January 24th, 2011 | 
Author: (reposted from the Stack Overflow blog)
2010 was an absolutely amazing year here at Stack Overflow. We grew from 7 million visitors to over 16 million, putting us in Quantcast’s top 400. We raised $6 million in venture capital, and we went from three full time employees to 27. We built a 7500 square foot office in New York, and we launched a ton of new features and sites, like Stack Exchange, a network of 33 Q&A sites on diverse topics from cooking to computer science. Stack Exchange grew 51% in December alone. Wow.
The expert Q&A model that Stack Overflow pioneered is really working. The statistic I’m proudest of is the percentage of questions that get a good answer, over 80% (and many of the new Stack Exchange sites have 100% answer rates!)
Traffic
The true measure of success for any Internet company is how often people come up to me in swank hotel lobbies and offer to buy me meals, let me use their corporate jet, etc. But since there is a great deal of disagreement as to how to measure that, we track a reasonable proxy called “eyeballs,” on the theory that if a site is useful, people will load it up in their browsers and eyeball it.
Traffic to Stack Overflow grew 131% in 2010, to 16.6 million global monthly uniques. *Uniques* are counted by cookies, so the number of human beings is less. We also measure the number of page views (top level pages loaded, which doesn’t count images and supporting files), which has similarly grown from 31.8 million per month to 72.8 million per month, i.e. 129% growth.
Based on the number of people who do come up to us in hotel lobbies, we’re pretty sure that ALL the programmers in the world use Stack Overflow. (Source: completely made up. But seriously, when was the last time you met a programmer who didn’t use “El Stack”?) In order to keep growing and making the Internet more awesome, we have to expand into new subject areas, like Molecular Biology and Harley Davidson Belt Buckles. That’s what Stack Exchange is all about. Stack Exchange growth is insane. In six short months, we’ve gone from zero to 1.5 million monthly visitors, growing 51% in December.
If, as planned, we continue growing at 51% a month, we will be bigger than Facebook in 15 months. We’re ALREADY bigger than ocn.ne.jp (No, I’ve never heard of that either. But we’re bigger). Jeff and I are already planning who will play us in the Aaron Sorkin movie. (Tyler Labine and Zac Efron, obviously.)
Now, obviously, all this TRAFFIC isn’t worth a thing if people aren’t getting answers to their questions. That’s why our favorite thing to measure is “percent of questions answered.” And not just any answer will do, either: to count a question as “answered”, either the original poster has to accept the answer, or a third party has to upvote the answer. This is where Stack Overflow really shines compared to other Q&A sites: we actually get questions answered. Three of our sites actually have 100% answer rates!
New Sites
Last summer, we relaunched Stack Exchange as a democratically-driven network of sites on topics chosen by our users. Some of these sites are directly related to programming (for example, Game Development), but some are quite far afield, from English Language toCooking.
We call it the Stack Exchange network, and at StackExchange.com you’ll find a directory of all of them, along with some hot questions, statistics, leaderboards, and other tools so that you can follow the sites and tags that you’re interested in.
We learned a long time ago that the only way to get questions answered promptly is to have a critical mass of knowledgeable users, so we have an onerous process called Area 51 where sites are proposed, discussed, and voted on. If a proposed site doesn’t have critical mass, we just won’t create it. Even if it does get created, it has to maintain a certain level of traffic and quality or we’ll close it down.
So far, 13 sites have gone all the way through the Area 51 process and launched. Dozens more are already in beta. Hundreds more are in active discussion and will launch when they reach a critical mass of interested participants.
The development team has been knocking out new features at a constant pace. They built an amazing web-based chat system, and we’ve added literally hundreds of new features and improvements to the core Stack Overflow engine which we roll out continuously.
The Company
At the beginning of the year, Stack Overflow LLC was just three developers working from home. In the spring, we raised $6 million in venture capital from Union Square Ventures and a long list of celebrity angel investors, which allowed us to expand rapidly. We hired a team of great people, including several of the high-reputation users that you know from Stack Overflow.
