Blogs & Pods

Transition 2.0 (part 2): Evolution of the RCS Management Team

Scales — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:58:05 +0000

Over the past five years at Raincity Studios, we've built a talented and diverse team of drupalers, open sourcers, travelers, photographers, bloggers, vloggers, innovators, cultural transformers, and social media experimenters. We've developed and hosted hundreds of websites and in many cases, we've helped our clients achieve their goals. We've also helped train hundreds of drupal developers and played an active role in helping grow the drupal community around the world.

We're very proud of our track record, but we're the first to acknowledge that we've also made mistakes along the way. We've seen projects fail because we weren't being direct about the poor business model or lack of planning. We've seen projects go broke through mismanagement and we've learned many valuable lessons about cost control, communication, project management and accountability. We've watched some communities flourish while others turned into ghost towns. All of this has taught us a lot about business development, sustainability and our strengths and weaknesses as a studio.

It's also taught us that you can't just keep doing things the same way. Just as the same development solution is not perfect for every client, the same operational model is not the right fit for every business. More importantly, we've learned that our operational model needs to be adaptable to accommodate the changing nature and scale of our business. We've always prided ourselves on being an agile and innovative company and we've never wanted to get too comfortable with our success, so we've been taking practical steps to restructure our operational model and reorganize our offerings. We've been researching the best way to go about doing this by consulting with trusted friends and individuals for whom we have great respect. We're very grateful for the advice and support they have provided us and it's made us optimistic about the possibilities we can create for ourselves in the future.

However, this process has also caused me to reflect on my own role within the company. As a founding partner and majority investor in the studio, my personal and professional life have never been very far apart. In spite of the incredible experiences, the exciting projects and the great people and community, this has not always been an easy road for me to travel. The highs and lows that come with managing a company have been personally taxing and I've struggled to find a balance between my work and my personal life. As a result, I've come to acknowledge that it has affected my abilities to properly manage the studio.

As part of this reorganization effort, I've decided that it is no longer in the best interest of myself nor the studio for me to remain in my current role as CEO. Over the next few months, I will transition with the core team, taking on a new role as Business, Social Media Strategist and Project Consultant. As we create this new transition, we will be looking for a new managing partner to help us achieve our restructuring plan. This has not been an easy decision for me to make, but one that I am confident will be better for our team and clients.

Raincity Studios helped to cultivate and grow the drupal service industry in many ways. Considering the many successes we've been a part of and the valuable lessons we've learned from each of our successes and failures, it would be foolish to look back on these events negatively. It has been a great experience and none of it would have been possible without the amazing people that have worked with us over the years. I am tremendously grateful to have had the opportunity to play a part in organizing countless community events, mentoring a new generation of open source innovators and helping build an industry that I believe is redefining how humans interact and communicate.

It seems like there is a lot of change taking place in 2009 and it has got us quite excited about our future here at the studio. We have several great sites currently under development and there are exciting new projects coming in all the time. Thank you for the encouragement and support that many of you have offered as we reorganize our assets and business offerings. We will continue to keep you informed as we continue this process.

Transition 2.0: the future of an open source agency

Scales — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:45:57 +0000

Lately there's been a lot of changes taking place around here. After the closure of Bryght and moving offices, I've had a lot of people asking me how things are going and what's happening at Raincity Studios. I'd like to try to answer some of those questions here.

But to understand where we are now, I think we need to look back at where we came from and what we have achieved over the past five years.

When Raincity Studios first started, most of us were recent graduates of BCIT's new media program and each shared a love for open source and drupal. Mark Yuasa and I led the early development of the studio, closely followed by Erik Hermans in late 2004. Will Pate and Mariska Richters then joined the team in the spring of 2005 giving us a solid foundation on which to build a company. Our beginning was humble and our future was exciting.

Early on we developed a very organic operational model. From our first makeshift office in my poorly ventilated basement to our beautiful gastown office overlooking the Burrard Inlet, people were always the priority and our emphasis was on empowering our employees. We wanted people to not only produce their best work possible, but to sincerely enjoy doing it. We were a lifestyle company, we produced excellent work and we always maintained great relationships with our clients.

And this model was very successful for us. Over the next few years Raincity grew from a young start up with no revenue to an established and reputable development agency with offices in Canada and China. We employed over 40 folks from around the world, from Africa to the UK, Canada and USA. Over this period we also experienced a steady growth in our revenue, from ~480k in 2006 and ~700k in 2007 to ~1.3 Million in 2008.

