When Summersault was just staffed by its two co-owners, we didn’t see a whole lot of need for formal reviews.  After all, we were checking in with each other on a daily basis about running the company and how each of us contributed to that, so it would have been a little redundant spend much additional time reiterating those conversations.  (That said, some people benefit from having written evaluations no matter how much they hear the information being communicated on a daily basis, so it could be argued that we would have benefitted too.)

When we hired our first employee, we knew that one part of building a team was providing consistent and thorough feedback about performance.  We conducted an initial formal check-in that mostly asked about things like “how’s your workspace?” and “do you need any more training?”  but it was still a good opportunity to step back from the day-to-day and look at the big picture.  Eventually we got around to instituting a more thorough review process, and it’s evolved significantly over the years.

From our Employee Orientation Guide:

The review session is the most focused and intentional opportunity during the course of one’s time at Summersault to reflect on your role in the company and how well you are contributing toward fulfilling our mission. The scope of what’s being reviewed is quite broad, and includes day-to-day activities, professional development, specific job skills and technical knowledge, relationships with co-workers, clients and the wider industry, and the goals and hopes that you have for your time here.

The process is intended to take form as a conversation that builds a shared vision for the future, not a handing down of judgment. The conversation happens internally as self-reflection for the staff member, between the staff member and the reviewer, between the reviewer and the staff member’s peers, and can involve other parties as needed. Our hope is that through these conversations, we can develop the best and most comprehensive snapshot of how the staff member is performing, and see what can happen to facilitate further development and improvement. To that end, the review process is not finalized until the staff member and reviewer agree that the written document is the best reflection of that conversation.

Here’s how it works today:

• A month or two before the review cycle is upon us, each person is reminded about how the process works, and asked to start work on a written self-review.  The self-review asks the same questions that the main review form uses, so it allows for easy comparison between how the reviewer and person being reviewed see things.
• Each person is also asked to complete one or more written peer reviews, where they can provide feedback about their co-workers and suggestions for improvement.  The peer reviews are not as comprehensive as our primary review questions, and some questions are even rating scales instead of free-form.  The peer reviews are turned into the reviewer(s), and are anonymous by default, with the option for the peer reviewer to indicate that the comments can be shared.
• For the review session itself, the reviewer and person being reviewed read through the self-review and primary written evaluation, and discuss them in depth.  Discrepancies are explored, concerns addressed, and possibilities for improvement and professional development are suggested.  If performance related compensation increases are in order, they’re also discussed.
• Each review form helps the staff member set tangible, achievable goals for the time in between review cycles.  The goals are crafted with full collaboration from the staff member, not just handed down.  These objectives then serve as the starting point for the next year’s review - how well were they achieved, what work is left to be done, etc.?

Some people who hear me describe this process note how exhaustive it seems, and how time consuming it must be.  It is: between the several hours each that can go into writing a self-review and peer reviews, the reviewer putting together the primary evaluation, and then the review meetings themselves, it’s definitely a significant time and energy investment as a company.  There are times when it feels like too much, but so far we haven’t found a better way to make sure that we’re giving each other every opportunity to better ourselves in tangible, measurable ways, while adding more value for our clients.

Of course, beyond this formal review process, we are always getting and giving feedback to each other about our work throughout the year.  Sometimes that comes from clients (we ask each client to fill out a survey after each major project), sometimes from other staff, and sometimes just from the people out in the community and wider world who use the sites we build.  We make sure it’s understood that the yearly review cycle isn’t the singular place to share concerns and open up possibilities for growth - it’s just the beginning.

And yes, even as co-owners of the company, Mark and I still go through this process ourselves, and are held accountable to its results.   I really appreciate the opportunity to have intentional feedback from my co-workers about how I’m doing, and how I could do better.

If you have stories of how your organization handles staff evaluations and reviews, or ideas for how this kind of process can be thorough AND time efficient, we’d love to hear them.

When a friend and I started our technology business 11 years ago in 1997, we didn’t choose FreeBSD, it chose us.  But we’re sure glad it did, and we came to build our company on FreeBSD.

We started out with a focus on graphic design and website development.  We were small, starting out in a college dorm room, but with high aspirations about what we could do for the world.  It was only after a few projects that we realized we needed a place to send our clients for hosting the websites we had just built for them.  When we asked a friend who was involved in running a small local dial-up Internet Service Provider where to host, he offered us some space on one of their servers, where they were already hosting a number of websites.

