Plank

A discussion with Daniel Cowen about Echoer

Steve — Wed, 09 May 2012 18:00:35 +0000

We're proud to present the first in a series of Q&A's with clients, partners and friends of Plank.

In 2011/2012 Plank worked with Echoer and their lead designer Varda Halaby-Senerman to develop a polished icon aspects of their UI for their iPhone application, in addition to coding up echoer.com in support the app launch.

The iPhone application went live in Canada in late winter, and just recently passed it's huge second milestone, a worldwide release. Reception has been stellar so far — especially in the US and the Middle East. They've been racking up accolades and reviews left, right and centre.

Daniel Cowen, Co-Founder & CEO of Echoer, shared some of his insights on the launch, the app's unique lexicon and visual language, as well as the mobile space and the future of the product.

Plank: What is Echoer?

Daniel: Echoer is a groundbreaking app that makes it easy to see what other people are thinking and experiencing in the places around you. It solves the problem of working out which thoughts are worth hearing; elevating the most recent and popular content above the noise. And its been designed to allow you to easily make an impact, either by adding your own voice or amplifying others.

Plank: What inspired the unique interface of the app?

Daniel: In part our own experiences as technology users/lovers. There have been a lot of apps circling this space, trying to marry location, relevance and realtime, but nobody has quite tackled it head on. Our entire design team, which was led by Varda Halaby-Senerman, knew that if we were to succeed then the interface had to be as playful, intuitive and engaging as possible. We also see echoes as living, breathing things, and wanted to convey that in the look and fee of the app.

I hope we've achieved all that, and early feedback seems to indicate we are on the right track. The main reason why Echoer is going to change the way we share the information around us is because we're trying to make it as easy as possible to do so. Compare this to a review site, where you will normally sit down, after the event, and write a long piece about the good and the bad of a venue. Echoer, because of its UI makes it easy and fun to do it there and then, and for other people to engage with your ideas immediately.

Plank: Your app lexicon is great: 'thought bubbles, echoing a thought, amping up thoughts, echo spaces'. Where did this all come from?

Daniel: Davin, my co-founder originally came up with the name Echo. He wanted the app to be a place where you echo the thoughts and ideas you have in the real world. And just like a real echo, they should be put out there and given the chance to grow and get louder.

The rest really flowed from that notion of sound and resonance. "Amp" is a word particularly close to my heart as it 100% symbolizes what we are doing when we crowd source relevance - a quick action that raises the volume!

Echo Spaces was a little trickier and we actually got stuck on a whole host of terms before we hit that. None fit that well and others have double-meanings that jarred with our message (i.e. "echo chamber" and the fear of arduous repetition seen on other platforms). We sat down and looked at the language we had used to describe the places on the map, and it turned out the word spaces was the one we kept using, without even knowing it. And it works, because these are living, breathing spaces where users can engage with each other, or with the venue, or with the ideas flowing in there.

Plank: How are people using it so far? In expected or unexpected ways?

Daniel: It's a little too soon to pinpoint how the app will be used by most people; but we certainly expect a lot of creativity to arise. The beta test in Montreal highlighted some of the more interesting uses, such as students creating location based debates or forums to discuss things in. And we do have certain expectations for the app, built around events (particularly multi-venue events) and we see a huge play in the review/content space, with Echoer being a more up to date and relevant place to get the information you need.

The review space is excessively static, repetitive, and out-of-date; and there really is no excuse for the lack of relevance, content, interactivity, or easy to use navigation that are achingly missing there.

Finally, venues and public services have also shown interest in using Echoer to take their brand and reputation management hyper-local, something we are very excited about. Needless to say we are going to be building partnerships to take all of this forward.

Plank: There's been a lot of rapid change in the social location based space recently. Your thoughts?

Daniel: There's been a huge amount of change, and location remains the holy grail/hot topic. My view is that it is still wide open. There is a lot of interesting stuff happening, but the key thing to realize is that with these phenomenal devices we have in our pockets now, location is not the important part. What's important is what people build on top of that and how they make it relevant to users.

Our understanding of this is changing every day, and soon people will stop talking about this broad bucket of "location" services (because it is just too broad). Instead they will be talking about the particular vertical that these products are building on top of location and how we now make all that data and interaction more engaging.

