• Read more about DISTRIBUTED: Remote Employees are Happier, Healthier and More Productive

Yep, you read that right. While it’s no surprise that remote employees are happier than their commuting counterparts, many business owners are shocked to learn distributed employees are also more productive. How could that be? It’s actually pretty simple. Psychologists have proven time and again that a happy employee is also a productive employee.

According to a study published in the Journal of Applied Communication Research, people who work from home at least three days a week are more satisfied with their jobs because they have less work-life conflict, lower stress levels, less time pressure and face fewer interruptions. “Telecommuting is a win-win for employees and employers, resulting in higher morale and job satisfaction and lower employee stress and turnover,” write Penn State researchers Ravi Gajendran and David Harrison in another study.

So why exactly does working from home make employees absolutely giddy with joy? Here are the top eight career perks distributed employees enjoy:

Perk #1: No More Hellish Commute

Remote workers no longer have to suffer through the twice daily excruciating nightmare known as “the commute.” According to the Department of Transportation, the average American commuter spends more than 38 hours a year stuck in traffic—and that number is much higher in the most congested cities.

When employees complain, “This commute is killing me!” they aren’t being overly dramatic. Studies show that long commutes correlate with neck and back problems and an increased risk of obesity, thanks to poor eating habits and less exercise. To make matters worse, workers with long commutes say they feel less rested and experience less enjoyment, Gallup reports.

When asked to draw comparisons, telecommuters said their stress levels have dropped and their overall happiness has increased since they started working from home, according to a Staples Advantage Survey. As an added bonus, the majority of distributed employees give their saved commuting time back to the company. According to a ConnectSolutions study, the typical employee with a 60-minute roundtrip commute will work 30 minutes longer on days she telecommutes.

Perk #2: Tailor-Made Work Environment

Unlike office-bound workers who have no control over their work environment, remote employees have the freedom to build their own workspace. So if an employee feels most inspired snuggled up in her Wonder Woman Snuggie on the couch with her cat curled around her feet, we say go for it! If another worker gets his creative juices flowing by standing in front of his laptop at the kitchen counter and blasting The Black Keys, he can crank it up to eleven and even indulge in a little air guitar action without a second thought.

On the other hand, employees who are tethered to a traditional office face countless distractions throughout the day—from impromptu meetings and tasteless music (think Michael Bolton) to the offensive odor of seafood lunches heating up in the office microwave and overly talkative co-workers chit-chatting about the latest episode of The Voice. According to Global Analytics Network, businesses incur annual losses of $600 billion because of workplace distractions.

Perk #3: Healthier Living

According to a ConnectSolutions Remote Worker Study, nearly half of respondents say they eat healthier when they work from home, 40 percent say they sleep more, and almost two-thirds say they exercise more.

“Teleworkers often eat healthier meals and are less inclined to consume fast food lunches,” note the researchers at Global Workplace Analytics. Plus, remote workers aren’t tempted daily by the office vending machine, the candy jar at the receptionist’s desk or the fresh glazed donuts in the conference room.

Because of their flexible hours (not to mention the time they save by not commuting), remote workers also have more opportunities to go for a run or hit the gym. At Intridea, we encourage employees to stay active by holding company-wide Fitbit competitions. At the end of each week, we crown the employee with the most impressive exercise stats as Fitbit champion.

Perk #4: Ultimate Flexibility

Remote work offers the ultimate flexibility. This gives parents an opportunity to spend more time with their kiddos, allows disabled workers to take a job they may otherwise be hesitant to accept and enables geographically isolated professionals to stay put in the boondocks and still land that dream job.

Because working from home allows employees to achieve a better work-life balance, they’re also less likely to call in sick than traditional office workers. Organizations that implemented a telework program realized a 63 percent reduction in unscheduled absences, according to the American Management Association. This is because distributed employees typically continue to work when they’re sick (without infecting others) and return to work more quickly following surgery or medical issues. Plus, because distributed employees generally don’t have to stick to a traditional 9 to 5 schedule, they can run errands or schedule appointments without cutting their workday short.

