Evolution: A Weblog by Third North Creative

Things are heating up on the development side of Team Sport Technologies- and we’re looking for a phenomenal Ruby on Rails Developer:

The ideal candidate would be a passionate, highly motivated programmer with actual job related experience working with Ruby on Rails. Primary duties will include front-end and back-end programming tasks to support a major partner initiative. Secondary duties will include ongoing enhancements to our existing web application and tools to support our sales/support staff as needed.

The candidate will be working in an open, relaxed, creative atmosphere- with a small team of extremely talented developers and designers in a phenomenal loft-style office space (13 foot ceilings, hardwood floors, brick and timber finish, and tons of windows). We hook our design and development staff up with MacBook Pros, big ‘ol flat panels, and all the software they’ll need to create great work.

Find all the nitty-gritty details on the TST Employment page.

It has been about six months since I have joined up with Third North Creative and Team Sport Technologies; it sure has gone by fast as we have been busy developing one of the best web site solutions available for sports organizations.

Now that we have a great product in place- it’s time for us to acquire additional clients. Hiring on an intern for the summer will give us the continued push to keep our client base growing. An internship will also provide a great opportunity for a college student interested in sales and marketing to be apart of an agile and fast paced environment.

We have the full job description posted here. If you’re a coach, parent or neighborhood friend pass the word along to an aspiring college student!

As the NHL season starts to heat up, get your hockey fix by downloading NHL podcasts from iTunes.

“NHL Podcasts are music to the hockey fan’s ears. Official league and team podcasts put you inside the world’s fastest game like never before”

Things have been pretty quiet on Evolution since September.

But we’re back! And although it may have seemed as if we dropped off the face of the earth during November, December and January- we were in fact, hiding out at the studio for days on end, putting the finishing touches on a suite of sports specific web applications that we are ecstatic to introduce today! These applications can be found at the new Team Sport Technologies website.

As previous posts have pointed out, development and design of Version 2 of our Puck Systems web application product was our primary focus for a majority of 2006. As the Puck Systems Version 2 project progressed, our clients made it remarkably clear that the tools we were developing for hockey organizations were needed for other sports organizations as well.

We took this to heart and took the Version 2 project one step further… creating a multi-sport organization management and communication platform unparalleled in the industry. From that day forward “V2″ became “Team Sport Technologies”. It may have taken us a bit longer, but the result is well worth it.

Take a look at what we’ve been up to, and drop us a line if you get a chance.

We are thrilled to announce the addition of Greg Blasko to the Third North Creative/Team Sport Technologies team. Greg’s programming talent, along with his conceptual prowess, will be immediate assets to our web development crew. Plus Greg is a really cool guy.

As Puck Systems Version 2 nears completion, Greg will be working closely with Mike to develop and implement the new features, additions and modules that will be available on V2. Welcome to the circus Greg, we’re excited to have you on the team!

We are proud to announce the launch of the Puck Systems V2 demo site. Stop by the site and check out the new “Add a Page” and “Edit Page” functionality. The demo site is a sneak-peak of what Puck Systems clients can expect in the upcoming V2 release.

V2 represents a total overhaul in functionality and design and truly brings professional internet communication tools to the youth sports realm. Since the inception of Puck Systems we have had the great fortune of working with incredible clients. Clients who are as passionate about their youth sports organizations as we are about web development. It’s these passionate clients that have provided an incredible amount of inspiration during the current development cycle… and ultimately influenced a number of great enhancements and features that will be present in the final release of V2.

Please experiment with the demo, add, edit or delete anything you want. Brief instructions can be found on the “Instructions” page. After you play with the demo, stop back and leave a comment- these comments will serve as valuable input as we put the finishing touches on V2.

UPDATE 2/14/07: We have launched a new Puck Systems Demo Site at: http://demo.pucksystems2.com/

As I’ve mentioned before, one of the defining features in Puck Systems V2 will be the ability to drag, drop and order content at will. Gone will be the days of alpha ordering and the little tricks of the trade that are necessary to manipulate that order.

For example: currently if your association webmaster wants to change the order of the board members on the BOARD page, they have a couple different options. The best option is to position your cursor in the Last Name Blank and hit the space bar to create a space before the last name starts. The more white space, the higher that individual rises on the list. This is a work-around for the current alpha ordering.

While those work-arounds get the job done in the short term, they are not a great long term solution. That is why we’ve created the ability for drag and drop ordering. Using a combination of the Javascript, AJAX and RoR programming languages, all Puck Systems websites will soon have this feature. The attached photo shows the Goal Line website “board” section as the webmaster would see it when logged in. To reorder those names using the drag and drop, the webmaster simply needs to click on the little gray bar above the name and move it up or down accordingly.

Sales of the Puck Systems product slowed ever so slightly in May, but the month did bring of number of new clients. It’s been interesting to see the Puck Systems brand recognition begin to grow on a more national level this month. New clients were added from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Vermont and Iowa, with a number of interested parties in other states across the country.

To help our communication with these “remote” associations and leagues, we’ve tried using a number of Screen Share and Online Meeting programs. Right now we’re using Go To Meeting which does a good job of sharing the screen, and passing mouse and keyboard control back and forth. It seems to run quite quickly on the average. The downside is that it requires to the client to install the free software and it is only available for the PC. I’ve looked high and low for a simple screen share application for Mac, with no luck. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know!

This past week I was given an opportunity to see a speech by Keith Ferrazzi, the best selling author of Never Eat Alone. Keith and a number of other authors and professional speakers were in Minneapolis to film a series of live shows and DVD seminars. They were filming at Paisley Park Studios which are owned and operated by Prince. I was lucky enough to be invited to sit in the studio audience with about 25 other individuals.

I admire Keiths work, so getting to meet him and listen to him in such a intimate atmosphere was a treat. Of all the things he talks about, the one item that really stuck with me was the idea of making yourself and your company completely transparent. To not hide your flaws or shortcomings, to ask your clients what they like and what they think you could improve.

Thats a concept that we are embracing wholeheartedly with Puck Systems. We really do want our associations, districts and other clients to make suggestions and to let us know their thoughts on the product. As you can tell by our plan to roll out Version 2, we take your comments very seriously. Keep them coming, we’ll do everything we can to continually enhance our offering.

Over the past six months it has become increasingly clear that the photo gallery feature in Puck Systems would need to be rebuilt from the ground up in Version 2.

Functionality on the admin side includes drag-and-drop ordering of galleries as well as drag-and-drop organizing of photos within each gallery. Website admins, managers and coaches also have the ability to edit and delete individual galleries and photos.

We have completed a beta version of the photo gallery (which can be seen here) that will be included with Version 2 of Puck Systems.

Drop us a line with your comments if you feel so inclined.