Happy New Year!
2007 was a very good year here at Prestwood and I just wanted to wish everyone a happy new year and recap some of our achievements this year.
This year we moved from an Access driven database to SQL Server 2005! There were many times that MS Access just failed us. Now that we are on SQL Server the website is much faster and more stable - good things.
The look and feel of the website is constantly changing but this year marks the biggest changes and the establishment of a consistent look and feel across our family of websites:
Started sending eMags again! We haven't sent out our monthly eMag in quite a few months because we have been building a semi-automated eMag engine. In previous years we would go through a big production each month just to send out the eMagazine. This last year we created a database driven version that far surpasses anything we could manage to do each month. For each subscriber, our eMag engine looks at your settings and the groups you've selected and other data and chooses content to send you. This eMag is our first semi-automated eMag!
Each month (and only once a month) we'll deliver original content to your email. In addition to keeping up with the latest at Prestwood.com, the focus of our eMagazine is on leading and emerging technologies in software development.
We've had many improvements to our online community. The following list highlights a few:
Our biggest accomplishment is the bringing together of all of our data into groups. This has been a long time dream of mine. I did not like having a separate message board, knowledge base, online store, etc. I wanted to create an online experience that surpasses the message board experience but is just as organized and understandable as a message board. I think we've accomplished it.
I completely rewrote our message boards so that I could add unique features. It was a very bumpy road migrating the old posts and message board members, but now we're there!
This year we greatly enhanced your ability to maintain a member home page that features your technical contributions and even your company -- your own area of the web. Our goal is to keep these home pages up forever and have it become a part of your legacy.
This year we started giving members member points. Our goal is to allow you to spend them in our online store. We have set aside a few hundred dollars a month just for items we can add to the online store and purchase with your member points. We hope to go live with this concept early 2008!
With the excitement over blogs on the web, we couldn't resist adding a member blog feature earlier this year. Our original plan was to limit the blogs to technical blogs since we are a technical community. However, we've decided that went against the concept of blogs and very recently decided to allow ANY content (well, any content legal and clean of course). Start a personal blog on Prestwood today!
Job Finder and Employers Features - We've had a job posting and resume database for years but to be honest, they sucked. This year we completely revamped our staffing features and we are very excited about these features. Our hope and goal is to expand Prestwood Software this next year using these features. Right now I'm processing all resumes, job postings, and job applications but I will hire a staffing specialist this next year. I have limited time so the idea is that a staffing specialist can devote more time than I can.
Data Clean Up - The pulling together of data into our new database driven website is going well but we still have a lot of data to migrate including many technical pages from our old website and a few thousand pages I've written along the way.
Member Cleanup - This year we started the process of cleaning up our member database. It's no surprise to anyone that people give false emails and don't really wish to participate. That's okay, but we needed a way to clean out invalid accounts. We started this year with 14,800 full members plus an additional 12,500 eMag ONLY emails. A total of over 27,000! We are asking all full members to verify their email addresses and all eMag only subscribers to validate they still wish to receive our popular monthly eMag. Now, we are sending our eMag ONLY to verified email addresses. We anticipate getting down to a very comfortable 4,000 to 5,000 members and then grow from there.
PSDP Online - PSDP Online is our database driven software development process we use with our clients and this year, we've made more enhancements to it than to any other part of our website.
PSDP Online Overview - Outsourcing done right! PSDP Online offers you visibility into the work we're doing for you. If a task grows into a project, we use our PSDP software development process along with this online database for tracking your project including tasks, requirements, test scripts, builds, defects, etc. The enterprise modeling view ties together multiple applications and multiple projects. This online database serves as a permanent knowledge base for the work we do for you. Also, you have full access to this database so you can add and edit information yourself which can save both time and money. Your company's custom software is YOUR intellectual property. Our online PSDP database is part of your institutional memory.
The Prestwood Staff - The employees, contractors, moderators, and contributers drive Prestwood Software and our online community. Through the years I've had the pleasure of working with and interacting with many developers online in our community and working on projects here at Prestwood Software. I'm proud of what we've accomplished together and I look forward to the future.
Thank you all and here's to a great 2008!
Mike A. Prestwood
President & CEO
Prestwood Software
PrestwoodBoards
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