"He's writing again," said Jack Hughes, founder and Chairman of TopCoder, to Jim McKeown, Topcoder Director of Communications, as we sat in the most undecorated conference room I've ever been in, talking about TopCoder, software engineering, programming competitions, business models, global economics, the past and future of the modern world -- as I scribbled more and more notes into my 10.5 x 8 inch wire-bound notebook. More than 15 pages of notes before I was finished! Now the big question is: what will I do with all those notes?
I don't think Jack or Jim are seriously concerned, though. As our meeting progressed, "He's writing again" became a playful statement, repeated several times, usually at significantly revealing moments. But I know they're not reading this post with shivers -- because, though we'd never met before today, they believed me when I said I was writing things down for my myself, not necessarily for distribution to others. As Jim said to me in an email as we were arranging my visit: "It's very apparent that we are speaking the same language in many ways..."
I found my visit to TopCoder headquarters fascinating, and there was a lot I wanted to carry back with me. So I scribbled as we talked. I have this curious trait where making my hand shape the words I want to remember seems to inscribe those words much more permanently into my brain cells than if I just listen to a conversation. I rarely actually review the notes later. Somehow the action of bringing my hand into the activity molds the image of the thoughts into my memory.
So, I kept scribbling, and Jack kept noticing: "He's writing again."
Openness and Community
I think being open comes naturally to TopCoder's management because being open is so fundamentally a part of their everyday job. Running TopCoder means listening. Listening to the developer community as represented by the competition contestants, listening to what's being stated on the TopCoder forums, listening to what other companies are saying they need. If you spend so much time listening, and you geniunely care about the community that is speaking to you -- how can you possibly be anything but open? Doesn't listening make being open second nature? Likewise, you cannot be a good listener unless you become highly skilled at being open to diverse statements made by different people.
Community: Social and Economic
My earlier post TopCoder as Social Network described my surprise at finding so many components that I associate with social networks in place at TopCoder. I wondered if they had planned it this way, or if it just happened.
During my visit to TopCoder, I found the answer to that question. TopCoder was founded in 2000, before MySpace existed, long before the term "social network" was used in reference to online communities. Community was indeed a founding principle for Jack Hughes. But the principle was based more on economics than social considerations. Or, better stated, perhaps, based on a vision of the role that community will play in the economics and business practices of the 21st Century. Because Jack Hughes is definitely someone who cares about community, about people's livelihood and welfare, about the next generation. He is indeed a socially conscious person. But economics determines so much of the welfare of humanity. Wrong economics hurts people. The right economics gives everyone in the world a better life...
The Global Future
It's so easy for me to get "off track" when I start thinking about global business and economics and how the Internet has changed everything. I have to admit, I had a field day talking about these issues with Jack and Jim, and later talking about mathematical methods for trading equities and financial instruments with Douglas Rivard, President and COO of Equitrader.com, a kind of start-up within TopCoder.
TopCoder is working with a new business model that they believe is the model of the future. It's a unique fusion of business and community that I've not seen before. Open Source is great, but how many people can actually put kids through college using that model? And, my own experience (being someone who has worked primarily with systems where scalabilty is critical) is that a great many Open Source projects simply have not been tested in an intense, rigorous environment.
The "critical mass" question, or issue, was raised many times during our conversation. And I probably shouldn't be so quick to say "conversation" -- I indeed was listening primarily. Perhaps "interview" would be a better term. Yet, it was also so much more friendly, less formal, than "interview" implies. I really felt at home being there. And it seemed like they felt quite at home talking about anything and everything with me.
Community and Company
OK, time to search through those 15 pages of notes for an exact quote. Ah! There it is. Jack said:
"TopCoder isn't a company with a community. It's a community with a company."
Why is that important? Why does that stand out for me? Because TopCoder as company is an interface between an expert community of software engineers, designers, algorithm experts, and businesses that need software products to perform a specific task. TopCoder provides software components, through its community, that meet the needs of these other businesses. The businesses are ready to pay (once they start feeling comfortable with the TopCoder software component development model), so the community participants (who write the software) are paid for their efforts -- and hence, can provide a better life for themselves and their families -- whether they live in Australia or the Ukraine or Tibet. Now -- if that's not community interest...
The fusion of business and community... it always should have been that way, wouldn't you think? A partnership?
Conclusion (for now): AOL and TopCoder
As I write this, I'm saying to myself "Huh? Conclusion already? But..." Yeah, I introduced a lot that I didn't fully develop. Unfortunately, it's late Thursday night, and even bloggers need to sleep sometimes. It will all be presented over time.
It's really exciting--and revealing, in my view--that AOL has chosen to be a major sponsor of TopCoder competitions. This company, TopCoder, has a vision about what the world is going to become over the next 50 years.
I wrote some posts about cars a few months ago ("Irrational Exuberance and 'Bubble 2.0'" and "Of Cars and Phones, Motors and the Net"). Not surprisingly, these posts didn't exactly set the world on fire. "Umm... you're using the AOL Developer Community platform to write about cars?"
My point in those posts was to "deflate" the "Bubble 2.0" rigamarole that had become suddenly prevalent. This IS a new world. Those who apply "once bitten, twice shy" illogic (can it be called anything else?) to the new world will be left behind.
OK, now I'm running again, even though it's late Thursday night and I do have to stop soon. TopCoder has a new model for business, a new model for software engineering, software component marketing, integration of worldwide resources for the benefit of corporate entities and for the benefit of software developers worldwide and even for the benefit of the environment (why should millions of people commute 100 minutes per day when they can carve out a nice Internet-connected work area right in their homes, and spend some extra minutes with their children each day before they go to school and when they get home?)...
Get the idea I was impressed? that I'm enthusiastic? that my optimism about the future has just been multiplied 10-fold? Yup, that indeed is what happened today.
And someone at AOL knows TopCoder really "gets it" too. So what does that tell you about the sponsors of our AOL Developer Network site?
-- Kevin Farnham
O'Reilly Media
AOL
AOL is all!!!! : )