146

Everyone is welcome.

 

 

Congratulations to our very own Jason Collins – He’s kind of a big deal!

 

Posted by: Brendan King 

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VendAsta Has New Digs!

October 3, 2008

We’ve been busy moving to our sweet new “Caves and Commons” office and haven’t really had time to blog.  We have taken pictures and Picassa does an okay job of throwing together a video automatically.

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VendAsta JAM

September 21, 2008

At VendAsta we just announced our Friday afternoon Jam Sessions. Basically we have decided that we are going to allocate time to allow people to work on anything of, interest to them - as long as it is software.   Personally, I love what we are doing here. I wanted to write a blog about it so I have been doing a lot of research and introspection. I really want us all to think about what we are trying to achieve.  This isn’t an idea or gimmick to gain more productivity from our staff.  This idea is truly more about our attitude, philosophies, environment and culture than some “thing we do”.  

 

What does that mean, you might be asking yourself. Let me explain.

 

When we first discussed the idea of working on side projects I had a lot of fears.  Fears that we would lose focus, fears that it would be expensive, fears that the time would be “wasted”.  To alleviate those fears I wanted to impose restrictions.  Things like:  Projects need to be well thought out and documented, projects need to have some benefit to the company, or projects need to be in area of development we are already in. 

 

Then, I thought about what it is that we  originally envisioned VendAsta to be.  To paraphrase, we wanted to work with super smart people we like on interesting stuff.  To achieve this, our attitudes, philosophies, environment and culture must reflect this.  Imposing rules overtop of JAM to alleviate fears is wrong, it is simply not what we are about.

 

On the face of it JAM is about allowing everyone to have an opportunity to work on ideas that are their own or ideas they personally and individually buy into.   But it is more than that. It is about providing people with the luxury of dreaming.  It is about giving our people a chance to turn some of their dreams into reality.

 

People at VendAsta work very hard.   When you hire the best and brightest you tend to get people that are ambitious and driven.  VendAstians are thinkers, innovators, and leaders full of their own ideas and driven by a strong competitive work ethic, healthy peer pressure, and pride.

 

JAM is about providing time, money and opportunity for anyone to sell their idea to the VendAsta team.  JAM is the mechanism to take something from a dream to an idea, from an idea to a plan, from a plan to a prototype, from a prototype to a product and from a product to a money maker.

 

JAM products will gain momentum through peer review, open discussion and debate and personal choice. JAM Product decisions will not be made by management and executives.  Products that gain JAM momentum will benefit from all the skill sets available; marketing, promotion, critical analysis, development and production environments, business development, testing, monetization, HCI and development.

 

JAM is also an opportunity to share in the profits and hedge your chances for success. The profits of products built and released via JAM will be shared in a very democratic way with all.

Most of all JAM is about making VendAsta a great place to work with super smart cool people building interesting stuff.

Post by:
Brendan King

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Two greatest human inventions…

September 18, 2008

…Lightsaber and IPhone. Since Friday they are standard issue for all dev’s here at VendAsta.  In this video you can see Ryan demonstrating how to use the force.

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The VendAsta mnemonic

September 3, 2008

At some point in a new company’s life, you have to pay some attention to corporate identity.  Things like brand, logos, mottos…

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Whole lota hiring going on!

August 13, 2008

We have been doing a lot of  hiring, mostly through word of mouth and the recommendations of our current team.  In fact we have 5 new people starting within a month but we still have a long way to go.  Hiring is one of the toughest and most crucial aspects of building a great company, culture, and team.

I suspect that in most work environments people have gone through the experience of having new team members simply show up.  A new team member suddenly thrust upon them as the result of some decision made from on high.  Personally it is something that I have always hated. I guess it is okay if your definition of a team is “Two or more draft animals used to pull a vehicle or farm implement”.   But when your definition is as ours; ” a group of individuals who interact dynamically, interdependently and adaptively to achieve specified, shared, and valued objectives in an environment of respect and trust”,    then it is ludicrous that the team shouldn’t have a say in it’s own composition.

At VendAsta we are changing our hiring process to truly value the team.  Applicants will start with an initial screening and generally there will be a second Interview with an HR team unless the employee is an obvious hire and is known to the team.  So once the HR team approves the applicant they will then face the real test.  Lunch with the team of people they will ultimately work with.

The team will arrange a lunch or dinner with their potential new team mate.  The reviews, opinions and general sentiment of the team will ultimately decide whether or not a formal offer is extended.  This is good for the team and good for the applicant.  Nobody wants to work with people they are not compatible with.

For the record, it’s not all just a free lunch.  The team has to complete a confidential review. What they like about the applicant, what they don’t, how they see them fitting, potential conflicts or anything else they want to point out.  When 90 days are up the team will revisit the hire and make recommendations.

Posted by: Brendan King

Posted in Environment, VendAsta, saskatoon software developers, software development | Tagged , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

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Local Press for VendAsta

August 8, 2008

The Saskatoon Star Phoenix has printed a story on VendAsta’s funding announcement for its social software initiative MyFrontSteps. The article and some of our smiling faces can be found here :)

John Fothergill

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I Remember When…

July 29, 2008

How many times have you heard someone ask “what’s it like there” when referencing a work place? Usually the answer reveals a lot about the company’s culture. But what the heck, really, is culture? About.com has this to say about culture: “A culture is the values and practices shared by the members of the group. Company Culture, therefore, is the shared values and practices of the company’s employees.”

We can all think of companies where the idea of “culture” is a set of values and practices formulated and dictated down by some group of executives to everyone else. It simply doesn’t work. It’s like trying to smile while doing something you really dislike. Sooner or later your face is going to show your true feelings.

