Rudolph Jakob Heuser

Gaia InteractiveDeveloper FastStart

Rudolph Jakob HeuserMIST CapstoneiTCD @ CSUMBJuly 29, 2006

Rudolph Jakob Heuser

What is Gaia?

• Social Community

• Gaming, Networking, Chatting

• Just Recently Funded

• Massively Hiring

Rudolph Jakob Heuser

Growing How Fast?

• October 2004: 9 employees

• October 2005: 25 employees

• July 2006: 40 employees

• Dec 2006: 80-100 employees (projected)

Rudolph Jakob Heuser

Finite Resources

Gaia

Mentor New Dev

Rudolph Jakob Heuser

Training? Yeah, Right

Your New Developer(Week 1)

Your New Developer(Week 4)

The Fruits of 2 Mentor’s Efforts

Rudolph Jakob Heuser

Self Training Failures

• Paper-Based - Got Lost

• Online “Intranet” - Kludgy To Use

• Gaia “Wiki” - Even Kludgier

• Mentoring System...A “Long Tail” Approach (They’ll get it eventually, right?)

Rudolph Jakob Heuser

Problem Source?

Rudolph Jakob Heuser

They Think Different

Resource Work

Rudolph Jakob Heuser

Really Different

Resource Work

Rudolph Jakob Heuser

Get In The Workflow

1. php.net

2. Google

3. “Sneakernet” and “Meatspace”

4. E-mail

Rudolph Jakob Heuser

The “Must Have”s

• In Browser

• Searchable

• Practical Answers

• Current

Rudolph Jakob Heuser

FastStartTutorial For Programmers

(And all the challenges that entailed...)

Rudolph Jakob Heuser

Dokuwiki

• http://wiki.splitbrain.org

• File Based

• Collaborative Tool

Rudolph Jakob Heuser

Instruction via Wiki?

• Linear tutorial

• Searchable reference

• Resource beyondweek 2

Rudolph Jakob Heuser

FastStart Tourhttp://www.felocity.org/tmp/capstone/devs/developer_faststart

Rudolph Jakob Heuser

Challenges

• Lack of time for testing, development

• Used new developers as guinea pigs

• Lack of time for SME review

• Practical Testing. Material should work.

• Code changed seven times

• Get software installed quickly, let SME update

Rudolph Jakob Heuser

Successes

• Wiki so successful it became new Intranet

• Contributed to Open Source Project

Has lessened new developer curve (4-12 days)

Rudolph Jakob Heuser

Going Forward

• Improve FastStart based on feedback

• Support Gaia Intranet

• Educate SME’s on content process

• Self Maintaining Documentation

Rudolph Jakob Heuser

References

• Sierra, Kathy. “Creating Passionate Users”. Retrieved from http://headrush.typepad.com

• Katherdante. “Attention span of 3 squirrels”. Retrieved from http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/35870171/

• Wikipedia.”Wiki”. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

ThanksDerek Liu, James Cao, John Loehrer, Kathy Sierra, Rosalie Strong, Eric Tao, iTCD Faculty and Staff, Gaia Interactive, splitbrain Dokuwiki mailing list

Rudolph Jakob Heuser

Questions

All graphics © 2006 Gaia Interactive unless noted.

Used with Permission.