Optional scope contracts

For an upcoming project at TOPP, we’re talking about setting up an optional scope contract [PDF] — where we specify the time, cost and quality, but leave the actual scope of work open.  This approach has many advantages, which I’ll just quote from Beck & Cleal’s document:

  • Customers can change their minds
  • Suppliers aren’t encouraged to sacrifice quality as soon as something goes wrong
  • Customers’ and suppliers’ interests are contractually aligned
  • The knowledge that both parties gain during the project can influence the finished product.

In my experience so far, it has been much easier to set up agreements like this in the private + nonprofit sectors than in the public sector.  Typically, public sector contracts must begin with detailed requirements (beginning with an RFP then a final scope of work), to ensure that the requesting agency doesn’t get screwed over.  The problem with this approach, of course, is that you don’t always know what you need at the beginning of a project, or to rephrase, that’s when you know exactly the least about what you’ll be making.

So my question for you, internet, is have you had experience making optional scope contracts work in the public sector?

// thanks Nate for turning me on to this idea at last year’s Nonprofit DevSummit

2 comments

Dec 18, 2009

2 Comments

Biz

jPlayer sprites SVG

For a little side project, I’m using jPlayer, a nice jQuery-based audio player.   I wanted to skin the buttons a to suit my project, and while jPlayer does support jQuery ThemeRoller skins, I liked the basic look and feel of the standard jPlayer controls.  So, I just traced the default sprites in Illustrator in order to recolor them.  For other jPlayer developers, you can download the source SVG  here, and tweak away.

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Dec 12, 2009

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Design, Javascript

This makes my heart melt

food

Today, Theo took his first ever bite of solid food.  I get all welled up looking at pictures of him while I’m at work.

3 comments

Dec 11, 2009

3 Comments

Life

Is _____ for you?

I get way too much spam in my inbox, even just counting things I’ve signed up for myself.  Most of it I delete, but today’s email from CoTweet stood out, and is worth mentioning.

A while back I signed up for CoTweet, just to check it out — nutshell: CoTweet lets you collaboratively monitor and manage multiple Twitter accounts — but after my initial exploration I didn’t go back to it.  There may have been a reason, there may not have been.

So, CoTweet, noticing my cold start, sent me an email, as any customer-aware and responsive web service should:

Subject: Is CoTweet for you?

Hi Nick,

We’ve noticed that no one has logged in to the @nickgrossman Twitter account through CoTweet lately.

CoTweet is not for everyone. It’s designed for teams who are managing the front-line of the real-time web for their organizations.

….

No other tool allows you to engage customers one-on-one like CoTweet does.

….

They seem to have struck a nice balance between being self-promoting (“No other tool allows…”), while being self-aware and honest (“CoTweet is not for everyone”).  In particular, I found the ordering of the argument to be effective.  Here was my thought process:

Cotweet: “We’ve noticed that no one has logged in…”

Me: “Yeah, yeah, I’m busy” (reaches to delete)

CoTweet: “CoTweet is not for everyone”

Me: “Ah nice, they’re not trying to just straight up sell me.  I appreciate that”

CoTweet: “It’s designed for teams who are managing the front-line of the real-time web for their organizations”

Me: “Oh wait, that’s me”  (clicks sign in link)

So, thinking about my own work, there are two takeaways here:  1) make sure you follow up on cold starts (lord knows we don’t do enough of this with some of our projects), and 2) when you do, phrase it in a way that’s disarming, honest, and helpful.

(looking forward to the email I get after I don’t use it for another 3 weeks)

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Dec 9, 2009

0 Comments

Copywriting, Design

Scribefire is so awesome

I can’t say enough about ScribeFire.  It’s a Firefox add-on that gives you an in-window blogging client.  Here are just a few reasons why it’s awesome:

  1. You’re blogging from within Firefox, and you can move among webpages while keeping your blog post editing window open.  This comes in really handy when looking for references, quoting things, finding pictures, etc.  It also makes it really easy to fire off quick posts — no need to open up a new window, log in, etc., etc.
  2. When you copy something to your clipboard, it’s automatically pasted to the “insert link” dialog.  So, for example, you go to a webpage (while keeping your editor open, see #1 above) and copy the URL from the URL bar.  Then you highlight your text and click the “add link” button.  Bingo!  The URL is already pasted there, and all you have to do is press OK.  Sweet.
  3. You can write to multiple blogs from the same place.  Very nice.  Also a bit dangerous, as you could conceivably post to the wrong blog very easily.  Hasn’t happened to me yet, but I do have a lingering uneasy feeling about it.

So, if you blog and you use Firefox, get Scribefire.  Go get it now.  I promise you’ll thank me.

1 comment

Dec 3, 2009

1 Comment

Tools