The interesting thing is that company culture CANNOT be dictated down from on high. In fact, by definition it can’t be dictated at all. It has to be shared and created by the members of the group - by the employees. Every individual in a company has something to do with it’s culture simply by virtue of having values and practices. So in my view, culture isn’t so much something that you can create, it just simply is.

This doesn’t make it impossible to create a company with a great culture. In fact all one really needs to do is to work with  people who love the same values and practices that you love.

So here is what I love about VendAsta. I get to work with super smart, cool people building really cool stuff that people care about.But it’s more than that. Here are a few things I personally have observed first hand. Things that are not written down or mandated, things that just ARE.

  • Mutual Respect: There is no room here for disrespect.
  • No Party Line: Not having a party line makes it much easier to tow. J
  • Be Yourself: We dress, talk, celebrate and act the way we want to. No fear.
  • No Dictator: Sure sometimes tough decisions have to be made but never in a dictatorial fashion.
  • Mistakes allowed. Personally all I can say about this is “Thank God”.
  • No Sacred Cows: ‘enough said
  • Open Minds: Minds changed based on information and fact
  • Transparency: When you all sit in the same space you have this whether you want it or not. J
  • Self Assigned responsibility: I don’t think I have ever heard anybody dictate what to do to someone else. Not once.

These are simply some of values and practices that I have observed in the work environment. However, the work environment wasn’t really what I wanted to blog about.

Vendasta is just a baby at just over half a year old so you might think that we don’t really have a lot of “I remember when …” in us. But most of our team has known each other for years and many (in fact most) have worked together for over 7 years. So when we had a summer barbeque and pool party it was especially thrilling to see the entire team, new comers included,  interact like it had been together for years.

I think that great companies are a lot like great people. They both have an exciting story to tell and the best stories are built around actual real life experience. The VendAsta summer party of `08 was one such occasion about which one day we will surely say “I remember when …”.

Brendan King

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What I learned at the VendAsta / MyFrontSteps summer BBQ / Pool Party

July 28, 2008

First of all I personally learned that our CTO - Jason Collins - is a swimmer. A swimmer that comes on strong in the end! It is highly recommended to sneak some flippers into the pool to give yourself an edge. PS: I lost. Twice.



Second, we all learned that Allan Wolinski is not just a talent at usability and making solutions intuitive and easy to use; but he can grill a mean steak. Chris Pucci is a top-notch sous chef as well and can tackle your toughest web development challenges (using Drupal, PHP - any and all to be honest) … all while he’s salt and peppering whatever touches that grill.

Thirdly, we witnessed the hero (ok, parenting) efforts of Jon Levesque in saving his own son from the mysterious deep end that can sneak up on any little tyke that’s having way too much fun in the 90 degree water. Jon will also help any potential client learn the benefits of working with the most innovative agile development company for all your complex .net, web application and mobile development needs.

Fourth, you’re bound to learn more about music and the likes of Jeff Buckley when sitting around and chatting with Ryan Baldwin and Kevin Peirce (these two know music!). Might pick up some tips on WPF programming, xslt, xml databases (to name but a few) as well as how to author a runbook and cookbook for fast and efficient deployment methods.

Janak Kapadia will always be the most pleasant guy at the party, Dale Zak is always smiling and having fun (plus the guy is an a m a z i n g developer), Erik Fredrickson might leave but he’s sure to return (with swimmers for all members of his entourage), Sean Lynch is as cool as the cucumber salad on the table… Brendan King, Jeff Tomlin, and John Fothergill are all rock stars and can be seen discussing the MyFrontSteps strategic deployment over the desert table… and in my opinion, Johnny Motherfothergill always has his cool factor at a 10 (including poolside).

Only our Guy Kelsey and Carey Bursaw missed the action… good thing there’s video evidence of Jason Collin’s swim victory!

——-

I like what Brendan King wrote on his blog IRT Saskatoon’s Fledgling Tech Community and when you see a group like VendAsta (in the office or by the pool), one realizes it is a pretty special blend.

AND we’re growing… so if you’re bored at your current company / no longer challenged by the work you’re doing / wish you too could party by the pool / or just want a change - be sure to talk to us… because we’re hiring more Saskatoon software developers right now. If you want to learn more about any of us… just ask, or visit Driving Force or here. Interested applicants can also visit VendAsta Careers, but if you know any of us - just contact us directly.

Cannonball! COH

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2 New Openings at VendAsta

April 28, 2008

VendAsta is an equal opportunity employer that offers a great benefits package.

Social Application Developer
VendAsta is looking for a Social Application Developer for its Web 2.0 social networking start-up. We will be starting with the development of a Facebook application and will then proceed onto Open Social. We are seeking an individual that has had previous experience implementing Facebook applications. This individual will design and implement a scalable, flexible platform to support a wide array of social networking features and functionalities.

Candidates located in Saskatoon will be given preference. The salary range for this position is 60k to 70k.

Email your resume and a cover letter to: jobs-001@vendasta.com.

Presentation Layer Developer
VendAsta is looking for a Presentation Layer Developer for its Web 2.0 social networking start-up. Suitable applicants will have a strong sensibility for Web 2.0 interface design and expert knowledge of JavaScript, AJAX, and CSS. This is an ideal position for an experienced developer that displays common sense and has strong HCI skills combined with an eye for design.

Candidates located in Saskatoon will be given preference. The salary range for this position will be commensurate with experience and highly competitive.

Email your resume and a cover letter to: jobs-001@vendasta.com.

Posted by: John Fothergill

Posted in real estate software, saskatoon software developers, software development | No Comments »

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