We now have community managers, a sales team, two full time system administrators, and Very Important Administrative Overhead like myself, but most importantly, we have a great team of developers, in New York and around the world, building the next generation of cool features, like the important “wheel of blame” feature, which we can run at any time to calculate precisely who is responsible for anything that went wrong. (Contrary to popular belief, it’s not always Jason Punyon.)
To make room for all these people, or, at least, those who live in New York, we rented a 7500 square foot, class A, super-elite batcave in New York and then fixed it up to be nice, with cool furniture including Aeron chairs and height-adjustable desks, and lots of glass to bring views and daylight deep into the batcave. And of course, we have private offices with a half dozen gigantic 453-inch monitors for each developer. And there’s an amazingly cool Star Trek couch. Does your company have a Star Trek Couch? *I didn’t think so.* We also have Rovio, a little robot that our remote developers can use to visit the office “virtually.” (There. I said “virtually.” Are you happy now?)
Overall 2010 has been a real breakout year for Stack Overflow, which is now the largest programmer website in the world (source: me) and the best, fastest-growing Q&A website in the world (source: also me). We’ve got an incredible team firing on all cylinders, so we’re really looking forward to 2011.
Need to hire a really great programmer? Want a job that doesn’t drive you crazy? Visit the Joel on Software Job Board: Great software jobs, great people.
Source: Joel Spolsky
Posted in 
Business executives are getting good at citing TCO and Cost/Benefit as pre-requisites for any major ERP initiative. And they are correct in doing so. Of late we are running into many more TCO comparisons between SAAS (Software As A Service) solutions and traditional Premise (in-house) solutions.
I’m shocked! The expectation has been set that the SAAS model will result not just in LOWER COST OF OWNERSHIP but in VERY LOW COST of ownership. Companies are frequently “shocked” by the monthly cost of SAAS solutions. Between minimums in terms of the number of users, and other pricing variables like revenue size, # of companies – the monthly fees are often THOUSANDS more than customers typically expect. How did this happen?
Stop oversimplifying.
I think the answer lies in an overly simplistic view of the TCO of both the SAAS and the traditional Premise based model. Let’s dig a little deeper and talk about 2 significant costs to any ERP implementation – Implementation cost and Upgrades.
Implementation cost. Many of the SAAS vendors offer that their solutions contain their own implementation methodology, in other words – you can self implement the solution. Don’t fall for this!! Just because an implementation “cookbook” exists, doesn’t mean you don’t need an ERP expert leading you through the process. It may (MAY) cost less to implement a SAAS solution, but that’s no guarantee. You may have fewer options with a SAAS model which could result in lower implementation costs, but this has to be evaluated carefully vs. a real set of requirements.
Like it or not, you’re going to Upgrade!
How about upgrades? Most premise-based solutions have correction releases every 6 months or so, certainly every year. And there is some cost or effort to install these. Sometimes, installing them is part of your support agreement. This is different from the SAAS model where the vendor typically upgrades everyone’s instance behind the scenes. But what about MAJOR upgrades. Most vendors have major releases every 18- 24 months, and upgrading a major release is an implementation project unto itself. Depending upon your customizations, special reports, database layout changes, etc. this could involve significant costs. The message – in comparing a SAAS solution vs. a Premise based solution, factor in these major upgrades every 3-4 years. If you look at TCO over 10 years (not a bad number to use in the SMB world) then you will do at least 2 major upgrades before you retire your system.
If you’re looking at a SAAS solution, make sure the vendors agreement goes out the appropriate number of years that your TCO analysis does. If not, you haven’t a chance of doing a correct analysis. If there is vague language about future versions and migration paths, firm these up, or add in some fudge factors – you’re bound to get burned.
It’s not about Apples to Apples.
I’m not here to argue for or against either approach. There are pros and cons to each. Don’t worry about the traditional ”apples to apples” comparison – since SAAS solutions and Premise based solutions are different kinds of fruit. No, the point is to uncover ALL the key cost factors and make sure you are at least comparing a real Apple to a real Orange, before you decide which fruit will satisfy your hunger!
Source: Paul Sita
This blog is intended to invite discussion on why some improvement projects succeed while most fail to realise the benefits expected.