Take Highlight, breakout location app of SXSW, it's really about connecting people, and they have to figure out how to do that in a meaningful way. Take SongKick (my favorite app, whose API we use), it's about connecting you to music and eventually music lovers, but location is one of the gears they crank to do that. And Echoer is about connecting you to relevant content and an understanding of what matters most in a given place or area at a given point in time - it's really less about your location than it is about your thoughts and the thoughts of others. Location is just the structure it's intuitively built on, and our way of building in physical relevance.

Plank: What's the next big step for Echoer?

Daniel: We are going to spend the next few months focussing on user, content and partnership generation. We'll also be announcing an Android release in the summer, which we are very excited about. And at the same time we'll be listening carefully to our users to see how they are using Echoer and ensuring that future versions build in the functionality that they need most.

Every time we open Echoer up to more users it helps us shape our development priorities. Some of the additional features we have on the roadmap are very exciting, as are some of the partnership and events announcements we hope to make in the coming months.

The App if free and available worldwide. Take a look for yourself by downloading using the link below.

The Workshed

Steve — Wed, 09 May 2012 00:33:27 +0000

We're very please to announce the relaunch of theworkshed.com.

We've always used the site to host our projects, experiments, and creative trials. It now has a cleaned up design, new code to make it modern and fast, and it's much easier to update quickly. We have 2 great projects up now and have a number of others in the works.

Notice anything fun about the "workshed" logo?

http://theworkshed.com

Looking back on our first Hack Day

Steve — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:29:05 +0000

On March 29th, Plank had its first Hack Day. A hack day for an agency? Normally this idea is reserved for developers and is often the proving ground for the startup process. We liked the idea and decided to try it out with a full production team at our disposal.

Why would we do this?

We are a curious bunch of folks. We all acknowledge that running and working at a client service focused agency sometimes leaves little time for experimentation and doing our own work.

We have a strong production model that can help get an idea from single thought to working prototype fairly quickly. Pausing and using it for ourselves is a tantalizing idea.

How did we do it?

We created three teams; we wanted each to be multidisciplinary and to play to the strengths that are part of our normal workflow. We often run projects with a core team, including organisational/management, design, html/css, and backend developers - something we're very good at. This seemed like a natural way to approach the challenge.

We chose a single work day. We hedged our bets against an 8-hour block when we knew there was the least chance of anyone or anything pulling us away. (In all honestly, we all accepted that our clients do come first and that any emergency would put a pause on the day, but thankfully our clients were able to fend for themselves for the whole day.) We tried for no email, no phone calls - as few distractions as possible.

We moved our workspaces to get closer to one another and got to it. There was no shortage of tools at our disposal: Basecamp, email, Bug tracking, Skype, Git, Dev servers (local and remote), sketchbooks, super fast internet, and an awesome work space!

The goal

We had all contributed to a master list of ideas; some were fairly extensive, others small and precise. Each team had to pick one idea to use as a base to try and create something great around it. The work didn't need to be completed but the goal was to have something figured out and presentable by end of day.

Here's what we told everyone:

"Make something cool. Keep it simple. The ideas might seem bigger than a day - bite off a chunk that represents something possible. Plank is good at making objects. If the whole thing can't be real - fake it to get the idea across. Document it. Learn something."

What was the day like?

We gave everyone a rough schedule:

Time	Action
9:00am - 10:00am	Setup and day prep
10:00am - 11:00am:	Group kickoff, teams and ideas (meeting in kitchen)
11:00am - 12:00pm	Phase 1 work (in groups)
12:00pm - 1:00pm	Lunch (provided), discussion and previews/feedback (lunch in kitchen)
1:00pm - 4:00pm	Phase 2 work (in groups)
4:00pm - 4:15pm	Project status update (quick 'stand up')
4:15pm - 5:00pm	Final home stretch (in groups)
5:00pm - 6:00pm	Presentation and wrap-up

We made small commemorative notebooks for everyone to sketch out ideas and jot down notes - we expected the day's activities would likely generate more inspired ideas.