Perk #5: Major Savings

Remote workers save a bundle as compared to office employees—to the tune of $4,500 a year on average, according to the ConnectSolutions Remote Worker Study.

A whopping 92 percent of American employees say they are concerned with the high cost of fuel and more than two-thirds of them specifically cite the cost of commuting to work, according to Global Workplace Analytics. Remote workers not only save on the cost of commuting (including gas, tolls, mass transit pass charges and car insurance premiums). They also save on dry cleaning, business clothing expenses and meals since they are less likely to eat at restaurants during the work day.

Perk #6: Frowns Turned Upside-Down

The vast majority of remote workers report off-the-charts job satisfaction. Probably not a shocking revelation considering that distributed employees generally work in a more comfortable environment and have more personal time for family and hobbies.

The ConnectSolutions Remote Worker Study reveals that people who telework are much more optimistic than office-bound drones. More than half of surveyed teleworkers said they have a more positive attitude when working remotely. According to a survey by The Wall Street Journal, workers who telecommute report the highest levels of satisfaction with their jobs and loyalty to their employers.

Perk #7: No Drama

Distributed workers are far less likely to get wrapped up in co-worker drama and office politics. When Kathryn L. Fonner with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee associate and Michael E. Roloff with Northwestern University queried 200 workers (half telecommuters and half office-based), they found telecommuters are less aware of office politics—which seems to be a healthy thing.

“By working remotely the majority of the time, teleworkers can avoid or ignore some of the unjust practices within the organization, such as cronyism, self-interested behavior, and pressure against speaking out against those in power,” write Fonner and Roloff.

Perk #8: Killer Collaboration

Contrary to popular belief, distributed teams actually feel more connected and collaborative. According to the ConnectSolutions study, 80 percent of surveyed remote workers reported feeling more connected to their co-workers, particularly when their remote work practices were supported by unified communications.

To top it off, distributed team leaders often make better use of technology and communication tools. Here at Intridea, if we want to reach out to a co-worker or employee, we’ll simply HipChat them or shoot them an email; while our brick-and-mortar counterparts might spend ten minutes trying to hunt down a colleague in the office or even schedule an unnecessary formal meeting in a conference room.

These eight priceless perks (along with countless others) all come together to make distributed employees happier and more engaged, loyal and productive than their brick-and-mortar counterparts. In the end, these advantages pay off hugely for the employer…and even society at large.

Think we’re exaggerating? Think again! Check out our next blog to learn how the human race is benefitting from distributed work.
Does your company work remote? Keep the conversation going! We'd love to hear from you.

• Read more about Working at XO Group

The XO Group Inc. is the parent company of leading wedding website, The Knot, along with its counterparts, The Nest, The Bump, and the Wedding Channel. Headquartered at 195 Broadway in New York City, XO Group is in the heart of creativity.

XO/innovation

With innovation at their core, XO is continuously reinventing itself and as of late, has embarked on the migration of their .Net based applications to Rails.

In early 2014, XO brought on Intridea to help build one of their main apps.

With a team of talented folks: product manager (Elliot), tech lead (Steve), designer (Laura), three Ruby on Rails developers (Jeff and Tom from Intridea, and Edina from XO), and one mobile developer (Meghan). The new app was brought to life, it is designed as a single web app built with Backbone, CoffeeScript, Twitter Bootstrap, Rails, and Postgres, the app is intuitive, responsive, and easily adaptable to the changing trends in the wedding industry.

After Intridea's initial three month agreement and successful completion of MVP (minimal viable product) features, XO extended Intridea's contract for three additional months, asking us to also help them with one of their other major apps; which we were more than happy to do!

XO/entrepreneurial spirit

Surrounded by creatives, XO exudes an entrepreneurial mindset. Each product team is largely self contained, with their own budget, and responsibility over their own data and services (which are exposed with APIs). Thus, allowing for great flexibility and efficiency, and enabling teams to quickly take their products from inception to production.