In late 2007, under an aggressive plan of action, Raincity took on two exciting initiatives. First, we began the process to acquiring our long time hosting partner, Bryght. We had always had a great relationship with Bryght, founded in 2004 by Boris Mann, Kris Krug, Adrian Rossouw, and many other great folks, and our acquisition was part of a plan to revive the pioneering Drupal deployment and hosting business. At the same time, we began exploring new markets in China. With a dual mandate to research the use of social media at the 2008 Olympic Games and to work with the Chinese open source community in Shanghai and Beijing, Raincity expanded our operations internationally and open an office in Shanghai in November 2007.

It was a very exciting period for the company, but along with the increased revenue, came larger projects, an expanding scope of our business operations and increasing complexity. The past year has been a roller coaster for our team; we saw two amazing projects that showed great potential fail to be successful in the market. After delays in our action plan due poor business processes, we were unable to close our second round of funding. We began facing cost over run, lower monthly revenue, a higher need for human resources and an outrageous monthly deficit being generated by our hosting business.

Since late 2008, we have been working hard to repay our debts, finish projects already in our pipeline and reorganize our operational structure. In order to achieve a sustainable operational level, we were forced to make the difficult decision to close our Shanghai operation. In an additional effort to keep our ourselves as lean as possible, we've re-examined our operational expenses and moved into a smaller office. These decisions have allowed us to cut our monthly operational cost by more than 60% per month.

This process of restructuring has indeed been a difficult, but the early results look very promising. Over the last several months we have paid over half our debts, mostly in arrear salaries owed to graciously patient employees and partners. Through various government assistance programs, we have also been able to apply for grants and tax credits which will be put towards our the remainder of our debt repayment. We're grateful for the existence of such programs and the assistance they are providing to continue our efforts to restructure the company and our offerings.

I would like to personally thank everyone for his or her understanding and I kindly appreciate everyone who offered to help with this restructuring. Your support in the past has helped us define who we are as a company and your ongoing dedication during these hard times is helping us redefine ourselves once again.

As we restructure our operations at Raincity Studios, we intend to keep doing what we do best: building vibrant and sustainable online communities. Our current team represents a wealth of experience managing small to large-scale projects across a range of industries with a specific attentiveness to the user experience needs of online communities. With the experience we've gained over the past five years in the open source development industry and by returning to our roots in service and consulting, we are very excited again about the future of Raincity Studios.

We will continue to keep you in the loop as our restructuring process continues. Thank you again for your support and encouragement

Convergence City

Jeff Traynor — Tue, 19 May 2009 19:19:43 +0000

Last week the local tech community had the chance to shine during Vancouver Digital Week. The week kicked off with the Convergence 09 conference and perhaps the theme stuck with me, but I couldn't help but reflect on Vancouver's position as a city of convergence.

With its film and television industries, the city has long had a reputation as "Hollywood North." It's also home to large gaming industry with many big companies like EA setting up shop in town, a vibrant arts scene and an exciting local music scene that was recently on display as the city hosted the Juno Awards. However, as it was made clear by Ethan Kaplan at nextMedia's Bands, Brands and Audiences, these creative industries can no longer remain isolated. During Vancouver Digital Week we had the chance to see what's possible when these different industries begin to converge.

I was inspired to see so many grassroots initiatives on display. The folks from W2 and Fearless City were out all week providing awesome coverage of the events and showing off the power of community media (including Raincity's SIFT tool). Companies like Pixton, who won a popvox award for best user generated content site, are seeing amazing things happen by putting creative tools in the hands of amateurs while others like The Substream, who won the "best digital learning initiative (technology)" award, are building a community independent filmakers and actively helping to foster visual literacy and critical engagement with cinema.These are the kind of initiatives I get really excited about - initiatives that empower individuals and a help build an informed and culturally engaged public. It was great to see companies like Switch being recognized for their cutting edge work and Invoke Media being recognized for the success of Hootsuite alongside students like Vancouver Film School's Aaron Chiesa being recognized for the thought prevoking film, Iran: A Nation of Bloggers. It's encouraging and a sign of a healthy creative community to see innovation coming from so many different sources.

