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Zooomr Powered by Zoho – Launch!

(Updated)

For the past three four days we’ve been witnessing a great example for the power of community. Zooomr, “The Little Photo Sharing Site That Could… ” has been down for 12 days now. Unfortunately, not for the first timesmile_sad

A few months ago after a failed attempt to upgrade to a major new release, Mark III, Zooomr had to roll back to the previous release, and the whole affair cost two days of outage. In fact the service has never been particularly reliable, temporary outages and slow-downs are quite common. (I know this first-hand, whenever they go down, my blog looks ugly with just placeholders instead of images.)

Then, on March 21st TechCrunch announced the Launch of Zooomr Mark III, with a better look and a host of new features. This post turned out to be premature: the launch failed. Readers who clicked through found a dead site – instead of the Zooomr they could watch Founder Kristopher Tate on Ustream.tv, and some blurb on the Zooomr blog about technical difficulties. (I still can’t decide what’s more exciting: Kristopher sleeping live or Justin.tv doing the same…) On a side-note, this may very well be TechCrunch’s worst blunder ever, and uncharacteristically of Mike, no correction has been posted ever since.

Days later Zooomr was still off-line. Failing twice so spectacularly, along with the smaller problems would normally be enough to bury any startup – except Zooomr, which has a cult-like fan-base undeterred by anything. Is it the product features? Or the fact that Kris was 17 when he started working on it? I can’t figure out the magic, I just sense its presencesmile_wink.

On the eighth day after the TechCrunch announcement, Zooomr Mark III came up live – for a grand total of 10-15 minutes, when their database server crashed. This appeared to be the last straw… Thomas and Kris realized they needed help. The Zooomr site now has a button to make a donation, and Robert Scoble posted a call for help. Zooomr users, at least the more vocal ones still did not lose their faith; they kept on cheering Kristopher, thanking him for his heroic effort… it looks like in the Zooomr world trying hard is good enough… Wednesday morning Zooomr’s PayPal donation account was over $1,500 – some chipped in $5, others $20-30. “Normal” startups would kill to have such dedicated fans/users – I don’t know how Zooomr achieved such status, but any service with such a fanatic fan-base is worth saving… and the saviors arrived soon: first Zoho, then Sun.

Zoho offered its data center and and an additional server to replace the dead one, with identical configuration. Zoho’s Raju Vegesna spent the entire day with the Zooomr team, moving/installing their gear, and configuring the new server. Users and the world could follow the entire process on Ustream.tv. Then word got out that Sun offered one of their “big irons” a Thumper for a 60-day loan. By midnight all the servers were configured, the day ended on a positive note, which is certainly reflected in the flood of enthusiastic thank-you letters Zooomr users sent to Zoho:

Subject :You guys ROCK!

================ Forwarded Mail ===============

You’re willingness to lend a helping hand to Kris and Thomas of Zooomr is simply awesome!

As a member of the Zooomr community, I say thank you and YOU GUYS ROCK!

Subject :Way to go!

================ Forwarded Mail ===============

I wanted to send you this email, saluting your efforts to help a fellow Web 2.0 visionary organization, Zooomr.

I am a Zooomr user, and a proud member of the ZooomrNation. With their recent server problems, I knew that only a select few would even entertain a conversation with the struggling Zooomr crew.

So, thanks. Thanks for your help in our time of need. You are our Samaritan.

[name removed], proud new user of Zoho.com

The last letter shows Zoho may have picked up a few users in the process – well, I’ve said before, you don’t have to be entirely altruistic to do good.smile_regular

If Day 1 of the crisis (day 10 counting from the failed Launch) brought progress, Day 2 turned out to be a soap opera.

No status update anywhere on Zooomr’ site or blog: the only “information” available is watching Kristopher Tate sleep live on Ustream.tv. OK, he needs to sleep.. but when he wakes up around 11am, he spends another hour in bed chatting on Ustream.tv. Dude, your system is down, but now you have all the hardware you need get out of bed, do something!

By the time he finally arrives to the data center, the Sun team is there with the Thumper. It turns out their machine needs 240V power and the site only has 110V. Phone calls, consultation… Sun finally says they can plug it in anyway, even though it’s not officially supported. Oops… it draws way too much power. More phone calls… finally the Sun team pulls out half the drives and declares the server is safe to use this way. A few minutes after they leave, the server goes down. If these comments are half right, better be careful guys, you may be liable for a crippled Sun!

