HAPPYBIRTHDAY CROWDAND THE BOAT PARTY

JULY 2012 WHAT IS CROWD AND WHAT ABOUT OUR CULTURE

RUBYENESPAÑOLALL ABOUT OUR CAST

RETROSPECTUSOUR FIRST APP

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO: MARIO CHÁVEZ AND HECTOR BUSTILLOS

INDEXEditorialSpreading Our Culture

Straight Talk with the CEOHappy Birthday Crowd

In the SpothlightAll About the Crowds

HighlightsFrom Crowd to the World

I love how we’ve become the local community leaders of our

technology. I am proud of making the decision that other developers

around must grow along with us.David Padilla about ROR Community

2

A Cultural thing

We often try to describe "What is our Culture" at Crowd Interactive, but we always fail to represent it in words or in images. A culture of any group of peo-ple is defined exactly by that group: whatever the group embraces, practices and promotes is part of their culture. You can't force a Culture, but you can forge it. The question is: how do we make our Cul-ture tangible for others that are not part of it?

Well, here you go. This Crowdazine is exactly one of those elements that we are really proud of, and want to make it more accessible for the rest of the world.

We love technology, that is why we keep iterating in how to present this to you and the world. We enjoy sharing how we are really good friends outside our office, and that is key to this publication. We feel proud of our products, this time it is Retrospectus' turn to be in the spotlight. We know that we have a strong commitment with the Engineering Commu-nity in México, which is why we are also really proud of "Ruby en Español".

Crowdazine in the future

This is the first issue of many more to come. Our plan is to keep it simple, but relevant. The stuff we

will include here has to be a reflection of what we do day by day. We will show who we are and what we do, and how we have fun in the process!

Hopefully, more and more people will read and en-joy it. Not everybody will be interested, but as long as we are true to what our Culture stands for, I think that we have a pretty good shot at making people - at least - curious to know "what are those guys from Crowd Interactive up to now?".

I want to thank all of you who are reading this, because you are the reason why we do it. Let us know what you think, and if you like it: share it!

Sincerely,

Esteban Cortés

SPREADING OUR

CULTUREBY ESTEBAN CORTÉS

JUNE / JULY 2012 - EDITORIAL

June29 Mario Chávez

July2 Hector Bustillos

3

What a ride! I can’t believe it’s been three years since we named our brand “Crowd In-teractive”. A lot of things have happened be-tween now and then.

I’ve felt as if I’ve been in at least 3 completely different companies on those 3 years. We’ve learned a lot, we had to teach ourselves a lot as well.

We managed to make a lot of friends along the way. We’ve shared very special moments

with employees and ex-employees of our cli-ents, even after finishing our projects, we keep in touch. I treasure all of that, as friend-ship is what defines our business relationship with them.

I thank them all for the opportunity and for any advice given. I feel very lucky to have found so many friends instead of businessmen on this amaz-ing journey.

To the guys at Crowd Interactive, there’s not much left to say. You all know how proud I am of working with such an amazing group of people. I thank you for believing in the future I had described during town hall meetings countless times.

I love how we’ve become the local commu-nity leaders of our technology. I am proud of making the decision that other developers around must grow along with us. It’s even on our mission statement. And now, we are the

HAPPYBIRTHDAYCROWD3 YEARS YOUNG!

BY DAVID PADILLA

JUNE / JULY 2012 - STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE CEO

4

organizers of the only Ruby conference in Mexico; and I believe that soon, we’ll be the organizers of the best Ruby conference in America.

There is still a lot of work to do, a lot of things to fix before we turn into the most successful group of software engineers in the country. Yes, we’ll get there, in time.

Here’s to another 3 years of success!

Best,

David Padilla

JUNE / JULY 2012 - STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE CEO

26 of 49

Click HERE to visit the photo gallery

Ok guys!... that’s the sky you are pointing out...

THE BOAT PARTY / PHOTO GALLERY

5

What did you know about Crowd before been here?“That it was a Ruby on Rails web development com-pany with foreign clients.”

“That it was a company called RIA (Rich Internet Applica-tions I think) where they used to work in a house with a pool and had awesome time there. Also that every thurs-day they had beers in the pool. And the prank for the newbies was to be thrown into the pool everyday at least for a week.”

“Nothing but now I have figured out what is the working atmosphere about and everything, and I have to learn a lot, which makes me really excited. I like it.”

“That it is an "American company with offices in Co-lima", I think I was a little misinformed at the beginning but after coming to my interview I was clarified. I knew it was a company which was making things in a different from of the rest and it had a nice place and great atmos-phere for developers.”

What would you like to share/change/improve something in the work methodology in Crowd? “We need a Mu-sic Room! It will also be useful for the podcasts. In the work method-ology it will be helpful to have bet-ter working tables and take care of the chairs. There's often visit and many of the chairs are stained, bro-ken, etc. It's great to work here. I think every team knows what to do and everyone of us also knows what needs to be done.”

