{"id":422,"date":"2015-08-21T17:34:04","date_gmt":"2015-08-21T17:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.insideout.io\/en\/?p=422"},"modified":"2015-08-21T17:34:04","modified_gmt":"2015-08-21T17:34:04","slug":"building-wordlift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.insideout.io\/en\/2015\/08\/21\/building-wordlift\/","title":{"rendered":"One Week at the Monastery building WordLift."},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week\u00a0our team has gathered for a focused\u00a0face-to-face session<\/em>\u00a0in a remote location of Abruzzo right in the center of Italy: the\u00a0Abbey of Santo Spirito\u00a0d’Ocre.\u00a0Like early agile-teams<\/a> we’ve discovered once again the importance of\u00a0<\/strong>working together<\/strong> in close proximity<\/strong> and the value of keeping a\u00a0healthy\u00a0balance <\/strong>between hard work<\/strong>\u00a0and quality of life<\/strong><\/span>. We’ve also found ourselves in love with the product we’re building and happy to share it with others.<\/p>\n\n

\n<\/div>\n\n

Our business is made of small\u00a0distributed teams\u00a0organised in startups each one\u00a0self-sufficient and focused on a specific aspect of our technology (we\u00a0help business and individuals manage and organise contents\u00a0being text, data, images or videos<\/em>).<\/span><\/p>\n

As peers\u00a0gathered from different time zones in this unique little monastery of\u00a0c<\/span>istercian order\u00a0we began executing our plan.<\/p>\n

And yes, getting to\u00a0the meeting\u00a0with a clear agenda did help.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0All the\u00a0issues we had in our list had been summarised and shared in a dedicated Trello board. These included mainly the work we’ve been doing in the last years on WordLift\u00a0our semantic editor for WordPress.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Cistercians (at least in the old days) kept\u00a0manual\u00a0labour as a\u00a0central part of their monastic life. In our case we’ve managed to structure most of our days around three core activities:\u00a0business planning<\/em>,\u00a0bug fixing\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0<\/em>software documentation<\/em><\/span>. At the very basis we’ve kept the happiness of working together around something we like.<\/p>\n

Emphatic vs Lean: setting up the Vision.<\/h3>\n

Most of\u00a0the work in startups is governed by lean principles, the tools and the mindset of the people have been strongly influenced by the work of\u00a0Eric Ries\u00a0who\u00a0first published a book to promote\u00a0the lean approach and to share his recipe for continuos innovation and business success. <\/span><\/p>\n

After over three years of work on WordLift\u00a0we\u00a0can say that\u00a0we’ve worked in a complete different way. Lean demands teams to get out of the building and look for problems to be solved. <\/span>In our case, while we’ve\u00a0spent\u00a0most of our time\u00a0“out of the building<\/em>” (and with our clients) we’ve started our product journey from a technology, inspired by the words of\u00a0Tim Berners Lee on\u00a0building a web for open, linked data<\/strong><\/span><\/span> and we’ve studied all possible ways\u00a0to\u00a0create\u00a0<\/strong>an emotional connection with bloggers <\/strong>and writers<\/strong>. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not just that, we have also dedicated time in analyzing the world of journalism, its changes\u00a0and how it will continue evolving\u00a0according to\u00a0journalistic celebrities like David Carr<\/a><\/span><\/span> (a famous journalist of the New York Times who died early on this year) and\u00a0many others like him as well as the\u00a0continuously\u00a0emerging\u00a0landscape of news algorithms that help people reach the content they want.<\/p>\n

\"EstablishUnderstanding that\u00a0WordLift, and the go-to-market process that will follow\u00a0shall\u00a0be empathy-driven<\/strong><\/span> rather than lean\u00a0is one of the greatest outcome of our “monastic<\/em><\/span>” seminar in the valley of L\u2019Aquila. <\/span><\/p>\n

By using an\u00a0empathy-driven expression<\/em>:\u00a0we’ve finally set the Vision.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Organise the Workflow: getting things done.<\/h3>\n

As most of today’s open-source software, WordLift is primarily built over GitHub.<\/p>\n

While GitHub\u00a0can be used and seen as a programming tool, GitHub –\u00a0being\u00a0the\u00a0largest digital\u00a0space for\u00a0collaborative works – embeds your\u00a0workflow. <\/span><\/p>\n

While working at the monastery\u00a0we’ve been able to discuss, test and implement a GitFlow workflow<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Gitflow Workflow<\/em> is designed around\u00a0a strict branching model for\u00a0project releases. While somehow\u00a0complicated in the beginning we see it as\u00a0<\/span>a robust framework for continuing the development of WordLift and for\u00a0doing\u00a0bug fixing without waiting for the next release cycle.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Documentation. Documentation. Documentation.<\/h3>\n

Writing (hopefully good) software documentation\u00a0helps the users of any\u00a0product and shall\u00a0provide a general\u00a0understanding of core\u00a0features and functions.<\/p>\n

The reality is that, when\u00a0documenting your own software<\/em>, the advantages go way beyond the original aim of helping end-users.<\/p>\n

By updating WordLift documentation<\/a>\u00a0we were able to get a clearer overview of all actions<\/strong> required by an editor in composing his\/her blog post and\/or in creating and publishing\u00a0the knowledge graph.<\/a>\u00a0We also have been able to\u00a0detect<\/span>\u00a0flows in the code and\u00a0in\u00a0the user experience.<\/p>\n

Most importantly\u00a0we’ve found that writing the documentation (and this is also done collaboratively over GitHub) can be\u00a0a great way to keep everyone in sync between the\u00a0“Vision” of the product<\/strong> (how to connect with our users<\/em>)\u00a0and the existing implementation<\/strong> (what are we offering with this release).<\/p>\n

Next steps<\/h3>\n

Now it’s time to organise the\u00a0team and start\u00a0the\u00a0next iterations by engaging with the\u00a0first\u00a0users of this new release while\u00a0fine-tuning the\u00a0value proposition (below the emphatic view<\/em> of @mausa89<\/a> on the USP of WordLift).<\/p>\n

\"wordlift3_gotomarket.strategy.001\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As this is the very first blog post I’m writing with WordLift v3 I can tell you I’m very happy about it and if you would like to test\u00a0it too\u00a0join our newsletter.<\/a>..we will keep you posted while\u00a0continue\u00a0playing!<\/p>\n

[hewa_player asset_id=”156″]<\/p>\n

The closing of this blog post\u00a0is\u00a0@colacino_m<\/a>‘s night\u00a0improvisation from the monastery.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Retreat at the Monastery<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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