Blog

This is a very exciting time for all of us at Function Point. Team and Constituents alike.

Welcome to FP800

First a little history. In late fall 2004 we embarked on a new road for the company by launching the first version of Function Point, our web based time sheet and project managment software. In 2005 we worked closely with some of our first users identifying areas we could change, improve and build upon. In 2006 we added new capabilities around multiple rates and staff bill out amounts.  2007 saw improvements to tasking, briefs and resource utilization. In 2008 we improved forecasting revenue, viewing profitability of jobs and a variety of other capabilites.

Now in the first weeks of 2010 we have come to market with yet again a major step forward for the product and the FP Brand.

So what has been done?

• Changed the future of proofing your work and obtaining client feedback including video.

• Extended the system, allowing you to invite your clients to collaborate with you online.

• Added file management tools for storing and backing up large production documents.

Rebuilt the calendar to improve the view of job, task and events.

We have also launched the first view of what our future interface and user interaction will look like.

More to come.

Tate and Ryan have been working very hard to produce documentation on the new system and you will see more of this over the next weeks. Marc, DJ and I will be active reaching out to invite you to sessions designed to improve your productivity and profitability.

Through all of this we have had one very strong and consistent theme. Your input and motivation to inform us of your thoughts. You play a very important part of the release we are offering to you this week and I want to say a big Thank You for that.

We appreciate your continued support and business. Carpe Diem.

Chris Wilson

Last week I had the great experience of visiting the windy city and attending the S.E.M. conference. I was able to catch up with an old friend "Big D" (Duncan Alney) from Firebelly Marketing and make new ones. I was able to meet some great people from various marketing and creative agencies and spread the "fp vibe."


When I left for Chicago from Vancouver it was wet and cold, typical weather for a Vancouver Christmas. I had always been a fan of the white winters. When I arrived in Chicago, I definitely took that back. It started to snow the first night of my trip. Not only did I get snow, but I also got temperatures dipping as low as -5 Fahrenheit, and combined with the wind chill factor, it went down to -30 degrees Celsius. When I walked around and admired the great architecture of downtown Chicago, the buildings acted as a funnel, concentrating the wind to those who ventured outside, even the magnificent mile of Michigan Ave could not keep me outside for very long. Unfortunately fate had other plans as my car was frozen shut for a good 10minutes!
On the flip side, Chicago deep dish pizza was well worth it.


Chicago is much larger city than Vancouver, with almost 11 million people. It's the third largest city in the United States. When I walked through the busy streets, looking around at the Christmas lights, the falling snow, and the stores filled with people busy buying presents, it made me think that when all this chaos and hard work is over, all that is left is the New Year's Resolution.
The very last TASK of the year.

The main purpose of my trip was to work with a growing Chicago-based firm called Fusion92, an Interactive Marketing Company . I spent 3 long days in the boardroom ironing out a workflow and understanding the needs of their company. I held numerous training sessions, jamming in all the info I could present in preparations for a January launch. This seemed to be a common theme in the conference and even when I got back to Vancouver. Christmas is coming up, we're frantically trying to wrap up all the year end tasks, we want to do things better next year. With January brings a new year, a new chance to do things better, more efficiently..."Can we get Function Point up and running by Jan 4th!?!?"


So as you make your New Year's Resolution, get back into shape (which I have to do after all that pizza), try new things, spend more time with family, etc, make a New Year's Resolution professionally. Think of how you can manage your time better? Will you need more staff? How can you load balance, and see how efficiently you are working? Can you take on any more projects? As you sit by the T.V. after a 3rd helping of turkey dinner, think to yourself, how can I manage my time better and work more efficiently. Like many at the S.E.M. conference, Function Point caught their attention.

Wishing everyone a safe and wonderful Christmas break.

Looking forward to talking to you in January!



Ryan Chan
support & deployment manager

Labels: Creative Agencies, Firebelly Marketing, Fusion 92, project management, SEM, time tracking

We all love to fly, Right??

For years the perception of flying and service has been in decline. Overbooked planes, delays, dirty planes and food that is either not available or not something you would want to eat.

On my trip this week to visit clients I have been pleasantly surprised. Flying to Winnipeg was a breeze; the people welcomed, handled my bags, and used my name on more than one occasion.

Words like “Care-antee”, and “we don’t overbook”, are used by this company.

That being said, the most important part of the trip was my opportunity to visit the offices of a number of clients and prospects. This was Function Point’s opportunity to show a Care-antee and to hear from clients, while looking people in the eye and seeing the emotion they put into there business and work.

With prospects it was further exploration off the fit between each company culture, and for people to understand our commitment to service.

