Recipe for Social Commerce

As a continuation to my previous post on Social Commerce, this one follows the implementation of a Social Commerce project I led as a technical director for almost 1.5 years. The project was for a very well known instrument manufacturer that set on a mission to create a very unique site offering engaging eLearning content, entertainment videos, Social Networking and eCommerce.

Site Features

With a laundry list of features, and a highly customized online eLearning system, we set out to deliver the following core site features/functions.

> User and group-level blogging and forums
> Live Chat sessions
> Streaming HD eLearning and entertainment video content (live and pre-recorded)
> Streaming audio content (live and pre-recorded)
> YouTube-like video sharing
> Flickr-like photo sharing
> News articles
> Wikipedia-like library of articles
> eCommerce Store
> End-to-end site search
> Single sign-on user accounts

Technology

To deliver the site, a combination of platforms and technical solutions were used.

> Community Server
- User for all social networking features and functionality
> AspDotNetStorefront
- Used for all eCommerce features and functionality
> Custom eLearning System
- This was built on a customized eLearning database, layered with rich .NET and Flash user controls (e.g. video players, chat with instructor, note taking etc.)
> Custom Flash Video Player
- These were used throughout the site to stream video content at multiple angles, resolutions and chapters/sections
> LHTTPD
- Used to allow for “scrubbing” across a video at any position and start the stream at that position without having to wait for all of it to buffer.
> FFMPEG
- Used to convert multi-format video content to Flash format when users and content producers uploaded their video and audio files.
> Representational State Transfer (REST) Web Services
- The core API that wrapped Community Server and AspDotNetStorefront API was built on REST for improved response times, scalability, compatibility.
> CuteChat for Community Server
- Used to deliver the live chat sessions

Kinder Egg Capsule for Storing iPhone Headset

Hard to find, and a fond childhood memory for many, I picked up and munched down a Kinder Egg from my local store. I noticed that the yellow capsule containing the Kinder Surprise can be used as a storage device for various tiny objects… One of which happens to be my iPhone headset. Attached is an image…

Other uses include storing SIM cards, SD cards and other tiny knick-knacks that you may find yourself at a loss for storing in a safe place while on the road.

How to ATTACK a Project

Apologies to all (if any of you are out there :-/) for the extended silence on my blog… Work, amongst other things in my personal life, have taken a bit of a priority. Perhaps its time for a new post to freshen things up. So, here we go…

After spending some time considering some of the most important principles to enforce and variables to track on an IT project, I outlined a condensed list that unknowingly shuffled around spells out ATTACK – rather fitting perhaps, then again slightly humurous…

Below is a breakdown of each letter in the acronym and how you can apply them in your project.

Accountability

Accountability is essentially your key catalyst towards getting things done. Making project participants accountable for their deliverables fuses their career progress/security with their ability to deliver to what they commit to.

Traceability

What good is a project manager/director without an ability to trace historical events for auditing, planning and confirming the validity of planned tasks ahead. Saving every email, document and meeting minute you come across can help you leverage that historical knowledge and align your team in the directions that were originally planned.

Transparency

Project transparency to key project stakeholders is critical. Visibility on he current state of a project’s budget, time line, resources and planning is crucial for the team to align and also provide the necessary feedback/input to help direct each others decisions.

Accelerate

Moving at an accelerated pace goes hand-in-hand with being constantly paranoid about the condition of a project – paranoia, in a positive sense however. If you are paranoid about the progress of a specific task, it proactively forces you to accelerate your pace and move faster than you are typically acclimated to.

Commitment

Commitment is part of remaining motivated on a project. When motivation is low, your commitment can easily degrade and performance within a project can quickly deteriorate. To maintain commitment within the team, it is important to strengthen everyone’s motivation and “positive vibe” – this is part of knowing how to effectively manage and communicate top-down as a project manager/director.

KPIs

No project should move forward without tracking Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Anything from the performance of project participants to, budget/resource metrics – all of it helps. This gives you the reporting you need as a project manager/director to quickly act on weak areas in your project and also provide reporting to project sponsors/management.