When you join the ArtFire community you become part of a revolutionary new system of collaborative development that we call Community Directed Development (CDD). This type of development puts you, the member in control of the evolution of the functions, and features of the site.
CDD means that ArtFire stays in what is traditionally considered “Beta” longer, as the voice and direction of the community becomes more cohesive and focused. This type of social media, e-commerce, and community fusion has never been attempted or accomplished until now! CDD’s aggressive real time adaptation and implementation is much like putting a half built boat in to the water and assembling it while at sea; turbulence and challenge is expected and responsiveness is critical to success.
Implementing CDD requires an exact balance of marketing, vision, engagement, service, and pure drive. It is extremely high pace and aggressive in nature and frequently requires on the spot changes to micro direction and reprioritization of numerous tasks based on near real time interface with users/members. The internal structure and configuration of assets necessary to cultivate an e-commerce/social site with CDD is a fluid system of moving fronts, aggressive adaptation, and intuitive interface.
CDD is more than just aggressive tactical real time implementation of code, programming, scale, and systems however. CDD also requires a flexible but resolute strategic vision that remains fixed on making members matter while adapting the specific course in which to accomplish an objective of personalized support and responsive member engagement by systems and staff.
While the general mission of the venue is clear, each user/member weighs in as desired, and contributes to the direction of the community. Desires/suggestions/input are aggregated to determine a macro course, while still addressing and customizing individual preferences and features based on individual priorities. All members are equal and all efforts and production cycles by members serve the dual purpose of self and community promotion.
A strong focus of CDD must be responsiveness and immediate dissemination of data though the development core. CDD is only successful when strategic and tactical interface are joined with a system that proactively engages community users/members.
CDD contrast to Open Source Development
CDD takes a crowd source approach when including users/members in the development of project priorities, functions, features, treats, and requests. The CDD process requires the development leadership team to filter a varying census using a weighted system that accounts for multiple micro samples, most containing individual objectives, into a unified general direction.
“Development” as it relates to CDD is not merely the coding of a software product but also includes the social and community development, governance, and governing organelles, policies, enforcement systems, and macro social engineering of a community, as the software and hardware growth occurs. In this way CDD is more than just open source, it is a blending of multiple open principles and methodologies.
CDD creates a product that rapidly evolves to the needs and feedback of the user/member community while extending the traditional beta period and eliminating the standard “version” based software release process.
Key Elements of CDD
1) Only the basic framework of the product/software structure is completed before public launch to include some core functionality and general mission concept.
2) Public feedback channel is simultaneously launched and users/members engaged immediately. Promotion of the community/site begins before that of a traditional web site launch and feedback in actively solicited before and during launch.
3) The functionality and design queue of the site is altered based on the community feedback and reprioritized continually, and in near real time.
4) Rapid functional rollouts are completed with additional feedback loops, and improvements on a daily (literally) basis utilizing a full time overlapping team of developers and support staff.
5) The end-user/member base is involved in both functional development (functions and bug hunting) and governance (policy development, policing, brand development), which augments general guiding principles.
6) Governance is facilitated by the creation of organelles to serve in various roles and aid with development of total end user experience. This structure is installed in multiple stages throughout the development cycle and as specific functions require.
7) All levels of the project team are available via feedback channels including the lead developers and senior staff. The end users/members have access via multiple feedback channels to the highest level executives and project managers in a near real time environment.
8) Development of program code is substantially accelerated for immediate roll-outs, and supported live during each functions’ release.
CDD confines the process of interweaving principles of open government, open journalism, open curricula, open source development, and innovative artistic and collaborative community principles to create an organic self-developing, self-governing site.
CDD sites could experience a higher than normal amount of errors and/or “bugs”. This is a substantial challenge for this type of development which if not aggressively embraced can severely damage brand, recruitment, and retention. The process of CDD, while most prevalent in the early stages of a community’s/site’s life cycle, must remain a guiding fundamental of competitive adaptation to rapidity changing markets, technologies, and social trends.
The concept of Community Directed Development was created by John Jacobs and Tony Ford of ArtFire.com and executed by a tireless team of professionals. The implementation of CDD requires absolute commitment beyond what is traditionally considered reasonable. ArtFire’s implementation of CDD would not have been successful without Kyle Melik, Lead Developer, and Matthew J Giustino, Software Developer.
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