That's not a lot of warning for folks who are using a product like ZenDesk. The whole point is that a tool like this is embedded into your companies work flows. To leave ZenDesk means that you have to find a new product. Figure out how to move all of your data into that new product. Figure out how to handle tickets that are still in process on July 1. Train your staff. Change any customer facing UI or other automated bits that utilize ZenDesk.
The product is the type of product that inherently has a lot of lock-in. Giving me a month and a half to change all of that is more or less equivalent to making the changes effective tomorrow.
For me, it's just gotten to the point that I'm tired of the exercise itself.
The current idea seems to be "Do whatever the hell you want", and if enough people get mad "apologize profusely and come out looking like you really care about your customers." Facebook has practically turned this into an art.
If you really cared about your customers, you probably wouldn't have done whatever you're apologizing about in the first place. At this point, having seen this play out over and over again, the whole thing does seem to lack sincerity.
I'm tired of people thinking "it's better to ask forgiveness than permission" as a properly moral way to conduct business.
My experience: I'm a college dropout. I have 96 credit hour and am one class shy of my associates degree. I feel like I did get a lot of value from the liberal arts portion of my education. I was exposed to a lot of different ideas and disciplines that I may never have studied in any other setting.
My major was computer science, and that was the rub. I came to college already somewhat accomplished as a developer. I had published a small shareware game on one of those value-ware CD's you would pick up at the register at WalMart. I knew the basics and had already learned some very hard lessons. I suffered through the introductory course material largely doing independent study projects (thanks Dr. Forbes!).
My moment of crisis came in a computer org. class. I was really looking forward to taking this particular class. It was supposed to give me some more detailed exposure to the hardware side of things. Instead we spent literally half of the semester counting in different number systems. At that point I had enough. I wanted to actually solve real problems and do real things.
Thankfully I had my opportunity. I took a job with the local behemoth tech. company. I was given the opportunity to write a book on basic game programming (I didn't execute on this very well... I just wasn't responsible enough at 21 to do it properly). That book opened the door to my first real job at a very small startup. Quickoffice was my first chance to shine, and over the 6 years I was there I feel like I took full advantage of it. Now I'm an entrepreneur, and things have gone well so far.
The point being: I never completed my degree, but I do feel like I got what I needed out of college. I learned how to learn. I learned to appreciate classic literature and to more completely examine the culture of the world around me. I became a scientist with a deep understanding of the scientific method. Those are all invaluable assets to me today.
However, my lack of a degree has not proven to be much of hindrance thus far. I hope it never is:)
I hated math. Absolutely loathed it. I had a terrible algebra teacher (8th grade) that left me a gap I never truly closed until college.
However, the 'lights' finally came on in my senior year of high school. I took an experimental trigonometry course, instead of calculus. This course focused on the application of trigonometry to real life problems.
It was by far the best class I've ever had, and it opened me up to understanding the application of ALL of the math that I had been taking for 12 years. It was truly seminal to me. That I had gone 11 years without ever being taught how to actually apply those principles is, in retrospect, mind boggling.
I was a fairly quick riser in my career. I started programming at 12, had a commercial game (value-ware CD) published at 17. Wrote a book at 21. I was a lead architect at 24, with a development team of around 30 folks at a fairly successful company. I was quite sure that I knew it all at that point.
I didn't. I just turned 30 and only 6 years later my level of knowledge and experience is far superior to what it was then. Not just in terms of pure programming knowledge, but also in terms of decision making. I've become far more practical and much more adept at translating requirements into something people can actually use.
30 year old me and 24 year old me wouldn't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things. After leaving that job I've become an entrepreneur. The sum of that experience makes me far more productive and the quality of what I make is simply better.
24 year old me could a learn a thing or two from 30 year old me. Just as I hope 30 year old me will need a good talking to by 40 year old me:)
Not really more time. When someone wants to force me into a price quote I know that they are trying to monopolize my time with a sales call or the very least a lengthy e-mail chain. That's a lot of time.
Meanwhile companies like Fog creek (Fog Bugz), Zen Desk, Atlassian, and a host of others just sell me the damn software that I want without a huge sales hassle.
They also happen to be the companies that I actually use.
My wife and I still sleep on an Ikea bed (best mattress we've ever had) and bed frame that we've had for 5 years. Still looks and functions great...
It was supposed to be a stop-gap as we anticipated moving a bunch of times and didn't want to ruin expensive furniture. Now that we've settled it still works great.
We're a django shop and that's essentially what we do. We already use the django template engine in our javascript/css files (primarily for URL generation, but it's grown to be several other things). We plugged in Sass and it's been great.
The development servers passes CSS files through the django template engine and Sass every time it's served. In production we do it just during deployment. Thus what sits on our CDN is the end result. From a developers pesrpective your always editing the 'source' file not the 'compiled' version.
I don't think that's even Yelps primary value proposition. They're much more of a social network than anything else. Their proposition seems to be more around providing a place for people to gain recognition for their taste. This is why they have the elite yelper program and what-not.
The result of that play is a huge site with a TON of reviews that create a lot of organic SEO traffic. The credibility of those reviews, while important, isn't really their upmost concern.
That's why withholding positive reviews (under the guise of spam control) is effective. They're effectively extorting you to create more content for them.
Is it intentionally designed that way? I have no idea, but I bet it's extremely effective.
I think it's exactly that. I just bought a TV, and being a technical guy it was an incredibly difficult decision.
120hz or 240? LED or standard back-light? Is a name-brand REALLY better than a vizio?
The thing is, the difference between the low-end and the high-end isn't nearly as pronounced as it used to be. When it came down to it I was only sure that I didn't want a 60hz TV.
I literally waffled between three different sets before I sort of blindly chose one. I love my choice (a lower-end Sony Bravia that was deeply discounted), but it was still way more difficult than it should have been.
There is something about staring at 50 TV's on a wall and trying to choose the 'best' one for you that is almost paralyzing.
I wonder if this takes into account the new micro tech startups? I doubt it.
What this is really indicative of is just how bad the credit situation was in early 2009. I know that restaurants and other capital intensive 'start-ups' really suffered.
Of course it's entirely possible that Google did independently arrive at the same innovation. I have no idea how long Google has been working on this, but it was likely quite some time (which is probably why the solicited help from that company in the first place...)
I'd really be curious to know what the truth is here. Landmark nagivation is an unbelievably big project, and Google is doing it at pretty large scale. It may have very well taken a couple of years to build the thing (not so much the programming, but rather building the data-set itself).
The product is the type of product that inherently has a lot of lock-in. Giving me a month and a half to change all of that is more or less equivalent to making the changes effective tomorrow.