Saturday, May 17, 2014

Time and Productivity

Project J.A.R.S. has been very busy, hence why our blog is just now getting published. In the past few days we have had meeting with potential partners and a slew of ups and downs when dealing with the developers. Since our last post we have been working very hard to build an environment that is user friendly but full of features. This not an easy task but with all things that will be great their must be some room for mistakes and problem solving. In all my years I have never heard of a business or project that got everything done the first time around. Project J.A.R.S. is no different, we have made some mistakes, but we learning how to improve ourselves as a team.

Project J.A.R.S. is a dynamic entity that is constantly changing and that's a good thing because that makes us viable. The #onecontec site is progressing well +Ryan Satterfield is in charge of that side and I can tell you he is on it like a dog with a bone. The Project J.A.R.S. is on a pause for a few days, but sign up is going great. Using twitter we have made a lot of new friends and supporters for #projectjars which is great because that means that people are starting to understand what Project J.A.R.S. is all about. Since we are venturing into a new territory by tapping into bootstrapped communities and small businesses we believe its best that they have more input as to how our project is developing.

We are actively recruiting people, groups and startups to help with our project, its important that they help because our project is dedicated to supporting them. We have had introductions to women groups that are doing ground breaking things in the world of technology, but they are not getting the exposure they deserve because of bias. We are supporters of groups like #blackgirlscode and #Women Techmakers communities. Its the job of J.A.R.S. to help get these communities the exposure they deserve and the help create a culture that respects its members regardless of gender or ethnicity. As a society building on technology we have to be better than that...we have come to far to be so for behind socially..its embarrassing on some levels...Project J.A.R.S. is trying to level the playing field because we have zero tolerance for bias now enough about the social-political stuff lets get to some cool news.

Project J.A.R.S. Hang Outs on Air is coming soon

Project J.A.R.S. will be hosting Google hangouts soon so keep an eye out. We plan on talking about Project J.A.R.S. and its development and at the same time answer your questions ( I am totally excited about this!!) about what J.A.R.S. is all about. We will also start hosting hangouts and spot light cool projects, and startups to give them some room to talk about whats going on with their projects and business giving them an opportunity to get some feed back from their peers. we hope this will foster in some networking opportunities for everyone. 

I know from experience video hangouts are cool, you meet the most interesting people, now i am going to pause here for a moment and say, the hangouts will be held during normal hours ( I know a lot of you guys will find this funny since I am always online at 3 am) what can I say I am a night owl....or vampire depends on who you ask. Okay well that's all the news for now...follow us on Twitter @onecontec @projectjars or catch us on Google +Jars Storm




Monday, May 5, 2014

Updates, Snags things that make you Hmmmmm...

Update

Project J.A.R.S. as of April 29th has been plugging away at completing phase one of our site build. Development has reached a point where the phase one site has been on track and user interface was looking good. We have the software in place and the process for users built in, our content is looking great and visibility/member traction is coming along fine. We spent a lot of time doing a comprehensive analysis on what our members would need and built in the tools they would want to use in order to present their projects. Everything is going to plan and it looked like we would be getting things done the right way the first time out...boy were we in for a surprise.   


The Snag


May 1st was supposed to be a dry test run for the Project J.A.R.S. site and not one second after we pressed the button. BOOM!!!! we hit a snag. The profile for users was not working the way its designed. Our site and our project is based on users interacting with each other and at the moment that part is broken. This was not acceptable and we had to figure out a solution to stay within our project milestones.  

Our response to the snag: We tried multiple solutions but none of them worked and since I am the project director its up to me to figure this snag out and get the wheels turning again so we can get this engine moving forward....so the question becomes can Storm (That's me) come up with a solution that; 
  • Is user friendly, 
  • Allows the users to update people about their projects and keep track of their post,  and
  • Make sure that the users will use the solution? 
What to do? What to do?..........................

Things that make you go Hmmm!!


So now, not only do I have a million things to do on the business side of Project J.A.R.S. now I have to get into problem solving and testing the solution...that's just great!! So I decided to take a creative break and gave the team some time off while I pull a miracle out of my ***(...well you know). Friday May 2nd I am rolling the problem over and over in my mind and after many bottles of Pepsi and a lot of junk food I came up with an idea...and the inspiration came from the activities of a child, my hyperactive nephew and niece. I watched theses two multi-toy, video game playing, junk food eating and comic book reading little monsters for a about an hour or so and I was fascinated by the fact that with everything that was going on they were keeping pace with each others activity. I was astounded by this and it gave me an idea on how to fix our problem with Project J.A.R.S. 

So back to my notepad I went (Yes I actually write things down on paper.) and I started redesigning Project J.A.R.S. I took it from the conception all they way up to my solution. I dug around and did some research and realized that this solution would encompass a whole new look and feel for Project J.A.R.S. Needless to say I was very excited and could not wait to tell the rest of the team, (mind you I was bouncing off the wall from all the Pepsi I had been drinking) but it was late and I would have to hold off on telling team until the next day.

May 3rd, I burned up the Internet and rounded up the team for a brain session and presented them with my idea and they were both happy we had a solution and also excited by the new idea and how it would create a whole new experience for the members. The solution will open a ton of possibilities, and will allow Project J.A.R.S. to evolve into OneConTec ( That's our business name..cool huh?) So to implement the solution now I need to find some programmers who know gaming code. 

As of right now Project J.A.R.S. is actively looking for freelance developers, college interns or just people who are good with coding to get this side of the project finished. Our search include but is not limited to women and minority programmers, college students, and anybody who is serious about helping us with our project. With that type of diversity we will bring forth something wonderful for everyone associated Project J.A.R.S. So come and join Project J.A.R.S. add you input to our pool of thought. Help make this project unlike any other and stay true to our core mission to help Bootstrappers, Entrepreneurs, developers build the foundation they need to be successful. 

*Author's Note

your responses and ideas are wanted and encourage please feel free to contact us or comment on our blog..thanks Project J.A.R.S. Team