Some minor issues

Attended the Multi-Mania conference in Kortrijk yesterday. Great event and great speakers.

My personal highlight of the day was definitely the short chat I had with David Martin, Fantasy Interactive‘s CEO.
For me this company is like an all time favorite. I remember, back in the days, we used to look at the RoadRunner flash portal as an example and a new standard. So many years later (5, 6 ..) the website is still standing.
To give you one particular example.

I talked with David about the design/development distinction. Everybody in the industry knows there is a gap between creation (concepts/designs) and development. It’s a natural gap, which is also enlarged by scope issues and change requests. But for years now FI seem to control this gap. All things they deliver are as perfect as they could. David named a few reasons:

- They don’t work with deadlines. They’re in the position to pick their clients, and work with the most possible care.
- Their motto is “quality over quantity”. It has to be perfect. That’s why they are in this position in the first place, because they aim higher than everybody else. A litter lower the competition is killing, but they rule their universe. A real blue ocean strategy indeed.
- You have to make sure all people involved feel they own the project/product, so they put maximum effort to make it the best they could.

I invented a FI baseline (slightly based on Google’s “don’t be evil”):

DON’T COMPROMISE

So I’m sure these guys keep rocking, and I definitely want to keep in touch. I think we can all learn from them and make our own methods and processes better. I know the business isn’t completely comparable. For instance These Days is much more of a marketing firm. We do campaigns, we obviously can’t live without deadlines. And for me personally, this is one of the fun parts. Rushing, making it work, getting things done.

They’ll launch their blog on Monday, so keep an eye on them.

David, nice talking to you.