Never mind the Sun server, it turns out the dead original server may not be so dead after all. Scoble, be proud, Michael Dell is reading your blog! He personally emailed a Dell tech to get over to Zooomr… and voila’ – by late evening the original “dead” Dell server is fixed. In the meantime Kris chats with the Ustream crowd, telling them he intends to bring Zooomr back up on the fixed Dell server.

But by now, two days into the crisis everyone wants to help: a Microsoft Evangelist says “call anytime”. Late evening Kris and Scoble chat on Ustream about how to contact this MS guy. But more advice is the last thing Kristopher needs – all he needs is focus on getting the system back online. Late evening he rattles off a number of hurdles he still needs to overcome, listing the power consumption problem as the main one. This obsession with the Sun machine is becoming a distraction. More about that tomorrow…

Day 3 (day 12 offline) early morning finds Kristopher in the data center – looks like he spent the night there, and there’s a Sun rep with him. Heroic effort, but why? He must feel like a kid in a candy store… wants to have all those goodies around him – understandable, but that should not be the priority right now. He’s had all the hardware he needed since Wednesday night, why isn’t he focusing on getting the service back online?

I’ve never thought I would agree with Shelley Powers one day – she often attacks people and tends to be mean. Her comments on Scoble’s blog were somewhat vicious… but I have to admit she raises valid points. Zooomr is a great service (when it runs) but is far from being a professionally managed company, as recognized CEO Thomas Hawk himself. Forget all previous blunders, let’s just focus on the current crisis:

  • No communication to users for days – *CEO* MIA for the second day. “Cool” (childish ?) videos instead of facts.
  • No clear action plan to bring to service back.
  • Fiddling around with additional equipment that’s a nice-to-have but not needed to bring Zooomr online.

I am not questioning Kristopher’s good intentions. He is thinking of the “bigger picture” – wants all the server capacity he can have, upgrade to the new system with all the bells & whistles, fix some of their scalability issues (MySQL vs. PostgreSQL)… you name it. He wants it all perfect, and perhaps thinks now at day 12 time really does not matter anymore .. just do everything right, however long it takes.

Good intentions aside, what he really needs now is razor-sharp focus on doing whatever it takes to bring Zooomr online now. When you run a Software-as-a-Service business, even if it’s all free, people, in this case 50-100,000 users become dependent on you – that’s a responsibility. Understanding that responsibility is what differentiates business leaders from dreamers – however well-intentioned, talented they are.

Don’t get me wrong, I still like Zooomr, the service, if and when it comes back. I like it mostly for the features (some of which found their way into Flickr) and the attention they paid to bloggers when they gave us all Pro accounts in the early days. Other users will stick around for the community – arguably the biggest value Zooomr has now.

It’s for this community, and the 50-100,000 users (different numbers float around) that I thank Zoho, Sun and the numerous individual users who donated, for stepping up to help save Zooomr. The “saving” part is done. I’ve been updating this article for three days now – I am hitting “post” in the hope there will not be a Day 4 (13), because we’ll see Zooomr live today. It’s up to Kristopher now.

Update (6/2): Day 4 arrived and Zooomr is still down, but there are signs of life coming back. Static photos were back up yesterday (older blog posts no longer show a placeholder for images), and the Zooomr blog is live again. Robert Scoble drove Kristopher back to the Zoho data center for another long night session, and Zoho’s Raju Vegesna also arrived. At about 2am it looked like all the hardware issues were resolved, and Zooomr may be restarted later today – after Kristopher gets some sleep.

Update (6/2, 11:08PM): Zooomr Mark III Launched just this minute. It appears to be working.11:25PM: It’s down. 11:35PM It’s up. Well, I’m not going to declare this a Launch until at least tomorrow…

Update (6/3): Check out the Zoomr and Zoho blogs for updates.

Update (6/3):  The Zooomr Saga Continues

Update (7/25): Sleeping on the job.

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StartupSearch: Niall Nuked his Own Startup?

