Oops manage to miss most of the official Progress Report blog posts. In truth all of the content is located through our posts, but an extended reflection follows:
So WTT is proving to be a rollercoaster, but one that has stayed well on its tracks!
lets go through some SWOT…
Strengths: attributes of the person or company that are helpful to achieving the objective.
So unlike many applications that i’ve been involved in the project team didn’t really know each other, at all! But this has proved to be a stunning strength. Due to not knowing each other, everyone has retained a professional approach and has listened carefully to each others positions to maximise the project. There is no ego, no driver, and everyone is learning to appreciate each others skills and interests to make the project work. The Div Apps guys are amazing, so many times i’ve worked with developers who want to push their own agenda placing the project in jeopardy, but Peter and Petra seem to just get on with stuff and are able to solve problems with tenacity and enthusiasm. ECA end is ok, in truth the rapid innovation is really a tech thing, so once the creative parameters were established we just sat back – an extraordinary comfort and privilege! But thats not strictly true because communication and reflection has always been very good indeed.
Weaknesses: attributes of the person or company that are harmful to achieving the objective
Weaknesses are relative i guess, we’re trying something pretty ambitious things here and pushing the envelope is always going to have some fallout. We might reflect upon the decision to go web app one day – but the pay offs with the web app are immense as the phones get faster. Even the new 3GS has suddenly added more speed to what was a slow web app. If we’d had a bigger team (budget) we may have had more chance to trial a proper app. But then we’d have cut out our Google audience. There a cool app here http://emergencestudios.com/historicearth/ and they clearly have gone for the single platform killer app. Doesn’t look as though the blue dot falls though – this is critical for the embodying the map within the user experience.
Opportunities: external conditions that are helpful to achieving the objective.
I think the gap between institutions (ECA and UE) is good – they work very professionally and the college are bit sloppier – not bad sloppy but just creative sloppy. Div Apps are tight and well ran with Dave at the helm checking our every move. In the big wide world i’m still stunned that people don’t question the Google tiles, so despite being an incredibly obvious business / creative move to swap them the world seems prefixed with navigating the present. I guess we’re also lucky with EDINA – access to alternative map tiles is not easy, and with EDINA on your doorstep and with James and Ben providing so much constructive support we’re very lucky indeed.
Threats: external conditions which could do damage to the objective.
Well the world does catch on, and http://emergencestudios.com/historicearth/ is a good and close app to ours. It clearly has difference objectives and we need to identify ours (social dimensions, community and the fact that its a web app). Our biggest catch may be the licensing behind the EDINA maps, with the best support in the world, James can’t make the maps visible to the public on a wide scale yet – not without somebody paying for the license! We need to get some press soon, and we need a work around really to make this app as successful as it possibly can be. Hence making the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJwYv-6wgf8 but this needs more work – my use of grammar is under rapid innovation 😉 Users so far seem keen and enjoy the moment of going back in time, so we’ll continue to develop toward their suggestions.
all for now
Chris