During the last couple of months we made a head-long push to get nui out the door and we succeeded. A week later we redeployed fixing a number of important bugs. It has been a rich time in that we have had to develop new ways of working together and communicating, and had to develop new processes for a thorough QA review and deployment. I think we all made some mistakes along the way and have learned by them. As they say, experience is the best teacher.
Over the last few days, rmarianski and myself, with input from everyone else, have been developing a schedule and plan to bring the new hires up to speed when they arrive on Sept 12th. This has been a challenge and has also been lot of fun. As it stands, the new hires will begin working on projects which integrate other TOPP projects, such as an openplans/geoserver bridge which would, say, allow people to search for projects by geographic location. I think these projects will be exciting and will immediately integrate the new hires into the organization. Having them here, I think, will significantly alter TOPP, our culture, and the way we work together and I think we will all have to continue to adapt to accommodate this.
On Monday, most of us will be pushing off for Burning Man. I really have no idea what this will be like. I’m quite looking forward to being with our people in a completely different environment and social culture–in a place where we’ll have to rely upon each other in ways we haven’t had to before. Personally, I’m also looking forward to just getting out of the city for a week and having a change of pace. Ok, see you there!