Niall Kennedy, known for his previous role in Technorati (and for a short while at Microsoft) has launched a new site: StartupSearch.  Don’t bother clicking through: the site is down.  It did not even get TechCrunched: Niall’s own blog post, VentureBeat, Mashable! and a TechMeme placement seems to have been enough to kill it.

And what’s with the name?  Startup Search is clearly a good name, but you have to remember to use the .org domain, since startupsearch.com is taken by someone else.  I thought it was fundamental to get a .com domain… but wait, isn’t Niall the expert in all this? smile_omg

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Technorati Split into Two

Technorati redesigned again –  as expected, the initial feedback is rather mixed.  Robert Scoble likes it, so does parislemon, most commenters on TechCrunch are fairly critical.  My quick assessment:

The original Technorati home page is busy, the ticker is useless, and when I click on search, I get few results and a lot of crap, it takes another click to get a list of relevant (?) posts.  That’s by design, they are trying to re-profile themselves, moving away from blog-search, into multi-media.  I am missing the authority filter though.  Imperfect as it is, the authority filter was a way to get rid of bots, typically blogs with 0 inbound links that scrape content from other sites.

There is a simple, “googlyfied” Technorati though, at s.technorati.com – simple, fast (!), focusing on blog posts, and this one has the authority filter, which is the only reason I haven’t switched to Google Blog Search yet.  The “S” version will be my new default Technorati from now on. (For the “ego trip”   I still have to go back to the old one…)

 

 

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Snap CO2 Saver Abuses Green Theme

I used to really dislike Snap (the obtrusive preview bubbles popping up and covering just what you were about to read), but I changed my mind when they became “civilized” and introduced little preview icons, instead of popping up over any URL. Even so, the preview bubbles were clearly just a popular Trojan Horse to get users install their script and help them build their search capabilities.

Their current CO2 Saver campaign is a new low, though.

 

They want you to install their CO2 Saver Bar, which will:

  • Save energy when your computer is idle – Reduce electricity usage;
  • Reduce harmful CO2 and other emissions;
  • Lower your electric and cooling bills;
  • Show how much you’ve saved!

What it does is adjust some of your Windows Power settings.  I have those set just right, thank you – why would I need to run another resident program ALL the time?  Isn’t that .. get this! – a waste?  Oh, and note to Snap: before you tinker with my system settings, the minimum I expect is that you tell me exactly what you’re about to change.   Not some fuzzy BS about saving the Earth…

Oh, and by the way, while you’re so happy about “going green”, you also have installed Snap’s Search Box.  That’s what it’s all about: Snap knows very well nobody would download just another search-bar, so they dress it up in “save-the-Earth” theme. A very, very dishonest effort.

 

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Half a Million Kids in the US Have Autism

Simon Lynch, the autistic child Bruce Willis is protecting in Mercury Rising has a special talent, which puts him in danger when he innocently breaks the “unbreakable” National Security Agency code.   Raymond, Justin Hoffmann’s autistic character in Rain Man has amazing memory and outstanding mathematical capabilities.  These two are likely the first two characters most of us think of when hearing the word autism.

The two film characters are not typical though: they are autistic savants, having developmental problems combined with extraordinary mental abilities in a particular area.  They represent a small fraction; most children with autism don’t excel any any particular area, they are average, normal kids – but they lack the ability to interact, socialize, communicate.

 

Quinn, the adorable boy in the video  above writes a lot. His parents did not teach him, they just caught him writing out the full credits of films he saw.  He is a Read/Write kid – but he lacks verbal communication, as most children with autism do.  They tend to focus a lot on a narrow area of interest, often mechanical, moving things, have a good memory for visual patterns, and prefer predictability, regular patterns.    

Siddhu likes to draw … a lot.   His favorite objects are cars, and anything that have to do with cars – mostly keys.  When he was 3, he often got obsessed with precisely drawing car keys repeatedly for hours, until he got it right.  Yet his communication skills were close to non-existent. Some of the “normal” things we take for granted are a major milestone for autistic kids – just look at this breakthrough in Siddhu’s life, told by his father: 

“Today my son achieved a breakthrough. Usually I get him ready for school in the morning. After I seat him in the school bus, I come out and wave. He would just stare at me through the window. Today, he smiled and waved back – something that he hasn’t done before.

