Top 5 stupid things I did in 2007

sam@jivesoftware.com — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 08:22:01 GMT

Created Clearspace-branded condoms

True. Amid a lot of controversy at Jive, I created thousands of Clearspace-branded condoms to distribute at San Francisco's Love Parade. In fact, we still have a box of them. I thought it would be a good way to promote a good cause and reach a very techy crowd when they didn't expect it. Although it did get the positive attention of a few customers and some Flickr love, in retrospect, I should have chosen a risk that could have paid off more directly. That said, it's been the joke that keeps on giving. Want one? Ping me: sam@jivesoftware.com.

Fought for a Frankensuite

I argued with Matt and Bill about building Clearspace from the ground up. I wanted to sew together best-of-breed products. They kept telling me that while if we cobbled something together we'd get to market faster, that we'd just end up with a bad product and more work long term. I thought no one would know the difference. Now I make fun of other Frankensuites.

Thought no one would use the blogs in Clearspace

I argued with Aaron Johnson, the killer engineer behind the blogging part of Clearspace (among other things) that no one would blog inside a company. I even made fun of his " meaningful URLs". As you can see from this screenshot from Jive's internal deployment of Clearspace, I sorta ate my words. Turns out 35% of our company blogs and there's an average of 4 comments per blog. I imagine it could be even higher once all our new hires settle in.

Decided to relaunch an entire website in 2 weeks

That's right. A couple of weeks before we launched Clearspace, my small "mini-wesbite" project ended up taking over the entire website. Ten of us worked around the clock for 2 weeks straight and overhauled absolutely everything. It was burnout central. Ironically, we're in-process of overhauling everything again right now but this time we've taken 4 months to do it right.

Didn't hire fast enough

Once we released Clearspace and we were (surprisingly) flooded with interest, I couldn't seem to let go of all the work that needed to be done long enough to focus on hiring. Of course, it could have also been my post about the sort of Marketing people I would never hire.

Blog Posts From Jive Talks Tagged With frankensuites

Top 5 stupid things I did in 2007

Created Clearspace-branded condoms

Fought for a Frankensuite

Thought no one would use the blogs in Clearspace

Decided to relaunch an entire website in 2 weeks

Didn't hire fast enough