Geoff Skyped in from Toronto. Murphy's Law dictated that Skype would be acting up on that day of all days, so one other thing that came out of this experience was setting up an excellent permanent Skype connection for involving him in meetings - we fixed this a couple of weeks ago.

Amelio's Pizza for lunch, lots of coffee, snacks, and a real battle against the clock - everyone felt that the time flew by way too quickly.

How did we do?

Team 1 - aka "Happy Face"

The Problem: Plank uses many web services to aid in its production process. Most Plankers have their own system for how often they check certain services, and by which manner they do so. Some visit the service's website directly to get their updates, some use various RSS feeds, and so on.

We identified two key issues with this approach. The first is that a wide range of "information consumption" behaviors lead to cases where not everyone is up to date on all matters. The second issue we found is that given the largely decentralized nature of our web-accessible tools, it is difficult to get an easy-to-digest overview of all our systems.

Our team set out to solve this issue.

The Solution: We came up with the not-so-new idea of a dashboard. This dashboard would highlight all the key information across all of our systems in an easy-to-digest manner. Each service could have a corresponding module, plus some for-fun modules to keep things interesting (example: bus schedules, new music releases). Such an interface has an endless number of possibilities, so our Hack Day focus was to make a proof-of-concept to convey the usefulness of such a tool to the whole team.

Our team's primary goal for the dashboard is best explained by the following:

"The idea is not to replace any existing system, but to draw attention to all activity across all systems in one central location for the Plank team."

Team 2 - aka "Crazy Eyes"

The Problem: A visual way to communicate quick stats and easy-to-miss facts around a current, passionate local debate - the Quebec Student Strike.

The Solution: With so much information in the media around the tuition hike, our team wanted to showcase the key points and themes that are currently being discussed in Quebec. We wanted to find a way to communicate these topics at a quick glance and with a bold, eye-catching interface.

Where did we start?

Big Picture: Interactive infographic? Static infographic? Quebec tuition vs. the World? All of Canada? Our initial ideas were big and, as with any project, you need to be realistic. We couldn't cover it all, so we quickly zoned in on facts that dealt with Quebec-related themes only.
Content: Research, Research, Research, Writing, Editing, more editing. Once our intern, Samantha Graham - who is fairly active in the movement herself - communicated all of her amazing knowledge, Sarah Bagnall worked with her on editing and framing the facts for our layout.
Design: As always, content guided design. Once we knew what we were tackling, Gary was able to put a look to the themes and the style of content we had chosen.
Integration: Geoffrey Weeks, participating via video chat, took the final content and design at the 11th hour and started the build of the "FEE FREE FREEZE" mini-site.

While we didn't have enough time to complete the mini-site in its entirety, the day proved to be a good lesson in evaluating time-restrictions, scaling-down content for design and web, and working as a team in a research- and content-driven project.

Team 3 - aka "Big Mouth"

The Problem: With turntable.fm now limited to US IP holders, we are not able to use their service to develop a Plank-curated streaming station.

The Solution: We would begin the process of building a local version of a streaming player to which anyone could upload music into a queued playlist.

The specifics of what we attempted:

Set up a user login system
Use http://www.uploadify.com/ to manage audio file uploads
Decide on a user interface and emulate a diner jukebox
HTML5 interface
Simplified user playback interface

While much of our time was spent figuring out uploads and queuing, we discussed how we would like it to work given more time to develop it. Would users be able to skip or interrupt songs? How many songs in the queue would be displayed? Would we provide a history? Would users take turns uploading or would it be a free-for-all? It was a good exercise in UI/UX planning as much as in working with open source technology.

Next one

We're planning on making this a seasonal thing. Our next Hack Day will be the Summer Edition, to be scheduled for August. The ideas are already brewing - or that might be the coffee. Either way, it's great stuff.

Plank is now donating its recyclables to cancer research

Patrick — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:35:15 +0000

Plank has always collected its bottles and cans (and paper, etc.), taking them out to be recycled during the regular city collection. Given that some of these recyclables have a small return value (5 to 10 cents each), we would leave them to whomever spotted them, or the city collection if no one got to them in time.

