NM Dept of Labor website “Sprint” : KOB News 4
On Jan 7, 2007 the Albuquerque Journal published a story “Claims System Frustrates Jobless” (http://zpr.co/abqjournal/nmdol1) indicating that the New Mexico Dept of Labor had contracted an out-of-state vendor to produce a website for unemployed benefits and job-searching. After two years and over a million dollars spent, the website didn’t exist. What remained was an outdate website that rarely worked or served New Mexico’s unemployed or taxpayers.
On January 28, a group of 10 Albuquerque website designers and developers organized a “Sprint” — a daylong marathon development session — lasting approximately 12 hours with a few prior strategy meetings. At the end of the day the group had created a visual and technological framework that was profoundly better than the State’s current website.
When conducting the Sprint, the participants had only one goal in mind: to focus attention on the talent pool in New Mexico who are capable of undertaking these types of projects for the benefit of the state and taxpayers.
The Albuquerque Journal wrote two follow-up stories about the sprint which created political flap about accountability. As it turned out the contractor TATA had failed to deliver and was also being sued in the state of Nebraska for breech of contract.
This KOB News 4 interview by Steve Stucker with contributor Andrew Hedges explored what the group accomplished and the state’s reaction to our project.
“Local Computer Experts Pitch in to Redesign State Unemployment Web Site”
February 4, 2007
http://zpr.co/abqjournal/sprint1/
Think Locally For Web Sites That Work
February 10, 2007
http://zpr.co/abqjournal/sprint2/
Method Arts Blog
http://zpr.co/methodarts/sprint/
Vincent Thome – Project Coordinator
Mark Bixby – Creative Director
Brian Warren – Web Developer (CSS/HTML, PHP, Javascript)
Andrew Hedges – Programmer, Manager (JavaScript, AJAX, JSON, PHP, MySQL)
Daniel Lyons – Lead Programmer (Ruby on Rails)
Lance Sanchez – Programmer (Ruby on Rails)
Kelly Patrick Robinson – Web Developer (CSS/HTML, PHP)
Reid Givens – Designer/Developer, Audio Engineer
Joshua Sallach – Film Director, Video Production
Christopher Anderton – Video Production