"Interviews with the Intern" is a semi-regular feature where intern Christian Benson interviews the staff of Smibs Inc.

Christian: Hey Forrest, do you have time for a lengthy hard-hitting interview?

Forrest: Actually Christian, I am extremely busy at the moment.

Great.  Let’s start with your role here at Smibs.

Ummm… okay.  I’m the lead developer at Smibs, which means I handle everything from installing printer drivers to building SmibsNet and Doorbell. If something in the office works, then I probably had something to do with it. If it doesn’t then it must be user error.

You are close to releasing your third full-length album in as many years; do you think this new record can finally find an audience willing to listen to your horrible music?

I literally have no idea what you are talking about, but I doubt I would produce ‘horrible’ music.

According to Christy Urban (in my last interview), Smibs has some pretty exciting upcoming news and events.  Do you care to elaborate, or are you calling Christy Urban a liar?

No, of course I’m not.  Let’s just say that people should keep an eye on our blog over the next couple months.

What are some of your past times or hobbies Forrest?

Before I started working here I was really into cars.  I actually shipped an rx-7 turbo convertible over from Japan, and was quite active as an alumnus of my fraternity. Recently, I have become a big fan of napping, snacking, and classical couch appreciation.

I enjoy reading your blog posts about the programming world, although I have very little understanding of programming in general.  I was wondering if you would like to enter ‘The Lightning Round’ with me to clarify some of my programming related questions?

Bit dramatic don’t you think?

What is your favorite programming language?

I believe that any problem can usually be solved with either Ruby or C. Especially since I can insert C code into Ruby. Either I’m optimizing for speed or I’m optimizing for development time. Every algorithm has it’s goal. I don’t like to half ass, with languages in the middle, because you end up making sacrifices on both ends. 

Are there programming gangs?

If you have to ask, you don’t want to know.

Is there a 24-hour iron man style programming event that you are thinking of entering?

It’s called a job.

What is your best programming joke (because I know you have them)?

“Programming is a lot like sex. One mistake and you could have to support it the rest of your life.”  Also sometimes when I’m programming, I like to announce to the room that I just found the last bug.

Those jokes are terribly unfunny.  The lightning round is officially over.

Is the interview almost over?

No. Final question, what general advice could you offer to other startups in the IT industry specifically?

As a startup, you never know what kind of technology and challenges you will face. There is a big focus on hiring people who have years of experience in specific languages. A team of young developers with some fire in their bellies, who aren’t afraid to learn, who aren’t stuck in there ways, will prove more valuable than experience. Not knowing how crazy an idea is can sometimes be the best way to achieve the impossible.   Also, buy a coffee machine

That’s everything from me Forrest.  Do you want to skip out and grab a couple of cool brewskies?

Must be five o’clock somewhere.

“Run with the little guy……. Create some change”

With sales last year of $45 million, it’s hard to call Jones soda the little guy anymore.  From a marketing perspective, I am truly impressed with the continued success of this brand. Through alternative and innovative marketing practices, Jones has managed to capture market share in an industry dominated by long standing multi-national corporations Coke and Pepsi.

Jones focused on something they call “alternative distribution strategy” by placing there products in the hands of trendy consumers in the fashion, tattoo and alternative sport industry.  After establishing this smaller influential group, Jones soda started to distribute to larger chains such as 7-11 and Starbucks.  Having first targeted an unconventional market, Jones was able to form legitimacy and loyalty with the consumers before entering wide distribution.

There is another facet to Jones Soda’s success: product differentiation. Outside of having a ridiculously wide range of unique flavors (30+), Jones Soda’s signature has been the offbeat bottle labels and design.  The labels feature consumer photos, cross product promotions and even followed the recent American presidential race.

Despite what you may now think, I am not on the Jones Soda payroll.  I feel that Jones Soda provides an excellent case study for small businesses in the field of alternative marketing and distribution.  Marketing is essentially about establishing differentiation and competitive advantages, which arguably has lead to the success of Jones Soda despite being in an extremely competitive market.

One of my primary roles as a developer is to look for ways to optimize software. It’s sort of my job, right? When we were developing the portfolios for SmibsNet profiles, I discovered that if code works too quickly, people can miss critical events. We had already developed the drag ‘n’ drop interface for resorting multiple portfolios, and were trying to figure out what kind of indicator would do the trick. It had to be something to make it clear to people that the resorting was being processed, and something that would prevent users from continuing the changes until the new order had been saved properly. Peter came up with the idea of having a translucent cover fading in over all the portfolios with an animated GIF indicator.