Congratulations are also in order to all the popvox awards individual standout winners: Danny Robinson for his work at Bootup Labs, Gerri Sinclair from the Centre for Digital Media, Michael Tippet of Now Public and, of course, our good friend and former Raincity President Kris Krug who took home the award for Individual Stand Out in Social Media. Great ideas always take great people who are willing to make the come to life and it seems like Vancouver has no shortage of great people. Check out the full list of winners here

As technologies continue converge, Vancouver appears to be in an excellent position to be a leader both in Canada and around the world. We've got a lot to be excited about, but now that the celebration is done, it's time to get back to work!

DrupalCon with Flowers in our Hair

Jeff Traynor — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:29:17 +0000

Yesterday, Chapter 3 shared their proposal to hold the next drupalcon in San Francisco. I've had the chance to go through it and it's already got me excited at the possibility.

Frankly, I think it's a great idea. I might be biased; I do love San Francisco and I'll find any excuse I can to get down there. It's a beautiful city with lots to see, so many great places to eat and what seems to be an overabundance of good people. Every time I've visited I've been taken aback by how everyone is so friendly and welcoming. It's definitely a city with a lot going for it.

I'm also sure that holding DrupalCon in such close proximity to one of the world's best tech communities will be beneficial to the conference itself. The proximity to so many great resources and smart people is bound to make for a great experience for everyone attending. And besides, the last two DrupalCons have been on the East Coast...isn't it time for a move out West?

I'm confident that with the folks from Chapter 3 at the helm, we'll be in good hands. They do great work and have always been committed to building and maintaining a healthy community for the Drupal project. Check out the proposal and give the Chapter 3 folks some love and support if you think it's a good idea.

Fans treat their artists like they treat their lovers...

Jeff Traynor — Tue, 12 May 2009 18:36:32 +0000

Last night nextMedia hosted their Vancouver event, Bands, Brands and Audiences, at the new Vancouver Convention and Exhibition centre. Anyone who had been attendeding the Convergence09 conference during they day and chose to skip the evening event to catch the Canucks game definitely missed out. The event featured keynote presentations from Ethan Kaplan, Vice President of Technology for Warner Bros. Records, and Robert H. Reynolds, Lawyer and Manager for the multi-platinum band The Killers. The evening offered a lot of great insight and like many of these events, likely left attendees with more questions than answers - but at least they're good questions to be asking.

Kaplan's presentation on "What the industry can teach us about technological change" addressed many of the changes the music industry has gone through from the prespective of the record label. Gone are the days of payola and likewise the losing battle with file sharing. Kaplan, as VP of technology, has overseen the implementation of a network of over 120 community sites (all built on drupal!) where artists have a space to interact directly with their fans. According to Kaplan, any social media strategy requires four key factors: Deliberation, Adaptability, a Measured Approach and Determination. Social media, unlike other distribution channels, doesn't seem to work well with an out-of-the-box solution. Bands, like their fans, are unique and produce unique relationships. Kaplan did a great job of illustrating how bands are no longer in a position to prescribe their image to their fans, but their image is now negotiated through the relationship they have with their fans.

Reynold's presentation on "promotion, marketing and selling out in the 21st century" spoke to the decisions a band or manager has to make to protect the relationship they have with their audience. In his words, "fans treat their artists like they treat their lovers," so you can't just go around cheating on them. Even with an audience as large The Killers have, Reynolds told of the importance of regular communication with fans as a way of remaining authentic. Selling out, in Reynold's opinion, happens when a band moves away from what kept them authentic. Bands will inevitably change over the course of their career, experimenting with new styles and musical genres, but keeping their audience in the loop can help a band remain authentic. After all, a band isn't much without an audience.

And while the keynote presentations were great, probably one of the most interesting parts of the night was the panel discussion that took place at the end of the evening. The discussion, led by former Raincity Studios president Kris Krug, featured both Kaplan and Reynolds alongside vancouver-based indie artist Adaline, The Beat Music Director JaXon Hawks, and David Gratton, VP Products and Business Director of Work[at]Play. The panelists themselves illustrated the diversity of the music industry, from the independent artist using free online tools to distribute her work to the lawyer who pens multi-million dollar recording contracts for his band that's touring the globe. Likewise the distribution channels, it was great to see the conversation including both new media initiatives alongside traditional radio stations. In this sense, the panel seemed very representative of the music industry itself with everybody trying to figure out how to operate in an industry in flux.

If anything, the only shortcoming of the evening was there just wasn't enough time to really dig into what was being discussed. But the event definitely left people with some great questions, started some great conversations and I'm pretty sure most people left excited about opportunities social media has to offer, not just bands, but anyone with an audience online.