The Agile and TDD development process (for apps built with Ruby on Rails) has been set up by Pivotal, which we followed with some modifications to improve efficiency. XO uses its own enterprise version of Github for project repositories. Builds are handled by Jenkins with the build success/failure status prominently displayed publicly for everyone to see. The team is situated in the same area for easy communication (and pairing). Hipchat and Basecamp are also used to enhance team communication and sharing of project artifacts. Most of the technical docs (like API specs) are hosted on internal wiki and XO has recently migrated from Microsoft Office to Google's Gmail, Drive, and Hangout.

XO/life

The NYC office is conveniently located right by the Fulton subway station. They have the 25th and 24th floors of the historical 195 Broadway building, also known as the old AT&T building where the first transatlantic telephone call was made to London in 1927.

In addition, XO perks are pretty great too. From free drinks, snacks, and Thirsty Thursdays to game rooms with Ping Pong, pool, and foosball tables, XO group knows how to make folks happy! And not only this, but XO Group graciously hosts a number of NYC area meet-up events including Hack Upon A Cause and NYC Big Apps. Each employee is provided with locker, which helps to declutter the office desks, and makes it easier for engineers to move around when pairing with different people. There is a gym nearby where some XO employees go workout regularly. XO also has a running club whose members run on the beautiful NYC Greenway bike trail just a few blocks away.

XO is a top notch company with awesome people, perks, and services! It's been a great experience for Intridea and if there was a rating scale for amazing clients we'd give them a ten out of ten - hands down!

• Read more about DISTRIBUTED: Businesses Reap the Benefits of a Remote Workforce

Companies across the globe, from mammoth corporations to small businesses to emerging start-ups, are embracing the distributed format. In fact, Fortune Magazine reports that 85 of the companies that landed on its 2012 “100 Best Companies to Work For” list allow employees to telecommute or work at home at least 20 percent of the time.

Why are droves of businesses flocking to the distributed trend? Because companies that adopt remote work benefit from substantial cost savings, better talent acquisition, heightened employee productivity and extended marketing reach.

“The virtualization of business is like outsourcing on steroids: not only is it highly efficient, but it is probably the most advanced and evolved economic system yet devised,” writes John Meyer, CEO of Arise Virtual Solutions. “It’s arrived, it’s booming, and we need more of it.”

Keep reading to learn more about the boundless benefits distributed companies enjoy.

Benefit #1: Major Cost Savings

Because distributed businesses don’t have to pay for a physical office space (and the utilities, equipment, housekeeping and supplies that go along with it), these companies enjoy ample cost savings. In fact, distributed companies often save more than 30 percent on operating costs as compared with traditional brick-and-mortar businesses.

Just ask the leaders of insurance giant Aetna. Nearly half of the company’s 35,000 employees work from home all or part of the time. This has allowed the company to eliminate 2.7 million square feet of office space, saving Aetna $78 million a year on real estate costs, utilities, housekeeping, mail service and document shredding.

And distributed companies aren’t just saving on real estate and operating costs. According to the International Teleworking Advocacy Group, after implementing teleworking programs, small businesses report saving an average of $85,000 to $93,000 per year, thanks to lower turnover, reduced operating costs and increased productivity.

Benefit #2: Access to a Vast Pool of Talent

If your business isn’t tethered to one spot, you can hire the best and brightest employees from all over the world.

“By hiring remote workers, today’s businesses are harnessing the speed and flexibility they need to gain a competitive edge and prosper,” writes oDesk CEO Gary Swart in a FOXBusiness article. “When companies hire within commuting distance of their physical locations, as is the traditional preference, the practice becomes limiting when the right talent, at the right price, isn’t available nearby.”

Not only do distributed businesses gain greater access to talent—these companies are more likely to retain their highly skilled employees. According to Global Workplace Analytics, 95 percent of employers say that telework has a major positive impact on employee retention, and nearly half of companies that allow remote work say it has reduced attrition.

Benefit #3: Extended Reach

When your employees are scattered across the country and even the world, this extends your reach into many more local markets as compared to brick-and-mortar businesses tied to one geographic area. As a result, distributed businesses gain an edge when it comes to marketing, advertising and research efforts.

“Having people employed, and a presence across the globe, gives a diversification to the well you can tap into to solve problems as well as expose your product or service to more markets giving you more research to work from,” writes reporter Ronan Steyn in a Ventureburn article.

