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A little about our site: The People

posted by Kenji Ross
Kenji Ross
Kenji Ross

Developer, Creative : Boston

topics: Content, Agile and Scrum, Internet Culture, Art Direction, and Alcoholic Beverages

on April 24, 2008 at 05:52 PM
filed under: Barbarian News, Agile and Scrum, Interactive Production, HTML, Ruby on Rails, and Websites
Hi, I’m Kenji
Kenji Ross
Kenji Ross

Developer, Creative : Boston

topics: Social Networking and Community, Websites, Agile and Scrum, Art Direction, and Viral Marketing

. I do some front-end development around here, and I thought I’d help you get to know your new barbariangroup.com!

It’s been a relief to get this site finally out the door and in front of all you nice internet people. As Rick said (to some perhaps-deserved derision), it took over six months to bring barbariangroup.com version four (internally codenamed Merrimack) to fruition. That’s a crazy long time, sure. But we’re a small, busy shop, and couldn’t blow through this in a month. Not while continuing to pump out high-quality projects for Kashi, CNN, Adobe, TAP Project
TAP Project 2008
TAP Project 2008

UNICEF for Droga 5

topics: Nonprofit, Websites, Ruby on Rails, and Brands

, Motorola
Motorola Dojo
Motorola Dojo

Motorola for Ogilvy

topics: Video Production, Internet Video, Flash, and Microsites and Minisites

, etc etc. We approached the barbariangroup.com version four redesign as seriously and as carefully as we would any content-rich client site, and as such, it took some time. And some people.
Justin
Justin Baum
Justin Baum

User Experience Head : San Francisco

topics: Rock and Roll, Apparel and Footwear, Automotive, Technology Industry, and User Interface

and Rick
Rick Webb
Rick Webb

Co-founder, COO : Boston

topics: Alcoholic Beverages, Nonprofit, Brands, User Interface, and Media Planning

did some heavy lifting early on in the IA department, building out specifications, OmniGraffle outlines, user interface docs
User Interface

We’ve always been passionate about user interface ...

, and sitemaps for the front and backend. Two heavy lifters in our tech department, Toby
Toby Boudreaux
Toby Boudreaux

CTO : New York

topics: Microsites and Minisites, PHP, Microsoft, Websites, and Ruby on Rails

and Chandler
Chandler McWilliams
Chandler McWilliams

Developer : San Francisco

topics: Installations, Processing, PHP, Barbarian Labs, and Ruby on Rails

, gave the project some direction, guidance, and methodology (for most of us, this was our first project working with SCRUM).
Information architecture is great and all, but it’s not much to look at. We pulled two designers onto the project: the (sadly) recently-departed Kristen Hengst and the great John Sullivan Hamilton. You have them to thank for a gorgeously clean, minimalist site design. As the front-end developer on this project, I jumped in and started preparing XHTML comps from their Photoshop blueprints. Meanwhile, Ashley
Ashley Holtgraver
Ashley Holtgraver

Developer : Boston

topics: PHP, Agile and Scrum, Software, and Ruby on Rails

and Adam
Adam Miller
Adam Miller

Developer : Boston

topics: Technology Industry, Agile and Scrum, HTML, Creativity, and Ruby on Rails

began development of a massive Ruby on Rails
Ruby on Rails
Ruby on Rails

There’s a new sheriff in town. PHP Roll over. ...

backend, simultaneously building a new CMS to power this site and rolling in old data – hundreds of projects, blog posts, and employee information from previously-disparate systems.
By no small feat of producing skill, Rachel
Rachel Bell
Rachel Bell

Senior Producer : New York

topics: Agile and Scrum, Interactive Production, and Agency Collaboration

kept this project in line and continuously progressing throughout the final six months of her pregnancy. Our ex-intern and current-freelancer Emma Welles helped get all the data into shape, and Eva
Eva McCloskey
Eva McCloskey

Director of Communications : Boston

topics: Barbarian Style Guide, Creativity, Rock and Roll, Technology Industry, and Barbarian History

is in the midst of a monstrous proofreading job. Our IT pros, Nick
Nick Bonadies
Nick Bonadies

IT Specialist : Boston

topics: Rock and Roll, Technology Industry, Software, Games, and PHP

and Ian
Ian Westcott
Ian Westcott

IT Manager : New York

topics: Internet Culture, Ruby on Rails, PHP, and Software

kept everything running, restarted servers when we totally broke them, and pitched in for QA.
We launched at the auspicious time of 4:20pm last Friday, to office-wide cheers and beers. And it worked! OMG!
Of course, this is an Agile
Agile and Scrum
Agile and Scrum

Okay. Agile Development and Scrum. Terrifying. What the ...

project, and the site’s not “done” by any means. We’ve been cranking out bugfixes, updates, and enhancements like mad. The development team has pushed out a staggering 79 revisions in the six days since the site launched. Site traffic has been up, Barbarians are blogging quickly, and the site is getting better every day.
Anything you’d like to see on here? Site totally broken for you? Site totally awesome for you? Let us know!

1 comment

On July 16, 2008 at 04:57 PM, Greg Ries wrote:
Love it!
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