EDIT: Same concern over rescuetime which sends all the corporate urls to thier server?
It's probably likelier that you'd have a disgruntled tech/admin do something untoward with the data on a local version of the app.
2- Although being focused is good, it can be open to anyone as anyone can find a "use model" for it. eg students who want to track their progress throughout the semester (while using twitter).
2. Yep. We're first focusing on companies because that's the one we're most familiar with. That being said, there's no reason a student couldn't use it the way it stands now ...
i have a similar system, but much more rudimentary in place, i've got an email sent daily automatically to all teammembers asking them 2 questions.
what did you do today? how long did each task take you?
i hoped to do some reports but haven't done it since i must get the info out of the emails, so i was thinking on getting a webpage up where team members would update their work done, and now you just did it.
so thank you and congratulations!
just one thing, so now that we can measure the amount of work done, what about the quality of the results and the time it took to do? oh, and what about what i need to do, maybe something like nowdothis.com could help...
Having worked in the corporate world and in start-ups I can tell you now that most corporate clients already have a time sheet system that is a pain in the a. Employees spend at least 30mins or so a day writing everything they did throughout the day and billing their time where appropriate.
When it comes to getting management feedback for each task you did, again managers are time poor having to deal with more then 1 person in their team + their own tasks from higher management. Hence why performance reviews between you and manager occur every quarter / 6 months / annually and only focus on the high level picture - the stuff that counts - the outcomes / results.
Micromanagement is another issue; no one likes to jot down every action they did. What "matters" is always the end result not the bits in the middle. I.e. taking a client for coffee spending 2 hours out of the office is a step to a potential sale (building rapport). At the end of the day, the sale is what will count on your performance agreement not the coffee break. My manager doesn't want to know that I went to coffee with a client unless I managed to get a sale.
I'm sure some of you would have heard this before but the best workers are those where management give them what they need to do their job and let them do it without micromanaging their time. How and when they do it doesn't matter, all that matters is the end results (outcomes).
My first impression--besides idiotwork--is that they really make things simple. They seems to be going for the twitter, microblogging style for management. They really reduce a lot of the fat out of managing tasks and reporting.
I like how it just asks, "What did you do?" Instead of, "what's the progress?" "what are your road blocks?" "are you sure you're not critical path?" I'm not sure if this tool will answer those questions, but I'm not sure if they're aiming to do that either.
But then again, I'm not as "time poor" as some may be.
Here's what it looks like: http://files.dangrover.com/wwactivity.png
That's sales (integrated with the order system), SVN commits, wiki edits, bug tickets.
There's also a pane that shows yearly/monthly/daily goals for sales.
I'm going to have it keep track of my releases too, just so that I can quickly update the site, appcasts, etc and have it tell me when a major release is getting long in the tooth.
Since I use Mint for web stats, I've thought about joining that in just to try to correlate hits/sales, but haven't gotten around to it. Too meta :)
The name has problems, though. First, it seems a bit defensive: "Look, I did work!" Second, it looks/sounds a little like 'idiotwork'.
There are tons of themes and word fragments to work with for 'team microblogging of work tasks with metrics', so I think with a little effort you could have a very memorable, meaningful name.
Good luck!
Good thing that of the two YCombinator founders who were there at the reception, I only talked to Trevor about the idea, and not PG--otherwise I would be pretty upset! Oh well, I'm actually going back to college this Fall per PG's new advice to finish college--after following the old advice to drop out of college--so that's fine that somebody made this. (Had I applied to the summer round, I would have probably been rejected, given that an app like this takes 5 people to make.) The implementation looks good! Good luck!
Obviously, I'm not particularly excited to hear this news, since I was thinking about this idea every day, but on the other hand, it will make it easier when my app launches since it would have been previously demonstrated as a proven idea by somebody else.
direct link : http://www.ididwork.com/
It's something we've been debating about, and it helps to know what a user would prefer. Right now you can star an entry, so the more important work gets prominence.
- I don't want to watch video at work, so I can not see the demo video. There is no other information on the website on how it works.
- I can not sign up instantly either, because I can not access my home email address from work. I don't want to sign up with my work email address.
Bottom line: my instant curiosity can not be satisfied. If it wasn't an YC company, I would have forgotten all about it by the time I got home. Since it is YC, there is a faint chance I might remember it and actually check it out in the evening.
Loving the video - good job Shawn and Reman.
I really expceted this to be a "what are you doing" kinda app rather than a "what have you done" one. To me (I'm sure people will disagree, np) it's easier to write down a task when you start it, or when you are in the middle of it, than when you end it. And that way it's easier to track interruptions, etc.
If this exists here in the US and were integrated into ididwork somehow it might be a great way to get adoption from managers.
Don't focus too much on the manager-review aspect, imho. This could be very useful as a simple communication tool, without any management reviews.