We got our FTP username and password, and we were off and running.  We eventually co-located with that local ISP, and partnered with them enough that they gave us shell access on that shared web hosting server, and eventually even root access.  It was a FreeBSD box running version 2.1 of the operating system.

When we got big enough to need our own server for site hosting, we didn’t spend too much time looking around at the options.  The consensus at the time (1998 now) was that Linux, FreeBSD and NetBSD were all basically the same, and that it was mostly a matter of preference and what kind of commercial support was available to help you through any rough patches (though the license wars certainly raged on even then).  With our friends at the ISP sitting just on the other side of the bookshelves, we knew we had some of the best FreeBSD product support we could hope for.

So we built our own server and put FreeBSD on it.  I still remember the process of booting with a single floppy disk and then downloading the OS over the network; on our first install we had to just let it run overnight and then come back the next day to complete the install.   If the network went down or the disk didn’t behave right, hours were lost.  But eventually we had a system up and running, and thus began our lives as FreeBSD system administrators.

The floppy-boot-and-download system worked fine for installation, but upgrading with it was a whole other story (especially after the shift to the two-floppy requirement for 3.1 and above).  To take a production system down for the evening wasn’t completely ridiculous back then, and so we made it through the long slow downloads, but we realized it wasn’t a sustainable or desirable approach, so we started investing in the FreeBSD installation CD-ROMs.  We figured that the money we were saving by not using Windows more than justified the cost, AND they came with great “powered by FreeBSD” stickers.

In 1999 I was happy enough with FreeBSD as a server platform that I decided to try it on the desktop.  This was perhaps the first time we encountered some of the things FreeBSD wasn’t yet good at.  I’ll spare you the details of the hours spent trying to configure the right packages and X-Windows configuration variables just to be able to login and use the system, let alone be productive with it.  But when I then instead tried a Linux distribution (RedHat, I think), it went quickly and smoothly, and I couldn’t hide my disappointment that FreeBSD wasn’t yet up for the challenge (or at least I couldn’t get it there).

In 2000, our business model had largely shifted into building database driven website applications, and the expectations for what features came with a web hosting service had expanded significantly.  We were no longer just providing web hosting with Apache on FreeBSD – we knew we needed to support an expanding reliance on the PostgreSQL and MySQL database systems, the qmail and vpopmail e-mail systems and other dedicated services.  We starting building new servers as dedicated single function boxes, and in each case, it was a no-brainer to install FreeBSD.  Our use of the ports system to turn it into just the kind of box we needed saved us lots of time along the way.

Over the years and still today, the scope of services we use FreeBSD to provide has grown even more.  We’ve had multiple shared web servers, a mail “toaster” running qmail,  an intranet server with related file sharing protocols, a firewall and router (diskless with PicoBSD), and a backup and monitoring system, among others.  As we’ve transitioned into more “mainstream” hosting platforms like our use of cPanel, FreeBSD is still powering it behind the scenes.  In only a few cases have we had to even consider an alternative OS, and it was usually because of proprietary hardware needing Linux-only drivers, or the preexistence of an embedded system we didn’t want to mess with.

We’ve come to understand that paying for those installation CDs was the least we could do to support the FreeBSD project.  We’ve participated in mailing list discussions and contributed to bug reports, and we’re now regular donors to the FreeBSD Foundation.  But we still know that we’re getting a great deal compared to what other hosting companies can spend on licensing fees alone for their closed-source, proprietary hosting platforms.

You may not necessarily need to hear that FreeBSD is a reliable platform for running Internet services.  But I think it’s important to remember that the software we use and labor over exists as more than just lines of code or bytes on a disk.  Software like FreeBSD is affecting the way that people live their lives every single day, whether it’s supporting businesses like ours, enabling hobbyists just getting into open source software, or any of the thousands of other “real world” roles it plays.  For much of the world, choice of operating system is an arbitrary decision to make.  We believe that for us, it’s made all the difference in building a successful business.

The 4th Annual Alternative Gift Fair, held this year on December 6, provides the community with the opportunity to shop for donations in lieu of physical gifts during the holidays.  Shoppers can browse tables of local organizations in search of the perfect “gift” for their loved one.  Gifts might include art supplies for an after school program, preservation of one acre of land, or conflict resolution training for a middle school classroom.  The recipient receives a box with a beautiful bow and certificate explaining the donation.

