Collective Detective Blog Archives

BarCamp DC: CD Heads to Washington

On Saturday November, 14^th, we’ll be traveling south from the Collective Detective Compound to once again participate and attend BarCamp DC. It’ll be our second year back and we’re looking forward to it.

The DC/Virginia/Maryland tech community really knows how to put on a great non-conference, as well as how to order an insane amount of pizza. It’s a great opportunity to learn about exciting things going on in the Capitol area, meet new people doing interesting things, and over-indulge in pepperoni. It’s also a chance to catch-up with friends and peers face-to-face. Neither of these things you can easily do online in under 140 characters or in an email.

If you’re interested in technology and are in the area, come join us in DC. If Philly is a closer drive this weekend, we highly recommend you check out BarCamp Philly and a cheesesteak from Jim’s Steaks on 4^th and South. If you’re elsewhere, find the next BarCamp event near you.

Hope to see you there or at an event sometime soon!

Want to Work on Collectivus?

As you know, we’re a lean micro-business building Collectivus on the nights and weekends. Excitedly, we are closing in on the first release. However, we’ve assessed we need more people to help finish out release one as well as help gear-up for what comes next.

Looking for a fun side-project? If you’re interested, have any combination of the skills we need and can commit a minimum amount of time per week through the end of the year to help out with some short-term stuff, we’d love to hear from you. Yes, you will get paid, but be warned, it’ll likely be a sad and pathetic amount. We’re also hoping to find people who want to continue to work with us on the next part of the roadmap. Those gigs will resemble more of a normal paying type. We’re flexible; let’s talk.

The Business Stuff

Business Planning and Development

Work with us to refine the business plan.

Help us develop and execute a scaled funding strategy and revenue plan.

Help us develop and package proposals and presentations and correctly file paperwork in triplicate.

The Visual Stuff

User-Experience Design / User Interface

Review and revise the existing user-interface.

Color-palette and accessibility improvements.

Help resolve a specific work-flow issue around search and results.

Graphic Design

Punch up art assets used in UI.

Creation of a few icons and other graphics.

The Code Stuff

Client-side Development

Use your expert HTML, CSS, and JavaScript/jQuery skills to help code, tweak, and revise features.

Ability to integrate and work with third-party APIs and web services.

Python / Django / PostgreSQL Development

Solid skills or background in related framework and want to move into the awesomeness of Python in order to hook-up some features and build new ones.

Ability to integrate and work with third-party APIs and web services.

Experience with authentication systems.

Linux Server Administration / Infrastructure Operations

Code review of infrastructure and security

Scripts and processes for automated back-up, deployment, and maintenance jobs.

At a minimum, you’ll be one of the first to get more insight into what the hell we’ve been building all this time. It’s also an opportunity to be a part of something we’re very excited about and think people will have a lot of fun with. Please contact us via the Contact Page, email, Direct Message on Twitter or reach out on Facebook if you’re interested and want to hear more.

Thanks!

Vote for our SXSW 2010 Panel: My Start-Up Relationship

Every year it seems like the time to start getting ready for SXSW is earlier and earlier. Already the voting selection has begun for Interactive panels and this year we took a different approach with our panel submission.

Organized by Traci Miller, our Chief Mischief Officer, the panel: “My Start-up Relationship” talks about the other-side of being in a micro-business/start-up: How it impacts the relationship with your significant other, especially when you work together. Here’s the panel description:

It’s hard to leave work at work and home at home. What happens when they’re one in the same? This panels discusses the challenges of working and living with a spouse or friend that is a business partner.

And here’s some questions and topics that will get covered:

1. Your business partner is your spouse? Ahhh!
2. How to separate work from home.
3. What happens if it gets to be too much?
4. How to put your offline other at ease.
5. How to pull their attention away without making it seem you’re unsupportive.
6. What paperwork you need to have in place – no matter what!
7. Living and working together isn’t working, what’s the next step?
8. How to communicate, communicate, communicate!
9. Should we separate duties?
10. Schedule work nights and fun nights and stick to it.

We’ve got some interesting material already planned and may have some Collectivus surprises in store. (Yes, we’ll have launched by then.)

If you are heading to SXSW, please drop us a line. We’d love to meet you in person and hope you’ll both vote and attend our panel.

If you don’t plan on heading down to Austin next March, panel footage is usually posted online a few weeks after the event so you’ll still be able check it out. A quick sign-up and your support by giving our panel the “Thumbs Up” would be appreciated.