Recovering from autism is a series of these successes. What appears so natural that we overlook it in a normal child is Herculean effort for these kids. I am happy he made this breakthrough today. “

Quinn’s Mom is an 80’s music fan – she and I must be of the same generation.  In the 80’s when she was chasing her favorite bands to pose with, 1 out of every 100,000 children were diagnosed with autism.  By the time she gave birth to Quinn, that ratio was 1:160, and for boys it’s 1:100.  Yes, it means 1% of every boy born today will have autism. That’s a significant ratio,  and an alarming rate of increase since the 80’s.  At this rate sooner or later we’ll all know someone with an autistic child.

Until yesterday my ignorance put me in the camp whose understanding was limited to Rain Main and the “Bruce Willis kid” – now I’ve spent hours reading up on the subject, and I don’t regret it.   What prompted me to do a little “research” (I’m hesitant to call it such; half a day into this is nothing compared to the ongoing research that becomes a lifestyle for parents involved)  was an article by Robert Scoble. Having finished an interview with Adventnet (better known for their Zoho brand) CEO Sridhar Vembu, they “got personal”, and as often the case, the really interesting discussion came up off-camera.   Now Robert has a better understanding why Sridhar isn’t worried about Google or Microsoft when he wakes up at night.. his got bigger things to worry about:

“Dealing with autism has brought a different perspective in life: almost everything looks like a small challenge compared to this. Having him speak fluently is the equivalent of winning the Nobel Prize for me and my wife.”

Sridhar and his wife are taking a very active approach to treating their son.  Behavioral treatment is the established course for autism; however, Siddhu’s parents subscribe to the theory that vaccinations, and particularly mercury contamination may be the cause, and they took their son to several courses of biochemical treatments.

The following to videos from NBC talk about the mercury-theory and an aggressive type of treatment, chelation.

 

 

Chelation, and mercury-contamination as primary cause are highly controversial – however, some parents clearly feel they don’t have other choices left.  If treatment can be be successful at all, it has better chances at early stages, so they feel they don’t have the luxury of waiting for the medical establishment to clear the way. (Talk about “luxury”, not all families can afford these treatments, some costing $50K and more).

The Scoble article sparked a heated debate amongst commenters – mostly parents of kids with autism.   The dispute around the merits of biomedical treatments, vaccination as a cause are not surprising – but I am seeing another battle-line drawn, between those who are seeking to cure autism, and those who reject a “cure”, since autism is not a disease, not a developmental disorder… it’s just the way some people are, and that’s all right. 

Adam is 5 years old, and has autism.  Her Mom is doing everything she can to give him a full, happy life, and as she blogs in Joy Is Not An Outcome, he can’t spend his life maximizing therapy, struggling to become “normal”.  He needs to be a happy boy, today and every day. This is what his Mom wrote on his 5th birthday:

“Today, on his 5th birthday, I do not mourn the child I do not have, I celebrate the Adam I do have, to whom I responsible, and to whom I owe a great amount of fortitude and joy. His life is full of possibilities, and he will never disappoint me.”

I think it’s a very respectable approach. Joy today, joy with Adam yes… “Joy of Autism”, as the blog’s title says …well, I’m not sure. If there was a choice to live life without autism, I’m sure that’s what Adam’s parents would prefer. But they don’t have that choice, and are making the best of the situation they are in.

The next video is rather disturbing difficult to watch, but if you watch it all the way, you gain insight to the very coherent and logical arguments  of  an autistic adult making the point that she sings, talks, listens, feels … in fact she is communicating – in her own language.

 

“It is only when I type something in your language that you refer to me as having communication”

She is right  – but communication is a two-way street, and  the brutal reality is that the world, the rest of us won’t learn her language.. so she is missing something. 

I’m struggling to put this into words, as I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but the point I’m trying to make is this: while it’s everyone’s right to select their approach to autism, and for many acceptance is the right one, denial does not help – after all, if you could eradicate autism overnight, you’d probably do it, so let other people pursue this option… they are not doing it to hurt you.  Here’s a comment from Robert’s blog:

You’re not “spreading the word” on autism (as Sridhar claims), you’re spreading hate and bigotry. I don’t appreciate it. My amazing child does not appreciate it.

