Who is Chris Nagele?

I’m the founder of Wildbit, a web software company. We build and run web products including Beanstalk, Newsberry, and Postmark.

About Wildbit?

Wildbit originally started as a web software consulting company in 1999. We’ve built and designed web sites and products for clients including Nuzizo, MeetPips, LoseItorLoseIt, and more. In 2009, due to the rapid growth of Wildbit’s own products, the company shifted to products only. We now only offer design services on a limited basis.

Our team of ten is 100% virtual, located in six countries including US, Russia, Ukraine, Germany, Bulgaria, and Serbia. Each person works from their own office or home.

How do stay productive in a virtual team?

Most people think it is a challenge to stay productive with a virtual team due to lack of control and in person communication. I’d argue that since we are virtual, we are actually more productive. The key is having the right people who are self-motivated. Once that happens the benefits of virtual work really show. It allows for complete focus and reduces distraction, which is key to our type of work.

That being said, we do rely on tools like Skype, iChat, Lighthouse, Beanstalk, Campfire and other tools to keep in touch. We also have annual retreats in places like Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Turkey where the entire team gets together to discuss goals and just hang out.

How do you find inspiration for an idea for a new project?

For me, inspiration only comes when doing something else. For instance, the inspiration for Beanstalk came when reading the book Ship It! I wanted more people to have access to version control without the hassle of managing a server, which was also my own personal pain point. Postmark, our latest product, is another good example. Even though we have a robust email infrastructure for Newsberry, we were almost blind to the volume and statistics for our email delivery in Beanstalk. Postmark solved that problem.

What does your typical day look like?

I actually get up pretty late, around 9am or so. Each morning the entire team has a 10am chat in Campfire to discuss how iterations are going and plan the day, so I give myself some time to catch up before it starts. We keep it short, but allow enough time to keep aligned and solve problems. Since each person on the team is several time zones ahead, the mornings are usually packed with tasks like discussing new designs, reviewing new features, and planning iterations.

After that, I spend the rest of the day writing (blog, twitter, content), doing some support, and reviewing the plans for our products. I usually finish up the day by going to the gym.

What do you do in your free time?

My wife and I live in center city Philadelphia, so we spend a lot of time enjoying the city. We also travel as much as possible, which is a clear benefit of having a virtual team and running a software company.

Current favorite apps?

Chrome at the moment. Most of the apps I use are browser based, so having a fast, clean browser makes everything a better experience.

Small picture for your Workplace?

This one is hard to define. I work from home, from an amazing coworking space in Philadelphia called Independence Hall, and from anywhere in the world I travel. The only thing consistent is the laptop (Macbook Air) or desktop (iMac) I use.

What are your personal projects and goals for 2010?

We’re fully focused on our products. We’re only a team of ten people, but the energy that is going into Beanstalk, Newsberry, and Postmark this year is amazing. My main goal is to keep the momentum going.

Who is Scott Chacon?

Who isn’t Scott Chacon?  Well, I’m not a professional Frisbee player, newspaperman, clothing designer or hitman (atleast, not provably indicted (in the United States (or any nations with established and enforceable bilateral extradition treaties))).  So what is left in life, one may well ask?  Well, I am a father, cat rescuer, gorilla tamer and baby signer.  I also occasionally like to run.

Oh, and I do computer stuff.

SVN or GIT? and why?

SVN.  I’m a huge fan of slow development, waiting twenty minutes for commands to run, useless merge functionality and single points of failure.  Why would anyone want cheap branching and easy merging when you can bill 5 hours for each merge instead?  Those Git people are just crazy.  If my commits took 1/10 of a second instead of 5 minutes, when would I ever find the time to read Hacker News?

What does your typical day look like?

Well, I have a 7 month old daughter, so I typically wake up at 1am. 2:30am. 4:15am. 6:45am.  Then the day starts at 7:30am.  I check my email while Jo rolls around on the floor, finding random objects and sticking them in her mouth.  Eventually, I’ll decide whether I want to take the train up to San Francisco, which is about an hour trip, to work in a cafe with a couple of the GitHub guys, or I might decide to work from home.  Sometimes a coin is involved in that decision making.

Then I work on some GitHub related thing for a few hours, have lunch, possibly exercise, then work on GitHub stuff again for some more hours.  Sometimes that GitHub stuff is setting up training via email, booking flights and coordinating drinkups for conferences I’m speaking at, trying to incorporate new Git features into GitHub, fixing bugs or working on fun new secret features. It largely depends on what mood I’m in that day.  Also sometimes it’s mostly finding annoying images to paste into Campfire.

At GitHub we don’t have a project tracker or todo list – we just all work on whatever is most interesting to us.  No standup meetings, burndown charts or points to assign. No chickens or pigs.  It’s sort of the open source software style of business – everyone itches thier own scratch.  Inexplicably, it works really well and keeps everyone engaged, new features appearing quickly and bugs fixed rather fast. No managers, directors, PMs or departments – and it’s the most agile, focused and efficient team I’ve ever worked with.  Maybe we should write a book about it.