AND WHAT

ABOUT THE

CREW

JUNE / JULY 2012 - IN THE SPOTLIGHT

...making a program or application from which any developer could benefit from using it and keep it updated

“

“”CROWDIN A MISSION

JANUARY FEBRUARY

SPREECONF New York, NY

February 15-16Edwin Cruz

Emmanuel Delgado

MARCH

SXSW InteractiveAustin, TX

March 8-12Esteban Cortés Héctor BustillosTania Escudero

VI Congreso Ciencias Exactas 2012

Aguascalientes, AgsMarch 12-16

Edwin CruzEmmanuel Delgado

III Congreso de Informática y ProgramaciónPuerto Vallarta, JalMarch 22-24Mario ZaizarMarina Magaña

about sharing to the Open Source

BY KARLA DOMINGUEZ

BY TANIA ESCUDERO

6

How do you see yourself in 6 months?“Finishing my internship and maybe develop-

ing in my free time by my own.”

“Leading a project or couching rookies, participating in company's events like Code Retreats, writing more posts, read-ing much more, publishing more non-writing posts, like a 15 minute video tu-torial for Ruby En Español (many peo-ple don't even know about it) or collabo-rate on our Ruby On Rails Blog. Maybe

couching in a Ruby On Rails or Agile Development workshop. Giving confer-ence talks. Or I could answer: How do I see myself: Older, with more experi-ence to add more value to the company as a leader. Where? In this planet.”

“Stepping up from Trainee to Junior. I'm making my effort to step up to the next level and learning everything, always. I see myself able to help in a project with other developers. But this will happen after defining a project and the reach for it.”

“Learning a lot and working hard to have a possible opportunity to work in the US (don't sell me per pound, I'm not worth it)”

JUNE / JULY 2012 - IN THE SPOTLIGHT

RE:DESIGN/UXSan Francisco, CA

April 30-May 1Jesús Haro

Karla Domínguez

MAGMARAILS 3Manzanillo, Col

June 6-8David PadillaEdwin Cruz

Mario ChávezEmmanuel Delgado

Jorge PardiñasMario Zaizar

Onsite, SFOMario ChávezMario Zaizar

Onsite, SFOHector BustillosJonathan Garay

APRIL MAY JUNE JULY

6º SG ConferenceMexico CityJune 20Edwin CruzDavid Padilla

RAILSCONFAustin, TXApril 23-25David PadillaEdwin CruzMario ZaizarMario ChávezHéctor BustillosVictor Velázquez

Nora AlvaradoFernando CastellanosCarlos AraozSergio Figueroa

Code RetreatGuadalajara, Jal

May 21David PadillaEdwin Cruz

Emmanuel DelgadoMario Zaizar

BACKBONE ConfBoston, MA May 30-31

David PadillaEmmanuel Delgado

Carlos Muñíz Herman Moreno

Code Retreat Aguascalientes, Ags

July 7Edwin Cruz

Emmanuel Delgado

13º Simpos. Int. Telem.Col, Col. June 4-8

Emmanuel Delgado

7

FROMCROWDTO THE WORLD

BY KARLA DOMINGUEZ

JUNE / JULY 2012 - HIGHLIGHTS

Why is Crowd interested in building an app like Retrospectus?

First of all, because we would like to have a product built using our techniques and knowl-edge. Also, we think there isn’t a tool for do-ing online agile retrospectives, so it’s a great opportunity. Last, but not least, be-cause we are using cool new technolo-gies, it helps our developers to keep fresh using them :)

Which technologies were involved in the process?We are using Pivotal Tracker as our development management tool,

GitHub for our code versioning and Heroku as our hosting. We are also using some

other cool technologies and tools like Backbone.js, NewRelic, AirBrake, Pusher, Twitter Bootstrap.

Could you explain the development cycle?We are using BDD, Pair Programming and Pomo-doro techniques. We also deploy to production every-day (using Capistrano), thanks to our well tested code.

How long does it take to develop an app like this?Well, creating an app like this is not that hard, maybe a couple of weeks. The complication comes when you start polishing and adding features to it. We have been working on Retrospectus for about 2 months now.

Who’s been involved and what are their roles?The app was created by David Padilla (@dabit). He built the first version (ugly scaffold btw haha). After that, our designers improved it with the awesome look and feel. Right now we have 2 pairs developing it full time. Almost every @CrowdInt developer has done something on Retrospectus!

What is missing and what are the highlights that the newer version would include?We have a huge list of improvements, features and also some bugs to take care of. We will work on the Action Items and Teams pages. Some cool features like aggregated stories and organizations are com-ing! Also provide some external integration tools.

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JUNE / JULY 2012 - HIGHLIGHTS

FROMCROWDTO THE WORLD

What is Rubyen.es?It is a podcast, focused on technologies and people working in Ruby development language and web technologies

What is the purpose of this initiative?Share the Mexican talent, get to know amazing devel-opers, discuss Ruby and web development technolo-gies, start sizing down the technological gap be-tween a real professional developer and a common developer.

Why “en español”?Mexico has the potential, capabilities and work force to become the top development force of the world. We deliver more quality, ownership and love to the things that we do than many other countries, we are craftsmen, and so, we need people to get in touch with each other and start sharing, helping each other and growing as a community.

What has been the feedback or the audience reaction?Seems like our few listener so far really loved the idea.

Have you faced issues with the casts? if yes, explain pleasePerhaps the fact that we need to improve our produc-tion quality and format. We’re still experimenting and learning from our own mistakes.

What’s next?More talks, more interviews, more connected people, self or-ganization.

What if a North American guru wants to be interviewed by you? Are you gonna translate the cast?We’re planning to do that within the next months. Maybe we won’t translate the cast but providing some sort of transcript text of it

in Spanish.

BY KARLA DOMINGUEZ