20 Feb 2008
Daniel was recently mentioned on OregonLive for helping the city improve the road conditions in Portland. This was aimed at helping bicyclists from spotting pot holes on their commutes to work.
Photo from wildsheepchase on flickr
Kudos to Daniel for helping improve the quality of Portland’s streets for bicyclists and cars.
10 Oct 2007
Last night, while working late in the office, Andy noticed that Google now had Street View for Portland, Oregon.
Here is our current office location (for the next three weeks).
In a few weeks, we’ll no longer be facing this side of the block as we’re moving around the corner.
…and a closer view of the exterior of our new studio.
Thank you, Google, for putting Portland (streets) on the map!
4 Oct 2007
We moved to downtown Portland, Oregon in February of 2006 and while the space has had it’s perks, it also lacked a lot of natural light. So, we had decided that our next location would have much more natural light.
The new office space lacks private offices, but over time we have all migrated to a shared workspace anyway.
It’s just our luck that within the same building, a new studio space opened up. We have people working this month on improvements to the space, such as a finished (wood) floor, installing a sink/kitchen area, amongst other fun stuff. We’re hoping to be in our new space, which is just down the hall around November 1st.
The team is excited that we’ll be in a space that has way more natural light than our current space. :-)
Small perk… Ground Kontrol is across the street!
Stay tuned for more photos as the construction team makes progress…
2 Oct 2007
It’s October and we’re excited to announce that we’re an official sponsor for the Working with Rails monthly hackfest this month. We’ve allocated one Boxcar for the first prize winner of this months hackfest. As of today, you have 29 days to climb your way to the top of the pack.
Good luck to all those who participate this month!
27 Jun 2007
If you’re in the Portland area (or would consider relocating) and are interested in a contract or potential full-time job working with Ruby on Rails, continue reading!
PLANET ARGON is currently seeking Interaction Designers and Ruby on Rails Developers.
We’re looking for passionate people that are enthusiastic about working in a diverse and collaborative environment. Developers on-site in Portland are preferred, but we will consider top-notch people that can demonstrate their ability to collaborate as quickly as our team does in our company offices.
If you’d like to apply, please introduce yourself with a thoughtful cover letter and resume. We’re looking forward to meeting you!
14 Jun 2007
We decided to create an account on twitter for PLANET ARGON.
More details to come, in the meantime, add planetargon as a friend!
14 Jun 2007
In the June/July 2007 issue of Scientific American Mind, there is an article titled, The Science of Team Success, which discussed some findings from a recent review of research literature on teams.
“We recently reviewed the past 50 years of research literature on teams and identified factors that characterize the best collaborations. It turns out that what team members think, feel and do provide strong predictors of team success—and these factors also suggest ways to design, train and lead teams to help them work even better.”
Our team recently refactored our ways of collectively sharing what we learn with each other. This comes after a brief period, where our individual knowledge of new information was increasing, but shared knowledge amongst the team wasn’t. As a team, we were making wrong assumptions that everyone was spending enough individual time, learning about new techniques for doing the work that we do.
Assumptions are bad.
Once we realized that there wasn’t enough shared understanding of a few steps of our Design and Development process, we had to quickly evaluate how information was being distributed to all team members. Through this discovery, we’re now encouraging all members of our teams to have more open discussions about new ways of solving problems. While it’s up to the individual to ask questions when they don’t understand things, it’s also up to the team to approach individuals when they see something that isn’t consistent.
Everyone is a mentor. Everyone is a student. Everyone is a team member.
“A 1995 experiment by psychologist Diane Wei Liang, then at the University of Minnesota, psychologist Richard L. Moreland of the University of Pittsburgh and Linda Argote, professor of organizational behavior and theory at Carnegie Mellon University, nicely demonstrated how team members benefit from their collective knowledge when they learn together.”
While our team is far from perfect, we’re finding that our productivity levels have increased as we’ve become better at learning together. As we continue to evolve and grow our team, we’re seeking those that will add more value to our team, not just those who might consider themselves the next Ruby on Rails Rockstar.
Rely on the team, not the individual.
So, if you’re in the process of designing (or redesigning) a team, you should definitely “read this article”:":http://www.sciammind.com/article.cfm?articleID=D9058A4E-E7F2-99DF-36023504D1E43BD6.
Scanned from Scientific American Mind June/July 2007
Also, if you’re an excellent team player and feel like you flourish as an Interaction Designer or Rails Developer in a team-focued environment, introduce yourself.
13 Jun 2007
Earlier today, 37signals, posted an article, which referenced an in-depth review of Highrise by Robby. This review has various tips for getting started with Highrise, and how our team has integrated it into our internal workflow. We’ve been able to use a little GTD along with the Mail.app Act-On plugin to painlessly keep track of our new inquiries.
After trying many other products, none of which ever met our needs, Highrise has become a major fixture in our process for sales, contact management and networking. Also, Basecamp recently received a little spit and polish to give both products a common look and feel, which has made the integration all the more seamless.
8 May 2007
As Portland prepares for an influx of Rails enthusiasts, Robby is getting warmed up for the Business of Rails panel, where he will be joined by other Rails business leaders to talk about what it takes to be a successful Rails consultant.
For those of you in the Czech Republic, be sure to catch up with Robby at Ostrava on Rails in June, where he will be making a Business Case for Rails.
Not going to make it to Portland or Ostrava? No need to feel left out, Robby has promised a series of blog posts, also titled a Business Case for Rails.
Last, but not least, check out Robby’s comment in Sun sets its sights on Web 2.0 start-ups
.
Ruby on Rails has been considered a major threat to the Java community for quite awhile,” said Robby Russell, executive director of Planet Argon, a developer of community and social networking Web sites in Portland. Sun has now developed J Ruby, which lets Ruby applications run on top of Java. And the theme of JavaOne this year is “Open Possibilities.”
It’s a beautiful day in Portland, let’s hope the sun stays around for all of you heading our way.
We look forward to talking with you about the Business of Rails.
8 May 2007
It’s been year since I announced our Rails Business Hosting, and it has been a popular hosting choice for many of our customers. We’ve been hard at work designing a new hosting service, which aims to provide you with even more privacy, more guaranteed resources, and better options for scaling your Rails application as your business grows.
In the coming weeks, the PLANET ARGON team will introduce Boxcar, an exciting new hosting service that has been designed, developed, and fine-tuned over the past several months.
In the meantime, check out the new Boxcar site, launched this morning by our designer in residence, Chris Griffin. Sign up on our mailing list to be one of the first to find out when this new service is available for public consumption. You can also stay tuned to our blog, as we’ll be posting more updates over the coming days and weeks as we prepare for our launch!
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