Starbuck's dashboard

Rather than reporting a bug or asking for something new in Drop.io, I thought it was time to offer a case study for quick and productive use of the resource.

We have a client for whom we're doing some intensive long-term development, with changes every day. I get very frequent chats, calls, and emails from people at the client, as everyone is wondering what the status is, what can they do to help, do we need anything, are we still working on their project, are we accessing their servers, etc. If I email blast, it's too much information to too many people. If I don't send some sort of notice every few hours, I wind up spending time in email telling people there is nothing to be done, that everything is fine, that things are progressing well, or I try to explain in detail what's just happened over the last few hours.

What I wanted was a mechanism that allowed me to get information to people who wanted it, without me having to worry about getting the email address list right every time, and without over-blasting info to people who don't want to be updated too frequently. In other words, get information out, but not too much and not too little.

Enter Drop.io : I created a drop just for the current client/project and added a simple guest password. The default view is Blog. Now whenever I think it's time for a minor update I'll send an email to the drop and it immediately displays as a Note. I can paste a screenshot into the email or attach an image and that hits the drop too. I know people are watching the drop page because I can see them in the Chat list. Some people are registering for RSS and/or email notification. I got one request for interfacing the drop chat with ICQ as another means of getting change notices.

This solves the "not too much or little" problem because people can skim over the blog view and select what info they want, without having to click on emails. They know these are passive updates they can check whenever they want, compared to email notices where I may need to really get their attention or where we actually need some feedback. In other words, as it's being used here, email is actionable but drop assets aren't.

The cool thing is that this is a two-way medium. People can post comments to notes. I can correct their spelling and they'll see it immediately. LOL More importantly, we can collaborate to change asset names and descriptions to make them more immediately helpful - or I can edit notes after posting to improve clarity. I've even called the drop voice mail a couple times because I was too lazy to type my status update. :)

Some of the people we work with aren't too tech savvy, but they're starting to "get" Drop.io. I might start to do this with other clients, even post things like project time, code updates, and other resources.

Email, email lists, blogs, and forums can all provide similar functionality, but each one has issues. Drop.io isn't perfect for all needs, but for the problem at hand it was fast to get this resource up and it does solve a lot of the problems we've been having with this particular client.

I hope this helps to inspire others with just one more way to make use of this fine service.