Recently, we felt that this small monetary value would be best suited as a donation to a worthy cause. As such, Plank is now on board with “Recycling for a cause”, a small nonprofit organization based in Montreal, that returns cans and bottles and donates 100% of the proceeds to cancer research. The organization made it all too easy for us to get on board, given that they come to our office on a weekly basis to collect the recyclables.

We are very pleased with the generosity of the organization, taking no overhead to run their operation in order to maximize donations. All those involved volunteer their time and efforts, which is a nice change from the number of nonprofits who take a sizeable chunk of the donations away from the cause.

If you’d like to learn more about “Recycling for a cause” or how you can get involved, visit their website RecycleMTL.org.

iBook vs. App

Geoff — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:00:44 +0000

I recently posted a quick overview of Apple's iBooks platform and wanted to follow up with some further thoughts and specifically address the question of how it stacks up as an alternative to developing a native app.

The quick answer is that there's no comparison at all — iBooks and apps are entirely different creatures. As anyone with a smartphone knows, an app can be anything: a simple tool such as a calculator or to-do list manager; a high-performance immersive 3D game; a way to find nearby restaurants, bars, or other services. An iBook is one thing, and one thing only: a book (surprise!).

What this means is that content in an iBook is organized under chapters, sections, and pages (you're free to disregard "sections" and only use chapters and pages, if that's all you need). The format also comes with a preset UI for navigating the content, so you can't customize the menu system. Some may view this UI limitation as a reason to go the native app route, but the huge upside to this setup is that you don't have to consider the costs of the programming hours that always go in to developing a native app.

The first thing to ask when contemplating the iBook vs native app question is, what is the nature of the content? If it's essentially reference materials made up of texts, images, and audio/video assets, then an iBook is immediately an excellent candidate for delivering a dynamic, engaging, interactive experience on the iPad. Even though Apple launched the platform targeting the education market, it's very well suited to other industries.

Corporations and NGOs could create historical overviews of their companies. Large organizations that have equipped their teams with iPads might use iBooks for sales or promotional materials. Hotels could create elegant brochures for their business. The interactive elements of the format mean that it's very well-suited to simple kids books. On the very day Apple made the announcement, Matt Gemmell posted a great list of ideas for iBooks projects which should help anyone see the potential for the format beyond the academic market.

We continue to dive a little more into iBooks here at Plank, learning about some of the specific challenges of working with the format. I'll aim to post again next week and share some of what we're discovering. If you've got an iPad and want to get an initial feel for what it's like to browse though an iBook, we made a demo you can download for free, here.

Our new conference room

JF — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 16:52:13 +0000

We needed a new conference room so we built it and documented the process. Can you spot the spider?

Recherche un développeur web

Plank — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:26:58 +0000

Plank est à la recherche d’un-e Développeur-euse web pour se joindre à son équipe à Montréal. Nous sommes une agence Web établie composée d’une équipe passionnée. Nos clients exceptionnels se fient sur nos connaissances spécialisées et sur la qualité de notre travail. Nous offrons égalament un environnement de travail très agréable.

Que vous soyez autodidacte ou que vous ayez plusieurs diplômes en informatique, nous sommes à la recherche de candidats qui ont les compétences nécessaires et qui sont prêts à travailler fort. Nos projets web et mobiles sont surtout liés aux domaines du divertissement, de la technologie et de l’action sociale.

Vos tâches:

Développer des nouveaux sites web (structures et systèmes « backend »), des applications web et des APIs
Créer et travailler dans les cadriciels PHP de nos projets en cours
Résoudre et régler des problèmes dans un environnement où la rencontre des échéanciers est une priorité
Documenter et tester votre code
Contribuer à notre stratégie technologique en identifiant les meilleurs outils et pratiques
Travailler en étroite collaboration avec l’équipe pour assurer la mise en place et le déploiement des projets

Nos attentes:

Nous sommes à la recherche de quelqu’un qui sait s’amuser! Mais pour le côté sérieux, vous devriez avoir ces aptitudes et qualifications:

Diplômé en Informatique ou 2+ ans d’expérience connexe
Formation solide en PHP, MySQL et Apache
Compréhension approfondie des motifs de conception MVC et connaissance des cadriciels PHP modernes
Être à l’aise avec les lignes de commandes des tâches génériques de serveurs Linux Compréhension du balisage HTML
Vous aimez résoudre les problèmes, vous apprenez vite et vous avez le souci du détail
Bonne communication
Vous aimez faire de la recherche pour être bien renseigner et pour contribuer aux connaissances de l’équipe
Vous êtes disponibles pour travailler dans notre bureau à Montréal
Vous parlez couramment l’anglais et avez une bonne connaissance du français

Les atouts (pas nécessaires mais fortement appréciés):

Connaissance de CakePHP, Javascript et des cadriciels Javascript (surtout jQuery), Git ou autres logiciels de gestion de versions décentralisés
Connaissance du développement mobile (IOS et XCode, techniques de Web adaptives, APIs mobiles)
Connaissance de WordPress, WordPress MU et WPML
Connaissance de serveurs web alternatifs (Node.js, lighttpd, nginx, etc…)

Nous sommes à la recherche d’un individu qui veut faire partie de notre équipe à long terme. Nous offrons un salaire compétitif, des heures d’affaires normales, des avantages sociaux (assurances médicales et dentaires) et de transport, des vacances payées, des journées-projets, un éventail d’outils et de systèmes modernes et un environnement de travail agréable. Nous invitons les candidats à visiter notre site (où vous pouvez consulter la section « Clients »), et nos comptes Facebook et Twitter pour vous donner un idée de qui nous sommes avant de postuler.

Si vous pensez vouloir vous joindre à l’équipe de Plank, veuillez faire parvenir votre CV et une note personnelle à warren@plankdesign.com.

Au plaisir!

Veuillez noter que SEULS les candidats qualifiés seront convoqués à une entrevue.

Plank: The iBook!

Geoff — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:29:14 +0000

Back in January of this year, Apple held a press conference at the Guggenheim museum in New York to announce iBooks Author, their new software for developing interactive books on the iPad. While Apple's focus is on the educational market, presenting the platform as one that will transform text books in the academic world, the format can and should be considered by a wide range of organizations.

They won't be the solution in all cases, but with the ability to include audio and video, image galleries, interactive images, quizzes, 3D models, and customized HTML widgets, an iBook is an excellent candidate for reference content in any industry. With an ever growing number of organizations equipping their sales teams (and other departments) with iPads, the cost-effective iBook can be an attractive alternative to developing an iOS app.

In a future post, I'll be taking a look at some of the specific pros and cons of the format, but for now, if you've got your iPad handy, grab the demo we put together and give an iBook a spin (or a swipe, as it were).

Get Plank's iBook Demo

Web developer needed

Plank — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:07:40 +0000

Plank is looking for a web developer to join our Montreal team. We're an established Web agency with a team who loves what they do, has great clients who trust and rely on us for expertise / high quality work, and a very enjoyable working environment.

Whether you're completely self-taught or have multiple degrees in Computer Science, we're only concerned that you have the skills needed to perform the job and can hit the ground running. You'll be working on generally entertainment, technology and social action web and mobile projects.

Your tasks will include:

Development of new websites (structure and backend systems), web applications and API's;
Building on and working with our existing projects of various PHP frameworks;
Troubleshooting and resolving issues in a deadline-driven environment;
Documenting, and testing your code;
Contributing to our technology strategy, identifying tools and best practices;
Working closely with the entire team to ensure successful deployments and roll-outs;

Our Expectations:

We're looking for someone fun! But seriously, you should have the following:

Degree(s) in Computer Science or 2+ years of related experience;
Strong background in PHP, MySQL and Apache;
Solid understanding of the MVC design pattern and experience with the modern PHP frameworks;
Comfortable with the command-line for various Linux server tasks;
Good understanding of what makes valid HTML markup;
Efficient problem solver, quick learner, detail oriented, and good communicator;
A desire to stay up to date, research, and contribute to the expertise of team;
Willingness to work locally in our Montreal office;
Fluent in English, Proficient in French

These items aren't required but would be strong pluses towards any potential candidate:

Experience with CakePHP will be an strong asset;
Experience with Javascript, and Javascript frameworks (especially jQuery), will be an asset;
Experience with Git or other modern version control software;
Mobile development experience will be an asset (iOS and XCode, Responsive website techniques, Mobile API's);
Experience with WordPress, WordPress MU, and WPML will be an asset;
Experience with alternative web servers, such as Node.js, lighttpd, nginx, are all assets.

