Adobe officially launched AIR 1.0 today. Congratulations!

 As an early adopter of the technology with our Timer product we are excited to see the technology reach prime-time.

Thank you to all the great people in California who welcomed me to their companies this week. It was a real pleasure.  From San Diego to Sacramento I visited Vertabase users across this vast and exciting state. 

We appreciate your business and I look forward to seeing everyone again.

Question: What are alternatives for issue tracking or to track issues on projects?

Answer: Vertabase project management software is a great alternative to commonly used collaboration tools or as an alternative to MS Project and other online project management tools.

The keys to good issue tracking are accountability, communication, and visibility.  Vertabase offers several advantages in these areas for web-based tracking.

• Time and date stamp of every post;
• Records the name of the person who made the poster;
• Automatic email notification of posts and replies and;
• Creates a searchable  knowledgebase of issues or posts.

The knowledgebase is searchable by project, issue status, post date and other criteria. This facilitates visibility and is great for increasing accountability. 

You can easily see the status of all issue posts across projects as well as track down who should be doing what.

Another factor that makes issue tracking practical for organizations with different people working on different projects for multiple clients is the ability very specifically define who can see an issue, who can start and issue and who is able to change the status of an issue. This can help prevent people from “closing” something that hasn’t truly been resolved yet.

You can see a screenshot of the online issue tracking system or sign-up for a free trial of the project software.

Vertabase project management software is now being taught in an MBA course on project management at Lake Forest Graduate School of Management in Illinois.

The software is used in the course: “Successful Projects: Define, Plan and Manager Your Work.”

Vertabase is discussed when the course goes over setting up Microsoft Project and using Vertabase as a compliment and comparison to MS Project.

It is further covered when the future MBA’s learn about controlling and managing multiple projects -using Vertabase. Since it is rare that an organization, and therefore a manager, will only have one project going on at a time.

Thank you to the course instructor for selecting Vertabase as the online project management software for this class.

It was a pleasure meeting everyone and speaking to the Mid-Michigan ColdFusion Users Group about software development, web design and project management software.

The meeting was held at Michigan State University’s beautiful new facilities.

Thank you for having me and thank you to Rick Mason for putting it together.

Nick Kwiatkowski from the Michigan Flex Users Group was also there. They’ve got a great Flex 3 and AIR program coming up on February 6th. Kevin Hoyt, one of Adobe’s Platform Evanglists will be there as part of the Flex 3 and AIR pre-release tour.

Be sure to check it out.

A project schedule in tools like MS Project or Vertabase is different than in project collaboration tools like Basecamp.

The main idea behind a schedule in project management software like Vertabase is to create a detailed workflow for a project.  The schedule is the roadmap of the project and its successful completion.  It creates visibility and gives people the tools to do their work.

For example, documents and discussions that people need to work on on the project can all be connected directly to project schedules or even to specific tasks.

Also, project budgets and time estimates can all be connected to the project schedule (though access to this information can be easily controlled).  In fact, actual time can be posted directly to tasks on a schedule.

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Question: What are the benefits of project management software for a marketing company or for an ad agency to use project management software?

Answer: Managing workflow on marketing projects can lead to greater profitability for a marketing company or ad agency.

Now, this can be difficult when you have many resources working on a large volume of projects.  But by having a clear picture of everyone’s work allocation and easily sharing and communicating tasks on projects you can start to get an accurate handle on the workload. Further, by mapping those tasks across a project schedule, then getting a total company view across all project schedules, you can get a complete picture of your current and future workflow. With this picture, you can make strategic decisions and plan accordingly to use your resources more effectively -and be more profitable.

Think Marketing in British Columbia, Canada implemented Vertabase project management software and was able to really improve the way people use their time.

“This software helps me understand how busy any individual is at any given time. Now, everyone on the team knows they are accountable for how they manage their time! In turn, improved productivity results in superior profitability. It’s that simple,” says Adam Less, Creative Director and Managing Partner.

Vertabase offers project management software that can improve productivity at marketing companies and ad agencies.

I’ll have the pleasure of speaking to the Mid-Michigan ColdFusion Users Group on January 8th at 7pm. 

The topic will be software development and design -specifically addressing the importance of adoption and factors that can improve adoption.  This will include a discussion on the use of AJAX, Flash in an interface and how to choose and design specific functionality.

Here are the directions to the user group meeting.

Please feel free to stop on by.

Amazon has a good example of the selective and sensible use of AJAX type controls in an interface. In various presentations on software design I often talk about using AJAX and Javascript wisely and sparingly. Too much and the rate of confusion and user error rises significantly.

On Amazon’s holiday-ready site they use Javascript pulldowns and mouseovers to show the user the different departments they can shop from. However when letting the user select different areas to search on, the site doesn’t automatically take the user anywhere. It lets the user manually select the specific area they want to go to, enter a search term, then click GO.

If a user knows exactly where they want to go its important to make sure they can get there unhindered. The interface shouldn’t try and guess what they want or, worse yet, mistakenly take the user somewhere they don’t want to be. A good interface should show the user all the options available to them, then let them get there quickly and directly (and help them avoid any wrong turns). Nice job Amazon.

Found a good use for the magnetic strip, credit card style room keys from hotels - use them as a shoehorn when going through airport security.

Its an eco-friendly re-use, doesn’t set-off metal detectors and helps keep the backs of shoes in shape.

Mind you, I’m not advocating taking them just for this purpose but I know how easy it is to forget to return them (and that there are plenty of people who do take the keys on purpose for fear of any personal information that’s stored on the magnetic strip.)