@paulruderman – Founder, UpdateZen
Hi Guys! Thanks for your interest in UpdateZen.
We started UpdateZen because we want to give the super-busy professional (Entrepreneur, CEO, Executive) an easy way to always know the status of the key things their people are working on. We are passionate about BREVITY…. The art of brevity in the age of information overload.
The essence of our app (web & iPhone) is to limit your people’s updates to 250 characters so you see only what is absolutely essential for you to know. All project updates are stored in one location, so you don’t have to dig around in e-mails, spreadsheets, text messages, IMs, etc. to know what’s going on with a specific project.
We’ve just entered beta this summer, and plan to launch publicly in the fall.
If you have anybody reporting to you in your startup, your company, or your team, I would love to have you join our open beta. Just visit our site to sign up.
P.S. Here’s how UpdateZen came to be - a guest post of mine on Clarity.fm last week: http://blog.clarity.fm/finding-y...
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@paulruderman I just signed up two of my companies for this. We usually use email to update each other and it gets way too verbose and eventually gets lost. So this is perfect!
My only suggestions would be change the setup from Manager->Team to Company->Department->Managers->Team. I had to sign up with the project manager's email in order to ensure he would get the updates, however now I won't get the updates under my account since I'm considered a team member. Most places have more than 1 person that would need to see updates and it's even more common that Developer 1 and Developer 2 need to see each others updates in addition to the Project Manager.
Outside of that, images attachments would be nice.
If you need a developer for the Android version, hit me up!
@itsthisjustin great feedback, thx!
We definitely have alot of enhancements in the works that relate directly to your requests for 'wider' team visibility.
However, one of our goals in designing UpdateZen, as you alluded to atop your comment, is to DECREASE the information overload, decrease the number of emails, and decrease the number of updates that are shared with everyone on your team. Brevity. Less information. Less noise.
Let me give you the benefit of our thinking in how we designed UpdateZen's workflow. If you are a team member and you update the status of something you're working on, (1) the team lead will see that update automatically, and (2) either you OR the team lead can at any time, very easily, in one tap, SHARE that latest update with ANYONE - inside or outside your organization. This way, your other team members aren't bombarded with even more information and more updates all the time. It's selective. YOU - the Single Responsible Person who owns the update - or THE TEAM LEAD whom you report to, will decide if an update warrants being shared with one person, every person, outside people, etc...
So we limit the size of an update (250 characters) and we limit people's inclinations to just CC everyone on everything.
So yes, for now it is more of a hierarchical reporting tool (you and your manager, or you and your direct report), but selective sharing of updates - so that others can SEE the updates - is a key feature of UpdateZen right now.
P.S. When we get to Android, I'll give ya a ring :)
UpdateZen