We want you to be part of our team for a long time to come. We offer a competitive salary, normal business hours, a comprehensive health and dental plan, commute perks, generous paid vacation time, seasonal hack days, wide choice of modern tools and systems, and a great work environment. We encourage all applicants to browse our site, our social feeds, and our client work to get a good sense of who we are before applying.

If you think you would like to be part of the Plank team, please email your CV and a personal note to warren@plankdesign.com.

We hope you'll join us.

Please note only those candidates we have selected to interview will be contacted.

This Week’s Top Tweets

Steve — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 13:17:35 +0000

One Direction

What's happening outside of @plank today — all we can hear is shrill cries and hollering http://tco/XQWtiWV0 #1DMP (via @VeroniQueen01)
— Plank (@plank) March 27, 2012

There's more to the story...

As I walked by Musique Plus on Monday morning, a group of about seven girls were camped out on the front steps of the building wrapped in an assortment of blankets. I only noticed it because it was still pretty cold out. Leaving work that night, the group of "campers" had grown and stretched around the block onto Bleury St. — by now the temperature was well below 0°C. I had no idea that all these people were facing another 20 hours outside in the cold. The original group of seven had now been out for at least 10 hours!

Tuesday morning came and the chaos walking up to our agency was pretty intense by 8am Montreal standards; a thousand people waiting to catch a glimpse of the band "One Direction", road closed off, and shrill screams enough to power a city block. Sarah and Warren walked into the crowd and the rest of us unwittingly took part in the scene as those screams pierced our glass windows and drove us all to headphones-mode until it all wrapped up at 3pm.

Post Mortem

Great post-mortem with the team today on a project we completed. Lots of talk on how to present a very complex layout to clients/teams.
— Plank (@plank) March 28, 2012

There's more to the story...

We've committed to making post-mortems a key part of every large project we take on in 2012. We've always done them, but in an ad-hoc way and sporadically as it seemed the best fit. The team gathered and closed the doors. I'll use some discretion in talking about this specific project's ups and downs, but I can say that some great and unexpected pieces came out of the review.

One of the largest issues we have to tackle (as do many creative agencies) is how to show ever-complex, single-page, highly interactive designs to clients and everyone involved at an early stage. It's a battle we can win, but it'll take a great workflow to do it. Plank is up to the challenge.

Going the extra mile with Google Docs

Great use for Google docs — Use Google Docs to Monitor Your Website’s Uptime ow.ly/9V416
— Plank (@plank) March 28, 2012

There's more to the story...

We use Google Docs for a lot of our work. Plank's owner @warrenwilansky led the charge last year, diving in head first and leaving MS Office as far behind as possible. We're learning new tricks everyday, from better ways to import, professional formatting, to an ever improving workflow while editing docs in unison. This one caught our eye, especially as we're currently improving our analytics reporting tools and are interested in functions within Google Docs that allow us to capture more information 'automagically'. Worth a look.

Plank Hack Day

Kicking off "Hack Day" @plank. Pretty excited to be able to be working in small teams on some great ideas. #PlankHD ow.ly/i/xel6
— Plank (@plank) March 29, 2012

There's more to the story...

I'll save the details for an upcoming blog post but this was the major highlight of our week. We've been wanting to set aside a full day to work on some of our own ideas for some time now. That day finally presented itself last week. With no major deadlines and the majority of the week's work behind us by end of day Wednesday, we organized into teams, added a dash of friendly competition to the mix, and set off exploring. We tweeted a couple of items from the day, but really it was more about shutting off external distractions and working on some fun and interesting ideas.

Outtake photos

A photo we didn't use for our new Facebook timeline cover ow.ly/i/xeDX
— Plank (@plank) March 30, 2012

There's more to the story...

Have you checked out the updated Plank timeline? Lots of history has already been added, with much more on the way. This year, we wanted to tell the story of Plank — Facebook's Timeline is the perfect (and timely!) platform. We've taken a whole bunch of new photos to help support this effort. Here's one that didn't make the cut, but we liked what's happening with these reflections.