On the way home, I had similar service and the plane arrived over 20 minutes early with the announcement crediting the flight crew being quite amusing.

It was really refreshing trip for me. I have much from the trip to discuss with our team. Items around over delivery, pleasant surprises and treating people with unique experiences that are memorable.

Service clients and more will come.

I enjoy my work.

Chris Wilson
Chief Client Advocate

What ended the recession?

I came across a very interesting marketing / business fable the other day (below) and it got me thinking... A few months ago, all I ever heard of was the recession. Agencies were telling me that they were struggling and that because of their financial woes, they would be cutting back significantly on spending. They were working with less projects from existing clients, gaining fewer new clients and seeing a big decrease in billable hours. Times were tough indeed. Then I looked at the paper one day and saw an interesting headline, "The Recession is Over" it read. "Ya right", I thought to myself, "like it can end just like that. Like people are going to just go out and start spending again". Well... it happened. All of the sudden I wasn't hearing about the recession as much. Actually, I stopped hearing about it at all. Instead, I started hearing great stories about winning marketing pitches and exciting new projects starting up. New work was coming in and agencies were becoming much more concerned with process, productivity and efficiency. It was as if Principals of agencies were more concerned with how to avoid a future downtown than they were about how to get out of the current one. Agencies were hiring again too. I spoke with a lot of managers that were combing the recent grad lists from design schools looking for fresh new talent. Times were picking up indeed.

But how and why? I read later articles that spoke of contraction. Experts were saying that while the worst is behind us, we're still in serious trouble. But there was one positive theme that kept popping up and continues to do so; consumer confidence. Consumers are the major shapers of overall economic activity and it makes you wonder, did we only need a little boost of confidence to get us back on track? Was being told the recession was over the actual reason for it's end?

I'm not sure, but here's an interesting fable that is sure to make you think...
There was once a hot dog vendor who sold the very best hot dogs in the city. His business was booming, people loved his hot dogs, and his business steadily increased month after month. The man loved his business and believed in the need to provide great food at a great price.
This man was so busy advertising and selling his hot dogs and making lots of money, that he didn't even have time to read the newspaper or listen to the radio. Consequently, he never heard a word about a predicted recession or the need to cut back to save for the potential economic slowdown. As long as he continued to offer his delicious hot dogs, his customers bought them. He kept advertising, and they kept coming. He kept selling, and they kept buying.
Then one day his college educated son came to visit him. His very intelligent son told him that an economic recession was surely coming. His son told him that people wouldn't have enough money to buy his hot dogs. The successful hot dog vendor had a lot of faith in his son and assumed all the money he's spent on his son's education must be good for something. So he believed his son, took his advice and cut back on his advertising. Additionally, he started ordering less supplies and product, because after all, people would be cutting back soon. He even went so far as to take down many of the billboards that lead to his roadside stand. And sure enough, people stopped coming to him. People stopped buying his hot dogs, and he eventually went broke.
Then he thought to himself. "How smart my son is in predicting this horrible economic crisis."

Labels: advertising, agency software, Contraction, Creative, Downturn, Economy, Efficiency, Productivity, Rebound, Recession

As a newly appointed Account Executive here at Function Point, I have to say: ‘To be able to be the voice that reaches out to people with services that help them increase their profit margins and cut costs a 1000 fold is definitely a privilege’.

No matter how you slice it, when everyone else is panicking and things look bad, there has always been 'opportunity'. If you are diving in or expanding what you are doing, or just managing your risk a little tighter, remember that there are plenty of goods and services that people need and want, no matter what the economy is doing.

In a time of short days and increasing numbers of pink slips, it is easy to let our concept of what is possible for us narrow down with the early twilight. But one of the few upsides of the recession is the opportunity to re-evaluate not only what you want in order to grow but also who we are.

Talk to you soon.

DJ Rana

It has been a long time since I have opened a novel. I’m the kind who likes to read journals, newspapers, articles on business and so on. What many would consider boring. As my not so friendly friends put it, “Chris, you are putting me to sleep with all that time sheet stuff. LOL.

But I find a lot of value in a lot of what I read. That being said, this week I posted on our twitter account a link to an article I am going to act on with our team. “How to Align Employee and Company Interests”. I found the article really applicable as I want to see our team grow and remain engaged with all things Function Point.

The article from the Harvard Business Review, talks of asking each team member to prepare a list of their top five priorities. Then in review ask three questions:

1) Which of these priorities do you think will have the greatest impact for the firm?
2) Which of these interest them the most?
3) Which would they be the most successful with?

Of course the ultimate outcome would be an alignment where one of the priorities is identified when answering each of these questions. Makes sense, but of course we are all human and the likely hood of this is rather small.

