An Idea on a Napkin…

I was inspired to write this post after reading another post by Danny Brown where he discussed a friend who always had great ideas but never followed through with them.  Well, this story is polar opposite from that one, it’s about an idea that was forged in someone’s head and sketched out on a napkin that did come to fruition.

A while back I was having coffee and sharing ideas w/ good friend, Pete Tanguay, something we both try to do at least once a week.  Pete, who also owns a software company, Rock-Pond Solutions, started to sketch out an idea onto the back of a napkin for a project that he and his lead developer had been thinking about for quite some time.  The application would be a combination of a desktop program and report viewer but would also contain a business information center that would compile data from a variety of sources within his target industry into one convenient location.  As he described this application to me I did my best to follow along but coming from my background, it was somewhat hard to get my head around everything he was saying…

Keep in mind that Pete and I are from two separate ends of the spectrum in terms of what our companies do, he primarily provides consulting and reporting solutions as to where I mostly build websites and web applications. We are gradually learning more about each others businesses the more time we spend together, heck it wasn’t that long ago that I didn’t have a clue that the niche industry he targets even existed, much less that this industry generates billions of dollars in revenue annually. Taking what I know now about his target audience into consideration I can see why he was so passionate about this napkin sketch…

I have to be somewhat vague in this post about the product itself because it hasn’t been developed yet and I don’t want to give away a lot of details before his team has a chance to properly rollout the product. In fact there are probably less than 5 people who have actually seen this application in it’s current form and I am fortunate to be one of them.  I have watched this thing evolve from a napkin sketch into a full blown desktop application thanks to the Rock-Pond development teams hard work and dedication.

One thing I have learned from being an outside observer on this project is that just like in the web development realm, to develop a quality product you really have to have a good understanding of the end user.  None of us want to create an application and pour tons of time into it only to find that it’s received by our target audience as complicated or confusing.  When my schedule allowed I have been a guinea pig / usability consultant for Pete on this project, even providing graphical suggestions to the development team for use in the product design.  It has been an awesome experience learning a little bit about Telerik and Infragistics, and I thank Pete and his team for allowing me this access, but I don’t think I want to leave the web side of development anytime soon. I do, however, have a whole new appreciation for all goes into desktop application and GUI design.

The big thing for me I guess is how this thing has come together. Anytime a rough sketch on the back of a napkin and collaborated on by a small group of people turns into something tangible it’s pretty incredible to me. Especially something that has the potential to become a pivotal component for an entire industry.  After having seen this come to fruition I think I might start carrying my sketchpad around again.