In order to foster additional participation in this fun event that provides important financial support to multiple local organizations, Summersault will be contributing $20 each for the first 90 individual donors and $25 each for the next 100 individual donors, for a total possible contribution from Summersault of $4,300.Bring a friend, bring a neighbor and bring a co-worker!   Summersault encourages the community to attend the Alternative Gift Fair and bring as many other donors as possible to assure that these deserving local organizations receive this entire sum.  With this matching grant, one person’s $20 donation automatically becomes a $40 donation that benefits a Wayne County organization.  Their friend or co-worker’s $20 donation may bring the organization $45!

“Last year’s Alternative Gift Fair was festive and brought in a record number of donations.  The organizers did a great job of making it a lively event,” said Chris Hardie, Principal of Summersault, LLC. “This event also speaks to the importance of using our resources wisely and supporting our local community, values that are an integral part of Summersault’s corporate mission.  We wanted to encourage more community members to participate, so we chose to deliver our gift to these organizations in a way that will propel even greater involvement this year.”

Organizations participating in the 2008 Alternative Gift Fair include:

• Area 9 In-Home and & Community Services Agency
• Bark Park
• Birth to Five
• Centerville Center Township Public Library
• Conflict Resolution Center
• Cope Environmental Center
• Girl Scouts of Central Indiana
• Girls Inc. of Wayne County
• Habitat for Humanity of Greater Richmond
• Hand In Hand Adult Day Care
• Indiana Women In Need
• Mother’s Bank
• Richmond Art Museum
• Richmond Friends School
• Roscoe’s Rescue, Inc.
• Senior Opportunity Services
• Sunrise Inc.
• Whitewater Valley Land Trust
• Women’s Fund

The Alternative Gift Fair will be held from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, December 6, 2008 on the second floor of the new Reid Hospital, 1100 Reid Parkway in Richmond, Indiana.  Stop by for a break from the usual holiday commercial overload and enjoy the great atmosphere, sweet holiday treats, and even a complimentary chair massage!

Summersault is recognized as a leader in database driven website solutions.  The firm offers a single point of contact for highly customized web design and application development solutions, as well as professional consulting services and support.

RICHMOND, IN – Summersault LLC, a website development firm based here, and Adopt-a-Pet.com, the nation’s largest non-profit pet adoption website, are spearheading a national campaign and website called “Presidential-Pooch-Pardon.com”, using a Barack Obama-themed campaign website and messages such as “Yes We Can ADOPT” to gather signatures in support of the new President-Elect adopting a shelter puppy.  The website, created and hosted in Richmond by Summersault, already has gathered thousands of signatures from around the country in just its first few hours.In his first press conference, President-Elect Barack Obama stated his interested in adopting a puppy for his daughters, but expressed that Malia is allergic to dogs and needs a hypoallergenic breed.  Obama was concerned that this was in conflict with his desire to adopt a dog from a shelter.  “Many pets in shelters across the nation are hypoallergenic purebreds and mixed breeds”, says David Meyer, President of Adopt-a-Pet.com.  “Common hypoallergenic breeds include Poodles, Schnauzers, certain Terriers, and mixes of those and many other breeds as well.  There is no conflict at all between needing a hypoallergenic dog and adopting from a shelter.”

Adopt-a-Pet.com worked with Summersault to create the campaign website at http://Presidential-Pooch-Pardon.com/ and spread the word.  “We’re excited to be a part of this important awareness-raising campaign,” says Chris Hardie, Principal of Summersault.  “We’ve worked hard to help Adopt-a-Pet.com use the technologies of the Internet, and it’s great to see so many people using those tools to encourage the President-elect to adopt a shelter dog.”

Obama’s interest in adopting a dog has spawned an outpouring of support in the animal welfare community and an avalanche of interest across the country and the world.  “Searches for adoptable pets have increased noticeably in the last week on our national pet-adoption website.” adds Meyer.  “Certainly if the President-Elect realizes that he can easily get the hypoallergenic dog he needs, his adopting a dog at a shelter will inspire the whole nation to do the same, and will help get the word out about the millions of pets in shelters who do not get adopted each year.”  Meyer added with a smile, “Whether you were a ‘Bark’ Obama or a ‘McCainine’ supporter, everybody can support shelter pet adoption”.