Widely dispersed teams also gain access to clients who live in dramatically different time zones and speak other languages. “You’ll automatically get better coverage of multiple time zones and languages when your team is more distributed,” points out Toni Schneider, CEO of Automattic and partner at True Ventures.

Benefit #4: More Productive Employees

More than half of business decision makers say telecommuting leads to more productive employees, according to a survey issued by Staples Advantage. Not only are distributed employees able to focus more intensely without the frequent distractions that occur in a traditional office, but they also tend to work longer hours than their brick-and-mortar counterparts. According to Gallup, employees who work at home log an average of four more hours per week than those who work on-site.

“Remote workers—without a commute or office distractions to factor in—can spend more time per day focusing on work alone,” emphasizes Swart. “No wonder half of the employers oDesk surveyed have grown their businesses’ revenue, size, or service offerings by using remote workers.”

Corporate giants Best Buy, Dow Chemical and American Express report that their teleworkers are 40 percent more productive than office workers, according to Telework Research Network.

A Powerful Business Model

The benefits of running a remote business are undeniable and unprecedented. Considering the extraordinary advantages, it’s no wonder an increasing number of businesses are tapping into the power of distributed teams.

But distributed business owners aren’t the only ones reaping the benefits. Tune into our next blog to learn about the priceless advantages remote employees enjoy.

Does your company work remote? Keep the conversation going! We'd love to hear from you.

• Read more about DISTRIBUTED: Why Intridea Chose It and Never Looked Back

When we founded Intridea in 2007, we came to a realization: If we wanted to build a truly revolutionary software company, we couldn’t restrict ourselves to hiring local talent. We’d have to reach beyond our own backyard and scope out the premier software developers and designers from across the globe.

Plus, we wanted to foster a culture of productivity and creativity at Intridea. We didn’t want to emulate the old-school customs and rituals that traditional companies follow. So we decided to create something completely different—the kind of creatively-charged workplace we’d always dreamed about.

But how would we pull all that off? And suddenly, the answer became crystal clear: We would create an entirely remote company, or a distributed team. And that’s exactly what we did...

Today @Intridea

Fast-forward to today. Intridea is still a fully distributed company with more than 30 employees sprinkled across the globe. Our workers don’t fight their way through rush hour traffic to parade into a brick-and-mortar office building. They don’t toil away on software designs in a sea of cubicles or a labyrinth of closed-door offices, nor do they meet each morning face-to-face around a conference room table. Instead, our software developers and designers work from the comfort of their homes—from Washington DC to New York City, California to Colorado, Maine to Missouri and beyond. Whether they wear pajamas and fuzzy slippers, sweat pants or jeans and whether they choose to work from their couch, a local coffee shop, their back porch or a home office, we don’t know, and frankly we don’t care—as long as they continue to create radically engaging, state-of-the-art software solutions.

Distributed is Here to Stay

Since we founded Intridea seven years ago, we’ve seen an explosion in the distributed trend across the globe. Because remote teams offer tremendous advantages, an increasing number of corporations and entrepreneurs are going mobile.

But you don’t have to take our word for it. Just feast your eyes on the numbers:

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 13 million people (9.4 percent of the working population), work at home at least one day per week. That’s quite a leap from 7 percent in 1997. By 2016, 63 million Americans will be working remotely, Forrester Research predicts, adding that this trend will have a “far-reaching” impact on the nation’s economy. By 2020, 89 percent of all companies will have adopted mobile work styles with fewer office-based employees, Citrix predicts. Nearly three-quarters of companies that have adopted mobile work benefit from a more flexible, agile workforce, and more than half reported lower employee-related costs, Citrix reports. Nearly half of the companies also reported a greater ability to attract and retain top talent.

When you look at the research, it’s clear that distributed isn’t just a passing fad. This trend is here to stay.

Boundless Benefits

It’s really no wonder why the distributed trend is surging throughout the business world. With employees working remotely, companies can operate with very little overhead, often saving more than 30 percent on operating costs. To top it off, evidence shows that remote workers are generally more productive, happier and healthier.