Re-reading and re-reading again, I don’t find bigotry, hatred – I find respect and admiration for the parents who deal with a difficult situation. Robert has not done months of research, but that does not mean he should not be allowed to even touch the subject, like some commenters suggest.  The fact that he talks about autism, and accepts the common definition of it being a developmental disorder does not hurt children suffering from it, does not place a stigma on anyone who wants to be “just normal”.  (Update: Please read comment #91 from Baxter’s Mom)

The fact that some parents pursue more aggressive course of treatment then others, or in fact that they pursue any treatment at all does not label other autistic kids as “abnormal”.  As a matter of fact I suspect the choice between acceptance, “autism is the way I am” vs. trying to cure it strongly correlates to the severity of the symptoms.  The commenter who was only diagnosed at age 33 likely didn’t have very serious symptoms, unlike several other children whose parents report outbreaks (like banging one’s head in the wall) that can inflict self-injury.  Clearly, these are extreme cases, but they make the point that in many cases pursuing treatment may just be the right option. And again, this does not label anyone else sick.  Each family should evaluate their own situation, and whatever decision they make will be the right one for them. 

Finally, I’d like to finish this discussion on a positive note, by pointing to an earlier post of mine:  Autistic Kid Becomes Basketball Star.

 

 

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The Lobby, or Why We Attend Conferences

It used to be for the information.  Today it’s easier to follow the flow online, yet we’re still going, for the networking. Meet interesting new people, or those we’ve known for a while, just not face-to-face.  I guess this is the gist of David Hornik’s hilarious invitation video to The Lobby, his Conference without the conference:

In a great conference, the conversation in the lobby is the content” – so he scraps the keynotes, panels, etc, and keeps the interesting part:-)

My favorite “conference” was the Techdirt Greenhouse – a perfect mix of some structure/agenda and the participatory unconference. (TechDirt team, isn’t it time for #3?)  It certainly did  not attract the corporate conference-tourist crowd: anybody that sacrificed their Saturday was clearly there to participate.  

The same was likely true for the Web 2.0 Open sessions at Web 2.0 Expo.  Most sessions were too technical  for me (dumb business-type, stuck on the border between Businessland and Geekdom…) but I did see enthusiastic participants involved in discussions around 9pm, when most of the “mainstream” attendees were out partying.beer

As much as I favor these unconferences, I  (we …) still attend some of the regular ones – like Software 2007 next week, and TieCon 2007 the week after, and who knows what else.  Let’s be honest: isn’t there a “to be seen” factor that drives of us to some (most?) of these events?

David Hornik’s Lobby will surely try to capture the participatory, conversational essence of conferences, without the mandatory crap around it … and it will surely be subject to the Foo Camp-like ritual: since it’s invitation only, everybody who wants to be considered somebody will try to get invited, and if they can’t, they will claim they were not interested anywaysmile_tongue.

Yes, this is a private, invitation-only party conference (?) outed by Valleywag.  Private or not, I can’t blame Valleywag for writing about it, after all, that’s the job of the “Valley’s Gossip Rag”.  But pusblishing a userid and password from a private source is clearly a new low – even for ValleyRag.thumbs_down

UpdateValleywag runs a poll on which *one* conference you’d attend:  TED leads by a mile, but the the Davos World Economic Forum barely comes in second, ahead of yet-to-be-seen TechCrunch 2.0.

Update #2: Valleywag published the list of attendees, “the New Media Elite

Update #3:  I’ve told you:  Are you on the list? -asks VentureBeat’s Matt Marshall.

 

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Technorati Replaces User Data With Advertising

Here’s the Technorati homepage.  If you’re signed in, your blog’s basic stats would appear at the upper right corner, which is now covered occupied by advertising:

It’s frustrating enough to see ads hide actual content on Yahoo..etc, but normally there’s a way to click and close it. Not this one. This is a solid ad, you read it or leave it, it won’t go away. So where’s the account data?  Your guess is as good as mine … it’s gone!  You can randomly click around, and find it after a few clicks via Favorites, Ping ..etc – but the most important information, along with your inbound links is completely missing from the Front Page.