Then I go home. And that’s when my night-time crime fighting begins, but that’s another story.

What are the tools you couldn’t live without?

Fire, a pen knife and bailing wire.  Everything else is a luxury.

What do you do in your free time?

Mostly I take care of my new baby. I like to run, though that waxes and wanes over time.  Software-wise, it’s often difficult to differentiate between free and work time – I often work on GitHub on the weekends and open source software projects during the week (and vice-versa).

One of my favorite things to do, oddly, is listen to the “Never Not Funny” podcast and do the dishes.  It’s strangely relaxing.

Current favorite apps?

I use TextMate and Chrome mostly.  I’m not sure I’d call them my, ‘favorites’, but it’s what I’m always in.  I love Skitch and tolerate Propane (a Campfire client).  I’ve also become a sometimes-fan of making Skype calls when overseas.  My favorite app of all time is probably OmniGraffle, though.

Online-wise, everything Google does is basically a life-changer. Search, Mail, Maps – I use them all daily and heaven forfend that I be banned from them, because everything would go down the tubes.

Open-source wise, I love Rack and Sinatra.  I find that just about everything new that I work on involves Sinatra.  Perfectly complimenting them is Heroku, too – it’s the only sticker besides GitHub that I have on my laptop, because I love finding ways to use them.  An example is one of my newer projects, ShowOff, which is my own little html/js based presentation software – it’s written as a Sinatra app and has a command to upload the presentation to a new Heroku instance.  So awesome – if you’re a Rubyist and are not thinking of Heroku for each new thing you’re working on, then you’re missing out.

What OSs do you prefer?

I hugely prefer Windows ME to anything else.  The problem is that it’s difficult to run on most of the hardware I have and no other Windows edition cuts it for me. So, I’m down to using a Mac, largely because I like the form factor of the Air.  I travel constantly, so a 3 lb laptop with a 13″ screen is amazing – easy to carry around in a small pack, fast enough, and I can open it on an airplane.  I love it.  To give you a sense of scale, I love it almost as much as I love the series Firefly.

Historically, I’ve probably used Linux more than anything else, and probably would be running that on my Air right now except that I can’t quite get it to.  The 2nd gen Airs are not very kind to Linux at the moment.  I would probably prefer to run Ubuntu or Fedora, but for the forseeable future I’ll probably mostly be on OS X.

Small pic for your Workplace?

Home:

Epicenter Cafe: (by Olaf  Koens)

Favorite: Languages, JS Framework?

American Sign Language, Pascal, Ruby, Erlang, English – in that order. JS-wise, I almost always use JQuery, mostly because we use it at GitHub and so I’m most familiar with it.  Also, Yehuda is at almost every conference I am and though you wouldn’t think it, is very heavy-handed in forcing that on people.  I wanted to use MooTools once, but Katz subtly hinted that something untoward may happen to my kneecaps if that were to happen.  And then he winked.

The things or source that inspired you?

Delta airlines and airports in general have inspired me as a source of what NOT to do in nearly every conceivable situation they are presented with.  Chase bank running a close second.

Dick Hardt’s Identity 2.0 talk at OSCON and a talk called “Enterprise 2.0″ by Andrew McAfee were both very inspirational in how I try to teach within the constraints of the common 45-minute talk format. Dick’s was very fast-paced and funny with tons of slides, while Andrew’s was basically a tiny handful of slides but equally and very differently fascinating.  I tend more towards Dick’s style, but I hope I can become a speaker of Andrew’s caliber someday, too.

Code-wise, basically everyone at GitHub is a better programmer than I am, so seeing how they tackle problems is a daily source of inspiration, motivation and deep shame for me.

Most of all, I like to experience as much as I can in life and really appreciate this quote by Robert A. Heinlein:

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

Poignant.  I’m working my way through the list.

What do you prefer, the freelance work or the full time employee?

I vastly prefer being a full time employee – freelance work is stressful and annoying to me.  I hate finding clients, I hate dealing with clients, I hate supporting clients.  Basically everything about the freelancing process makes me sweat.  I have no idea how people do it.  I don’t think I’ve ever been at a company for less than 2 years, normally more.

Your personal projects and goals for 2010?

I would really like to try to give a technical talk in Spanish.  I would like to write a book of fiction, possibly a murder mystery.  I would like to run from my apartment in Redwood City to our office in San Francisco at least once, which is about 25 miles.  I would really like to do it once a month.  I would like to teach my daughter a solid ASL vocabulary and do a video podcast of her learning process to help other parents.  I want to take my wife and daughter to at least one other country, possibly Brazil.  I want to finally do 100 consecutive pushups. I want to lose 10 pounds.

I want to help make GitHub at least 213% more awesome than it currently is. I would like to give most or all of my talks in ShowOff and make it really fun to use.  And finally, I would like to bring peace and tranquility to the warring factions of the source control world.  May Subversionists, Mercurialantists and Gits live together in peace and harmony.  I’m working on a grand unified theory of that now.