Work
The Project Manager writes…
Posted by Anita Zein on January 14, 2010
“Success is not the key to happiness.
Happiness is the key to success.
If you love what you are doing,
you will be successful.”
Albert Schweitzer
Anita Zein muses about managing Stampede’s biggest e-commerce project to date. Anita is the Project Manager at Stampede.
I have been a project manager at Stampede close to a year now but this is my very first time really getting a grip on an e-commerce project. Overseeing many projects all at once is quite handful, at least in the beginning. For me, the most important part of every work is to start. Once you start, you’ll find your pace. “It’s alright. I’ll get used to it,” I often said to myself as I hum along with my daily tasks.
Still, in my beautiful and peaceful private office, with my cup of tea (still having problem with coffee) and my only good looking boy sleeping beside me, I keep thinking what a revelation this project has been.
We’re now close to launching one of the biggest e-commerce project in our portfolio yet. It’s a huge online store – a project by one of our client from the States – and so the details are under wrap for now. This whole idea of selling products online is a brilliant industry, especially for the consumer. With only a few minutes of research, online shopping can save you money, frustration, and time. And the shop never closes! It’s only about time the shop goes mobile, and yes, Stampede has plans for that too.
Unlike most resident geeks at Stampede (I love you guys!), I am rather new to electronic commerce and the development of one. And now that I am managing one, it is really exciting.
There are so many details to take into consideration and I tell you, there is nothing easy about building a real, usable e-commerce website. There’s the preliminary requirement document, wireframing, data mining, product categorization and cross-referencing, image editing, price validation, shipping calculation. I can go on all night.
As the project manager, I have to be able to zoom in and out of many things at once. One minute I’m seeing the bigger picture, the next I’m making sure the smallest detail in design is met according to plan. It is a real effort, but only because we apply such strict quality standard to every product that rolls out of Stampede’s door.
But above all, I’m amazed most by the collaboration – everyone in Stampede is going out of their way to help and make sure that this little baby get off the ground splendidly. The extra effort we have taken throughout this project are all necessary complexities. And you can tell we’re all very proud to be part of it.
(photo credit goes to Todd Richardson)
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The Modal Rebrand
Posted by Shaza Hakim on June 2, 2009
“Nailing the new color theme, getting the typography right, translating pixel details and white space accurately into xhtml/css, applying subtle mootools effect without compromising originality of the design…”
Shaza Hakim writes about the challenges in designing Modal and how a good partnership makes it all more fun. Shaza is the Creative Lead at Stampede.
Way to go Modal, Inc. for their new rebrand!
Modal and Stampede have been partners for 3 years, way back when Stampede was few months old. Together the two firms had worked on many projects that ranged from corporate web presence to user interface development. The guys at Modal are not only breathtakingly good in defining user experience that works, they are simply great people to work with too.
As such, we were ecstatic to be involved in the Modal’s new site redesign and development. Designing with Modal will always be series of rewarding challenges. And especially so in this particular project.
Nailing the new color theme, getting the typography right, translating pixel details and white space accurately into xhtml/css, applying subtle mootools effect without compromising originality of the design – these were all projects in their own right. And after barely 10 days of development (awesome work yet again, Shaiful) the website was launched in – what we like to think – all its splendour.
See the process of Modal rebranding chronicled here and the buzz on Twitter. We’ve definitely had a blast designing and developing the site. From the rest of us at Stampede, congratulations to the team at Modal for the awesome rebranding experience!
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Updates, Updates
Posted by Shaza Hakim on December 9, 2008
I’m hooked with Twitter. I tweet in the morning, afternoon and night. I tweet at home, in the office, at my parent’s, in the car and anywhere civilized to do so. How this twittering twit get to me, I have no idea. Maybe I’d twitter it up.
Rocking it with the New York boys
Dov has been working almost full-time on the new (Malin+Goetz) website for the last 6 months. It launched last October with a fully-featured Virtuemart-powered store – far cry from it’s OSCommerce days. It was a long and serious project. And I’m happy it was.
This one opens up possibilities to so many other ways of approaching the management of project and doing it right. We had statement of work revisits, wireframe sessions, design revisions, typography galore, extended e-commerce features, conference, conference and more conference.
And that goes without saying that Andrew Goetz and Matthew Malin of (Malin+Goetz) are particularly fantastic to work with. This is the closest Stampede has ever worked with a client thus far in terms of defining requirements and refining deliverables.
You can imagine our big thrill when it goes live. It was a lot of “la-la-la” and some barely audible “phew”.
Save the rainforest, save the world
On another note, we have started the uphill battle of RainforestAid. To give it the attention it deserves while not diminishing the source of funding from Stampede (!), I now work exclusively on RainforestAid material every Saturday of the week. It’s so addictive that I caught myself trying to steal extra time everyday to do more research and catch up with my reading.
Sounds mundane? Not if you live here on this heavenly island and see it’s beautiful rainforest stripped bare day after day. And then you go to the mainland and apparently all these cutting down forest irresponsibly is all very “normal” and people don’t see “what the fuss is all about”.
RainforestAid is a brainchild of Irshad Mobarak, a naturalist, conservationist and all in all, a great man. It’s a joint-venture between Stampede and Junglewalla and we aim to help reverse the damage done to Southeast Asia’s rainforest from non-sustainable human practices that is so prevalent and sometimes government-endorsed in this part of the world.
Thank you to those who have written their support and offer to contribute as RainforestAid writer and researcher. We now have 4 environmental journalists doing research work and reporting from all over the globe (oohs-and-aahs-adoration goes to Neil, Morgan, Suzanne and Cinnamon) with a few more on the list. It’s humbling to see how this small effort of ours gains so much intellectual and motivational support in such short time.
Adieu, Renee
On a last note, a sad but hopeful farewell to Renee Chung, our xhtml/css extraordinaire who has left to pursue a different path in life. When everybody else would have thrown in the towel and get in their gaming mode, Renee would sit down and plow on until she can’t feel her legs. That’s commitment. So cheers to Renee – may life always smiles sweetly on her. We’ll have you back anytime, girl!
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