I have conducted significant research in this area and have found the reasons most improvement projects fail is not because of the methodology underpinning the improvement process, but the failure to recognise and foster the cultural implications of change.
Equipped with this knowledge, I developed 7 keys to successful improvement projects:
1. An uncompromising focus on the Customer
2. Senior Sponsor Support
3. A crystal clear vision
4. Plain spoken and extensive consultation
5. The best people on the Improvement Team
6. Actively manage change
7. Recognise that people transition differently through change
I have loaded a new video describing these keys at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb2QpsesYPc
In future posts, I’ll go into more detail on each of these keys. I would like to hear from other project managers involved in business transformation or process improvement to hear your views and any advice you have.
I hope this has been helpful.
Dan Jackson
Head Coach 7SIM Leadership Training
www.7sim.com.au
PS. Email me if you would like a link to the Research Points aforementioned at Enquiries@7SIM.com.au
Source: Dan@7SIM
With a whole new year just beginning, we here at Sage ERP are thinking about cycles.
If you started an ERP implementation process in 2010, odds are you’re still working on it – the average ERP implementation project can take up to 18 months. So if last year was the beginning of your ERP implementation journey, you’re probably coming up on a very important part of the project: training.
Just as with any new skill, people need some training before they’re ready to go pro. You wouldn’t expect a fifth-grader who plays the recorder to be able to pick up a guitar and play with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, so don’t assume that your employees – no matter how reliable and enthusiastic they may be – are automatically prepared to jump head-first into enterprise resource planning.
Training is a crucial part of life cycles and ERP cycles. Think about everything you’ve trained for in your life. Maybe it was sports, acting or a marathon. You had to practice driving before you could get a license, and you probably “trained” in college before you got your first salaried job. Even some simpler things, like figuring out your iPhone and learning how to work the DVR, required a little training. If training’s so important in life, why would ERP be any different?
The reality is that training employees for ERP is one the best things you can do to ensure ERP success, just like studying for a test is the best way to ensure that you’ll pass it. That’s just common sense. But the mistake that many business executives make is waiting far too long to begin the ERP training process.
In the ERP lifecycle, training is a step that should come in fairly early. Just how early is up to you. Some business executives begin training as soon as they begin the implementation process, while others wait weeks or even months. Experts agree, however, that you shouldn’t wait too long to start giving employees the skills they’ll need to interact with the ERP system in a successful, progressive way. The better your employees understand the system, the more they – and you – will be able to get out of it, both fiscally and time-wise.
Another major benefit of early training is that it will help minimize employee resistance to the new system. We often fear what we don’t understand, so, naturally, helping employees understand ERP is the first step to helping them embrace the system, the changes it will cause and the way their jobs will be altered by the conveniences of enterprise resource planning.
So how do you know when you’ve trained your employees enough?
There’s no perfect test to know when the ERP training wheels are ready to come off and you can watch your employees work with the system independently. You’ll have to make that judgement call. But just like when teaching a child how to ride a bike, sometimes a few falls and scratches are just par for the course. You can’t expect your employees to be perfect at the go-live – there will probably be a few slip-ups and mistakes. These don’t necessarily spell ERP failure. As long as you remind your employees that falling off the horse just means you’ve got to get back on, you should be good to go – and employees will only get better with the system as time goes on.
Do you have any training tips you’d like to share? Share them in the comments below!
Related articles
- Avoidable ERP Mistakes (sageerpsolutions.com)
- Your Best Bet for ERP Success (sageerpsolutions.com)
Source: The Sage ERP Team
With all the talk of managing projects via Twitter, web-based tools, and more collaborative/social mediums there is still a lack of wide-spread adoption of PM/PPM management tools at many organizations. Many projects still cobble together some Excel spreadsheets, static MS Project file, and MS Viso schemas into a PowerPoint presentations. Version control, standardization, collaboration, real-time updates, etc are all so close yet so far away!
Source: http://kellycrew.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/top-10-issues-for-project-managers/
The sheer number of tools – both good and bad – is daunting. We’d like to think our tool of choice – web2project – solves all of them but there’s still No Silver Bullet.
Source: Keith Casey