Hello! The guys here at echolibre thought that making a web app would be the best way for me to experience working in this industry, so I am. The idea that I’ve come up with and started this week is, as Eamon put it, a document management system for schools, teachers & students.  Here’s just a quick overview of what I want to do with the project and I’d love to hear what you think about it or any ideas you have — so if you want to, just throw me a comment below!

Basically, the idea is to have a platform that enables those who participate in a school environment to share resources much more easily and to make it easier to find the relevant resources faster. Included in this would be a “homework journal” style system to allow the student to see exactly what they have to do and allow them to organise it more efficiently and with almost one-click access to very relevant resources chosen by the teacher to go along with that work.

This is a largish project and I don’t expect to get everything done in the week, however, my aims for the end of the week are:

The core of the application, which consists of:

• Login for school administrators, teachers and a single class based login.
• Linking and creation (uploading images, documents, PDFs etc..) of resources for teachers.
• The ability to see class assignments for students using the single class based login.

What I hope to do with the app in near future:

• Student logins so that students are presented with a fully customised dashboard that allows them to display everything that they have to do in their “homework journal”.
• Parent logins so that parents can review the student’s progress easily.
• (a slightly more distant near future I would love to see) a “marketplace” where teachers could swap resources they have created for free or for a fee.

I have yet to think of a name for this product, so I’d really love to hear any ideas people would have on that.

David and Eamon have given me advice from a technical and project / commercial perspective.

I’m using Zend Framework in the LAMP stack. I’ll update later in the week with progress.

Anyone who has ever worked with a client to build a web site or web application will know that there are areas where the client could benefit from having a better understanding of what is involved in the development process. Ultimately, when a client is better advised in these areas, they can make more informed decisions. This also can be beneficial to the development company or freelancer, as it can ensure better communication from the beginning of a project.

The Irish Internet Association is…

the professional body for those conducting business via the Internet from Ireland. The IIA provides leadership to enterprises and society conducting business in Ireland. The aim of the Association is to Connect, Inform and Promote.

I’m delighted to have been asked by the IIA to chair this working group. I’m looking forward to working with what I’m sure will be a talented team of professionals from development, security, and decision making backgrounds.

If you would like to be involved in the Web Development Working Group, you can drop Roseanne Smith of the IIA an email on members@iia.ie or you can contact me on eamon@echolibre.com .

I found that most people tend to either describe what a leader is, or what a leader does, usually based on personal contact with someone they regarded as a “good” leader. However, most seem to find it difficult to actually define what a leader is. Indeed, I can understand this, as there are many types of leaders out there and I think that generally how you tell them apart is not their skills, but what or who it is they’re actually leading.

When most people decide to start a company, it’s usually because they have an idea or product or service they want to sell, maybe because they want to take back some control in their lives, or because they believe they can do it.

Each of these reasons provide the groundwork for the makings of a leader - not necessarily a good leader, but a leader all the same. Allow me to break down the previous paragraph further: I think it can generally be accepted that a leader should possess, amongst other qualities, the following:

- Vision
- Decision making
- Self belief

These are great qualities for anyone to possess, and I would argue that it can be difficult to get a company (or any kind of long-term venture for that matter) up off the ground, without this basic mix.

I would also argue that just because you’ve started up a company, it does not necessarily mean that you can lead.  A great leader will have a few more abilities, for example:

- the ability to communicate well with others
- the ability to organise people and tasks
- the ability to inspire a team of people
- the ability to remain level headed under pressure
- the ability to accept responsibility for a team’s mistakes
- the ability to be open to discussion, yet confident in decision making
- the ability to start and complete
- the ability to care about the team and about the work

… the list goes on.

Not everyone in charge of a small start-up company has these abilities - but hey, that’s the way it goes for a start-up. There is often an understanding that any skills that cannot be bought in at the beginning, can be picked up along the way.

This is fine, and usually works where things like administration is concerned. But when we’re talking about things like Sales, Design and Development, there’s only so far you can go with what you’ve picked up. In order to be exceptional at these things, possessing a natural ability usually helps.

The same is true for leadership. Most of us can pick up a smattering of the abilities listed above, but there is no substitute for having a natural leadership ability.

So, what is natural leadership ability? I think it’s being in possession of all these skills and actually knowing what to do with them.

Whether I consider myself to be a natural leader or not is another story. I’m finding my way, making some mistakes and learning from them; having some successes and repeating them.

Maybe ask me again this time next year