Screen shot of portfolios being reordered

This solved everything, except for one little nagging issue. While the indicator had to be there for slow connections, the average time for this re-sort was fractions of a second. The moment the new order was saved, the cover would disappear. I wanted our users to be able to get back to work as soon as possible, rather than being slowed down by in-the-way animations. The consequences of this decision were dark flashes over your portfolios when a user would re-sort.

It turns out the solution was to slow things down. After adding some effects it now fades in over a second, and then fades out over a few seconds. While this would seem like two seconds wasted, no one seems to have a problem with this. In fact, we have received great feedback about this effect. Many people ask me if all the portfolio stuff was coded in flash, to which I can answer, “nope, just good old fashion javascript.” Next time I’m faced with  a confusing interface problem, I’m going to ask myself if the action has to be this fast. Maybe the best way to optimize the program is to slow it down.

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What other examples have you seen of software slowing down for the better?

"Interviews with the Intern" is a semi-regular feature where intern Christian Benson interviews the staff of Smibs Inc.

Christian:  Hi Christy.  For anyone that doesn’t know, you and I share an office.  How long did it take before you started to regret that decision?

Christy:  My plan had been to put a nice yoga studio where you desk now sits so…… You don’t exactly provide me with the meditative value I would have got from daily yoga but you are useful in other ways.

You are a strict vegetarian and I am constantly eating baconaters.  Are we the original odd couple?

Uggg what is a baconator… on second thought I don’t want to know.

It’s like a side of bacon and a couple of meat patties; you can buy them at Wendy’s or make them yourself at home.

Great.

Will you fire me if I don’t convert to vegetarianism?

Over the summer our office was half-vegetarian but since hiring yourself and one other employee us veggies have become the minority.

Can you explain what your role with Smibs is?

I do a bit of everything for Smibs, I’m a manager, I work with staff and have a quality control role. I also have a lot of experience with collaborative planning and project management so I think I bring a lot of real life business input to our products. I am easily annoyed with software and I’ve used a lot of the tools out there so I think I provide a lot of useful advice about what works and what doesn’t for a user.

What general advice could you offer start-ups companies?

Do what you know, that is your best chance for success!

That sounds like a cheesy motivational poster.

It’s true though!

Next question, you named your dogs Sputnik and Stalin, are you a Russian sympathizer?

I have Eastern European blood but my dogs are actually named Schmootzie and Brody.

Lets talk about some of your hobbies.

In the last while, my only hobby is work! I do teach dressage riding once a week though which I enjoy immensely, I hope to have my own horse again soon. I also enjoy walking my dogs, photography, bird-watching and reading.

What are some of the things new and exciting things Smibs.com is working on?

That is mostly a secret…(grin). This is actually a very exciting year for Smibs, we are going live with our network in about a month so everyone can search our profiles. We are also working on our second major application, which will follow our Public release of Doorbell, which is currently in Public Beta.

Why do you keep crushing my attempts at unionizing our office, comrade?

I like unions – go ahead!

Thanks for the interview.  I think it went pretty well.

I think you are strange.

“I am sorry all you broken cell phones; I didn’t mean to kill all of you.  I can take my share of the blame though, especially about dropping the Nokia into the toilet.  I don’t know why I thought any of you would last me the entirety of my three-year contract, because you are all pieces of low quality garbage.” – A cell phone requiem

*          *          *

In my current three-year contract, I have accumulated 12 cell phones.  Some were thrown from cars, a couple plunged deep into the toilet bowl and one is probably still riding the Vancouver to Victoria ferry, but for the most part my cell phones simple wore out.  I know I don’t fall into the ‘typical’ cell phone user demographic, but how in the hell is one cell phone suppose to last the life of a long term contract?  I know one thing for certain, I am never again signing another long contract and I assume there are others with similar stories.

Ultimately it affects the cell service providers.  The cell phone producers (Motorola, LG, Samsung, etc.) keep pumping these disgraces into the North American market, effectively tarnishing the reputation of the service providers. These service providers should start exerting their influence back up the distribution chain and demand durable phones instead of highly breakable feature intensive media phones.

It seems like there is room for a lot of improvement in the cell phone market. For whatever reason, the consumer has decided it can live with cracked screens, unchargable batteries and fragile construction. Companies like PayPal, Amazon and Google have revolutionized their industries through the innovation of tried business practices. Certainly, Apple has taken a step in the right direction with the introduction of the iPhone (check out PC World’s stress test) but it’s price and availability make it almost unobtainable for the average consumer. Until one of the cell producers makes a sincere attempt at developing an affordable and reliable phone, I will keep adding to my cell phone graveyard.