Perhaps Technorati are just as confused as I am… the WTF button on the left takes on a new (old) meaning…thumbs_down

Update (4/25):  Apparently it was a bug, Technorati fixed it. Kudos for responding fast!   At the same time…I know it’s “release often, release early” but I didn’t think testing became a 100% user function…

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The Best Quote from Web 2.0 Expo

And the Best Quote Award (so far) goes to…. drumroll…

      …. Phil Wainewright for summing  up the wi-fi fiasco at Web 2.0:

“I was planning to live-blog the debate, but in a marketing masterstroke by WiFi sponsor Adobe to bolster interest in its Apollo smart client technology, the coverage was so poor I was obliged to take notes offline.” smile_teeth

Hilarious.  Btw, don’t expect longer posts from me for lack of power and wireless.

 

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Surprises @ Web 2.0 Expo

thumbs_up Surprise #1: It’s early Sunday morning, and there’s a huge crowd! Wow!   ExpoCal only showed a few dozen names for the Sunday sessions, so I figured this was just for the crazy-enthusiasts, the real crowd hits tomorrow.  It’s great to see so many participants. 

thumbs_down Surprise #2:  Registration is a disaster. A Case Study in how the best technology becomes worthless without the right process.  I’m guided in the pre-registered line, it goes quite fast, then in the data entry area I enter my name and click “print” to initiate printing my badge.  So far, so good: next step is another (not-too-long) line to actually pick up the badge. 

The line is somewhat pointless though, you have to wait till they call out your name. After 15 minutes or so, I do step up, and ask, only to find out, that if I checked in on any but the first three rows of computers, it goes to another bank of printers, at the other end of the check-in area, where all the crowd for on-site registration is. Great!  Nobody has told this before.

Over to the other line, nobody seems to have my badge, am told to wait till my name is called. I’m sure I was called earlier, someone must have picked it up, it’s been over 20 minutes now. After a while, I have a crazy idea: walk up to a computer again, let’s see if I can re-print my badge.  I shouldn’t be able to … but wow! it works!  Here we go: send to print again, and voila! I am called and have the badge in hands in 5 minutes.

Now I only have to walk back to the area where I started to pick up conference material .. then up to the workshop floor.  Dear organizers, despite Surprise #1 above, this is still just the rehearsal, tomorrow the real crowd arrives, you better fix this chaotic process.

Update: It’s Monday, the first full day, and I’m glad to see the problem fixed: there are clear signs that match the computer rows to the printers, registration is easy, no crowd to be found.

thumbs_down Surprise #3:  Web 2.0 needs connectivity, we all know that.  Wireless works, albeit sloooowly.  But…but: we need, power, too. I know, it’s my fault, should have carried extra batteries.. and there’s never enough power outlet for all attendees. But I haven’t been to any conference where’s not a single power outlet in the entire room. I’m sitting outside, next to a watercooler (which runs on power, so it led me to a spare outlet), trying to recharge my hungry laptop.  I’m afraid starting tomorrow, there will be tough competition for these spots.

That’s it for now, joining Ismael’s session.

Update, Monday: power still non-existent, wi-fi dying. It’s useless, and I’m sitting in the Mindtouch wiki session, where Ken  Lui just gave up trying to demo anything, due to poor connection.   Web 2.0 Expo with Web 0.5 connection:-(

 

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Atlassian is Hiring a VP of Marketing

I don’t typically broadcast job searches, but I’m breaking that tradition now for a few reasons.

1: Cool cartoon smile_wink

2: Atlassian is a great company, that I wrote about quite a few times. Being “great” means not only $ucce$$ful, fast-growing, but also a good team to be part of.

3: Transparency. I just wrote about this recently, and Atlassian President Jeffrey Walker proves it again, by sharing his thoughts on the hiring process. I agree with almost all his points, except #8, the backup plan: Executive Recruiters. I think Atlassian is still at a size where they are better off finding the right candidate through their personal network – or they may face situations like this.

So while it looks like they are well on their way finding the right person, if you, or somebody you know are the candidate they’ve been waiting for, contact Jeffrey NOW. Somehow I think the beer-test might be relaxed this time.

But be warned: great company as it is, it’s also a dangerous bunch! smile_shades