MyQuire.com

During our recent user survey, we met a MyQuire user who is doing extraordinary things as part of a relief and development agency in Northern Iraq. Our goal has always been to all people work together, so we were thrilled to hear that MyQuire is being used around the globe by an organization helping those in need.

We were asked not to print details about the organization’s exact details or staff names, but we can share some of our conversation about how the group uses MyQuire. The organization’s office used to use a shared server, but it went down over the summer and the organization lost all of their past work. They were looking for a tool to replace the server, and came across MyQuire. When I asked how they used MyQuire, the director told me, “My office has been using MyQuire to collaborate on our projects…for instance, we teach Conversation English at a local university. I uploaded all of our past lesson plans, so now, whenever we start a new course, the project leader can simply go to the website and get what they need.”

We plan to continue sharing stories of how our users are making a difference in the months to come.

This month, we proudly announced the winner of our 2007 RapidGrant program. For those who don’t know, RapidGrant is a program we launched last month as a way to recognize non-profit MyQuire members who are innovative in their approaches to the problem they’re working to address. We were blown away by the applications we received. We heard from people across the country who are working around the world to improve people’s lives, protect animals, and save our environment. It was a pretty tough process but we had to choose a single grant recipient out of the pile of inspirational groups who applied. The organization we chose is called Redemption, a non-profit organization whose mission is to increase the educational advancement of underserved youth between the ages of 13 and 19 residing in Brooklyn, New York. They inspired us by taking such a hands-on approach to giving students the support they need to reach their potential.

Tiffany Tucker, Executive Director of Redemption, told us they were faced with the challenges of coordinating a growing non-profit and dealing with the headaches of having a distributed team working on projects. “We heard about MyQuire and quickly found it was the tool we needed to solve our logistical problems and coordinate our teams,” says Tiffany. “We wanted to get our volunteers on the same page, so we know who’s working on what, and where we can find the latest versions of our documents, schedules and tasks. MyQuire is such a relief – it changes the way we work together to make things so much easier.”

Please join us in congratulating Redemption or better yet, add Tiffany Tucker to your network and send her a message.

Earlier this week, Mozilla Labs - creators of the Mozilla Firefox web browser - announced the beta release of Prism. Why might this be of interest? Because Prism allows for web based applications - like MyQuire - to run independently acting like a standalone desktop application (assuming you are connected to the internet).

• Run MyQuire without worrying about other websites crashing your web browser [interrupting your MyQuire session].
• Reduce distractions - work in MyQuire without being lured away to a different browser tab.

Ready to get started? Visit the Mozilla Labs Prism announcement page and download the appropriate version for your operating system. Once installed, double-click Prism to start. You will be presented with a setup prompt similar to the one below.

• For URL, enter http://www.myquire.com/q_profile
• For Name, enter 'MyQuire'
• Enable 'Show status messages and progress' & 'Enable navigation keys'
• Decide whether or not the web application should reside on your Desktop or within your Applications / Program Files.

Once you have properly configured Prism, select OK. MyQuire will open prompting you to login. Once completed, you will have full access to MyQuire as a "desktop application". The convenient desktop shortcut allows you to start and quit MyQuire as you would a standard desktop program - independent of any inadvertent browser crashes caused by other websites you may be viewing. Create similar desktop applications using other websites using the same steps above.

A few weeks ago MyQuire was named a finalist in the Collaboration category of the 2007 Silicon Valley Business Journal's Emerging Technology Awards. Very cool! The winners were announced last night at an award banquet held at the Computer History Museum right in MyQuire's hometown of Mountain View, and I went to represent the team. I was on the phone with our CTO and ran in about fifteen minutes after the program had started. I sat down just as they were announcing the collaboration category, and MyQuire won!

I honestly was shocked when he named MyQuire as the winner – and that shock started to feel more like panic as I approached the podium with no acceptance speech prepared. Oh well, it all turned out fine and the rest of the evening was fantastic. David joined me for the banquet following the ceremony and we got a chance to chat with some really interesting folks from the Silicon Valley business community (fellow finalists, journalists, venture capitalists, former winners, etc). It was incredibly validating to hear how excited people are about what we're building (people who aren't living and breathing it every day the way the MyQuire team is). So, now we have a tombstone to put on the shelves of our office to look as was we are hard at work earning our designation as an outstanding Emerging Technology. As they say in Hollywood "it was an honor just to have been nominated" (but between you and me - it was fun to win).

I'm excited to announce that Michael Plotkin has just come on board as MyQuire's Chief Technology Officer. Previously, he was leading the engineering team at iWIN, and has over 20 years of leadership at some of the world's leading technology companies.

Michael has a true passion for helping people do projects. He has been thinking about it ever since his days getting his PhD in computer science at the University of Moscow, but it was really while he was developing Sony Worldwide Studios' project management and collaboration platform that he began to really understand how many people need an easy-to-use tool to help with projects.

What struck me about Michael was that he has stayed close to the code even as he took on more senior roles. Michael's understanding for how technology needs to function invisibly and seamlessly in our lives fit perfectly in our our company culture.

We are thrilled to partner with Michael to build MyQuire!