The article continues with process for getting everyone onto the same page. Communication, instilling confidence and aligning interests with responsibilities.

So the long and the short of this is related to my upcoming team member reviews. I am going to follow this suggestion and use it as a starting point for personal engagement with each of us in the office.

I am a big believer that the small things that we do today makes a big difference tomorrow, next week and in the next quarter.

With all the great successes we have been having lately I can say the team is doing great work. I feel privileged and can only express how the team at Function Point has never been stronger and more able to move our customers, our product and their own careers forward.

My Gosh, I was just handed a hard cover! The age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our Culture by Terry O’Reilly and Mike Tennant. Something bigger than an article yet related to my passions. I'll read on...

Thanks Jane

Chris

Passwords.

Did the sight of that word make you flinch?

Using good passwords is like getting regular exercise. We know we're supposed to do it, but it's hard to get excited about it. But good passwords are also like a good roof on your house. You're better protected from the harsher 'elements' outside. (In this case, you're better protected from bad guys who want to hack your email or even your bank account).

We all know we're supposed to have hard-to-guess passwords. Here's a simple way to make a hard-to-guess password that is easy to remember.

First, Pick a 4 or 5 word phrase that you can easily remember. This can be a common phrase that others know, like "don't have a cow man", or something special only to you. You'll know it's a good phrase if you think you'll be able to remember it after a few days or weeks.

Go ahead and write it down for now, and put it some place reasonably private, like your daytimer, your wallet or your purse.

Ok, now lets convert this new phrase into a short string of numbers. We can do this by counting the letters in each word:

• don't (5 letters -- we'll count the apostrophe as a letter)
• have (4 letters)
• a (1 letter)
• cow (3 letters)
• man (3 letters)

When we put the letter counts together, "don't have a cow man" translates to "54133". The number your phrase generates is going to be a part of your new password.

You shouldn't write this number down anywhere. You can go ahead and try to memorize it right now, but don't worry if you can't do it. That's why you chose your phrase to be memorable, so that you can easily 'recreate' your number. If you think you are going to forget how you got your number from your phrase, go ahead and write 'count the letters' on the same piece of paper that has your phrase.

With the close of the Summer season and the transition into Fall, it's back to work as usual.
Here in Vancouver it seems like an almost instantaneous change. 3 months of sunshine, right until Oct 1, then the rains. When it rains, it pours out here in the West Coast and it doesn't stop until hmm....next May! Surprisingly we've had some Indian Summer days to remind us what we can look forward to next year.

We've also gone through some exciting changes here at Function Point. Besides the much anticipated client-extranet and re-writes, we have physically moved into our brand new office.
Fortunately, I have a patio, window and sunroof in my office. Unfortunately the rain makes a very loud background noise on the phone, so despite what people think, we are not in igloos or in tents or in the mountains. Not mentioning anyone...Big Gator (aka Chris Spiro ) who has kindly given me the nickname "Moose" and even in our meetings addresses me as "Moose", not "Goose" as in Top Gun, but "Moose."

With the Fall season approaching, it seems as though everyone is getting down to business and trying to implement of Fp system to cut costs and better manage their resources. Function Point is growing at an alarming rate, and as Manager of the Deployment sector, things have never been busier. Lunch has suddenly become a privilege not a right, as my good friend Nicholas from Ferrand Communications gently stated:

"Finish your damn sandwich and come help me out!"

This is very fitting as I always get teased for eating 7 meals a day, or pretty much an equivalent to a sandwich every hour!

New clients, new office, and new features makes Fp the place to be.
Definitely looking forward to finishing off the year strong and looking forward to the upcoming year!

Ryan Chan
Deployment Manager and Head Trainer

Labels: advertising, agency software, Architect, Creative, project management, SaaS, timesheets

It seems quite hard to believe that we've been in our new office for almost 2 weeks now. But you can already see the effects. Just a coat of paint can change the whole way a space feels. And instead of just a coat of paint, we have an entirely new office. It's a mostly open office space that allows the different teams to be closer and work as a more effective cohesive unit. And at the same time, it gives each person (especially the developers, who were working in the room pictured in Alon's last post) more space in which to do what they do best.

The new office has a very professional air to it. Instead of the previous one, which with all the new staff, became a very make-shifted space. It worked, but there is no doubt that this way will work better. The space finally reflects the company--it simply feels like a place where excellent work gets done.

The only downside of an open space is the way heat disperses. The people next to the heater are always warmest. And since I'm usually cold AND on the opposite end of the room from the heater, I've taken to wearing fingerless gloves while working. Partially for fashionable reasons, of course. Gotta try and keep up with the new office.

Sarah