Adopt-a-Pet.com is working with its 6,500 listed shelters to get as many signatures as possible in the next days and weeks to impress upon Obama the support of his adopting a dog or adopting a puppy from an animal shelter, humane society, SPCA or pet rescue group.

Adopt-a-Pet.com is the world’s largest nonprofit pet adoption web service, helping over 6,500 animal shelters and pet rescue organizations find homes for pets by displaying photos and descriptions of adoptable pets to over 1.5 million people a month seeking to adopt a dog or adopt a cat.

Summersault, LLC is a leader in database driven web solutions. The Richmond, Indiana based firm offers a single point of contact for highly customized web design and application development solutions, as well as professional consulting services and support.

To review darcs 2, I reviewed hundreds of bugs entries in the darcs bug tracker, checking to see whether the bugs were fixed are still present. Through this process I became as intimate as the developers with what had been improved in darcs and what remained to address.

What I found was that darcs 2 closed over half the bugs in the bug tracker, literally hundreds of bugs. This was possible because it addressed not just specific bugs, but whole categories of bugs were closed by major architecture and design improvements.

You can read more about the update on my personal weblog.

Summersault Principal Chris Hardie will be presenting a session entitled “Summersaulting: Adventures in Entrepreneurship” at the event, which takes place on the campus of Earlham College. In the session, Hardie will talk about his and co-founder Mark Stosberg’s experiences in creating and growing the business over the last 11 years.

“I’m honored to be asked to participate in this important educational opportunity,” Hardie said. “I’m proud of our story and accomplishments, and I’m always glad to interact with other entrepreneurs to share ideas and inspirations.”

For more information about the conference or to register to attend, contact Main Street.

Summersault, LLC is a leader in database driven web solutions. The Richmond, Indiana based firm offers a single point of contact for highly customized web design and application development solutions, as well as professional consulting services and support.

Summersault provided a $5,000 grant to Morrisson-Reeves Library for the funding of the series in 2007 as a part of celebrating its 10 year anniversary. The Library and Summersault worked closely to create sessions with topics that will engage local citizens about various technology issues and tools, including politics, home networking, renewable energy, databases, online auctions, and Linux on the desktop. Each session features a presentation by a local expert, along with question and answer time.

“When we first made the contribution to the library, we asked them to think about how they could best use it to enhance technology education in our community,” said Chris Hardie, Summersault’s Principal. “We’re very pleased with the program they’ve put together, and we hope that it can contribute in some way to the learning opportunities available here.”

A full schedule of the sessions can be found on the Morrisson-Reeves website or by calling the Library at (765) 966-8291.

Summersault, LLC is a leader in database driven web solutions. The Richmond, Indiana based firm offers a single point of contact for highly customized web design and application development solutions, as well as professional consulting services and support.

Summersault encourages its staff to spend some of the company’s time working on volunteering or providing other community services, and Stosberg chose to use that time to work on the bike route maps. He worked with the local cyclist community to determine what routes were preferred, and how best to present that and related information in print form. Stosberg obtained sponsorship funding from various local organizations that will distribute the maps.

“Bicycling is often a viable way commute to work, while saving on gas and improving health,” Stosberg said. “While the City of Richmond has prioritized bike commuting in its Comprehensive Plan, the funds aren’t currently available to make much progress, so this map is a good first step accomplished by volunteers.”

Stosberg also offers a detailed account of how he worked to get the maps created so that other communities interested in bikes as transportation can learn from those efforts.

Summersault, LLC is a leader in database driven web solutions. The Richmond, Indiana based firm offers a single point of contact for highly customized web design and application development solutions, as well as professional consulting services and support.

• Tim Bunce, the author of Perl’s DBI asked me to be a committer on the DBIx::HA project, a high-availability/load-balancing Perl module.
• I uploaded a new release of CGI::Session, version 4.30. As the official maintainer of the module, I worked closely with Ron Savage who did most of the release work. Summersault will likely take advantage of these improvements in the future.
• Multiple people gave me praise for my help with the Darcs 2 release. One person wrote, “Mark Stosberg was an unsung hero of the darcs-2 project for diligently triaging and following-up on hundreds of bug tracker tickets. His quality-assurance work (including setting up automated buildbot tests) is an important reason that darcs-2 is much less buggy.” By patch count, I’ve committed the third most patches to the project due to numerous documentation and test suite improvements.

These are just some of the ways that Summersault staff participate in the online community and in the open-source software movement.