I’d like to show my appreciation for the people I work with for a moment.
A little background
Two weeks ago — together with several other contributors at Apt, Try and Paradox— I finished a three week long project for the Norwegian Department of Education. It’s a campaign website which aims to encourage people aged 18-24 to become teachers. The site is at www.hardudetideg.no/fremtiden (Norwegian) and it lets you place yourself or a friend as the main subject of a movie filmed in year 2069 about people looking back at their time in school, reminiscing about a teacher who changed their lives for the better. We incorporated run time motion tracking, grading and audio substitution to make it possible and it was a great learning experience for me.
The site has performed very well with 57 569 visits and around 15 000 produced movies over two weeks. In addition to that we seem to have hit the nail on the head demographically, with the majority of the Facebook users right smack down on the target group:
We have good numbers for feedback per share and average time on site as well. But while the response to the site has been overwhelming, what matters most to me is that there is nothing but praise to find when looking up referring sites and Facebook posts about the campaign and today even the Prime Minister of Norway chipped in:
The thanking part
I begun working at Apt this January and this is my project number four since then. It only shows what is possible in a skilled environment with jelled teams and proper project management. These are scarce luxuries that I have had to live without so far in my life.
I was fortunate to be the lead developer and I worked days and nights on this. But I only did the Flash development, and there were many others involved that did an outstanding job. Knowing how lucky I am to work with such awesome people, I feel compelled to give them credit in the best way I know.
- Paradox: They put together the team that shot, edited and mastered the film. This was no small task, with 30 people on set. I don’t know all of their names, but they all get at big hug from me. The names I know are Stefan Faldbakken (director) and Beate Tangre (producer).
- Knut Skåla: One of my colleagues at Apt who served as sort of a helper developer but in reality saved my ass on numerous occations because he knows so much more about Apt’s AS3 framework and the Facebook API than I do.
- Thomas Sømoen: Backend developer at Apt who shared the vision also worked late nights to make the deadline.
- Stina Norgren: Designer at Apt, the one who came up with the UI and the nice 3D touch to the interface. When I first saw her designs, I got really excited about making it work they way she had intended.
- Linda Tillier and Fred Khile: Project manager and consultant at Apt. People like these rarely get the credit they deserve, but the fact of the matter is that they have kept everything else in check, enabling me to keep my eye on the ball and only concern myself with the stuff that affects my part of the job. When I am surprised because great material for me to use simply arrives in my inbox before I have asked for it because someone else is taking pride in their job, these are the people to thank for that.
- Christian Pettersen: Compositor and effects engineer at Apt who also gave more than a days effort to deliver on this project. He kept the external production in alignment with the internal development and was an invaluable wizard when it comes to providing tracking data and retouching the movie for web delivery.
I’m priveleged to work in an agency that values the effort an collaboration of people like these so thank you!