For example, the U.K based telecom company O2 experimented with virtual work by allowing 3,000 of their employees to telecommute. More than one-third of the workers reported being more productive as a result of being able to work from home.

The list of favorable stories and statistics goes on and on. In fact, research proves that the distributed trend not only benefits employees and employers, but also society at large. We’ll delve more deeply into these advantages in our next three blogs.
Does your company work remote? Keep the conversation going! We'd love to hear from you.

• Read more about Get RAD: Part III

We're RAD y'all!

In today's post, we're going to cover the following:

• A new version of Framer
• Tweaking our HTML ever so slightly to accommodate the app
• Loading the PSD and creating global variables for our views
• Adding sound effects
• Configuring our view states
• Animating our views

A whole new world

No, this isn't a segue into Aladdin but it's as equally exciting. A new version of Framer was released shortly after my last post and fortunately for us, the new build includes a host of changes and improvements. Thankfully, only a few of those changes impact our project; the need for Fastclick which removes the 300ms delay on press and some small syntax changes.

Make sure to update your version of Framer and grab these project files before you begin. Moving forward, I'm going to assume that you've downloaded the project files, opened the PSD and have run Framer to compile the project directory.

Tweak it

The new version of Framer doesn't include as much in the head of our index.html so now we'll need to make some adjustments. These include:

• Using the viewport meta tag to control the size of our view on devices
• Adding the apple-mobile-web-app-capable to make the app fullscreen
• Setting apple-mobile-web-app-status-bar-style to black (personal preference)
• Using the Ben Markowitz method to add app icons
• Naming our app "xiti" with the apple-mobile-web-app-title tag
• Adjusting the body css, which we did already
• Adding jquery and an HTML5 Mobile audio library, which I'll cover shortly
• All of which can be found in project files

Load the PSD and global variables

Once you've updated your index.html, open the app.js file. You'll see that Framer has included a line of code to import your PSD file. Leave this in there and let's make things easier by adding for loop to make our views global variables for quick access. The loop reads through our myLayers array and creates a variable for the layer group name and for it's original state, such as the opacity, position, etc. Doing so will make it a lot easier to animate them. I've also included a console.log for our view names because then I don't have to jump back into PS to remember a layer group name.

myLayers = Framer.Importer.load("imported/iPhone5-Portrait") for (var layerName in myLayers) {     window[layerName] = myLayers[     window[layerName].originalFrame = myLayers[layerName].frame;     console.log(layerName); } 

Add fancy

This next bit of code doesn't have much to do with Framer but the Devil's in the details, right? We'll be using the jquery.mb.audio library for mobile HTML5 audio to add a small "pop" on load. Why now you ask? Because I'm saving the best for last.

• Download the library
• Add it, and jquery, to the body of index.html like this:<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.9.0/jquery.min.js"> </script> <script src="assets/jquery.mb.audio.js"> </script>

Open your app.js and add the following:

$.mbAudio.sounds = {     effectSprite : {         id  :   "effectSprite",         mp3 :   "assets/click.mp3",         sprite :    {             intro : { id:"intro", start: 0, end: 1, loop: false}         }     } } App_background.on("start", function(){     $.mbAudio.play('effectSprite', 'intro'); }) 

The above code:

• Creates an mbAudio object, assigns an ID and asset to it and sets the play methods
• Then waits for the app background animation to start and on doing so plays the sound

We could change App_background to any view name, such as Tab_Bar or Slide_1, and the sound would play when that view has begun animating.

Configure view states

• Design for the animation end state
• Get each elements initial properties using the loop above
• Configure "from states" for the items you'd like to animate -- For example, I'm going to animate the background in from Opacity: 0, so I'll set it to 0 in the code then animate it to 1
• On event, such as click, animate the object using the configured state to their "end", or designed, stateApp_background.opacity = 0; Slide_1.y = 1000; Bullets.opacity = 0; Active.opacity = 0; Active.scale = 0; Tab_Bar.y = 1200;

The above code does the following:

• Sets the app background, or blue gradient, to 0
• Places the Slide_1, xiti logo, just outside of the view
• Makes the bullets and the active bullet invisible
• Shrinks the active bullet down
• Moves the tab bar off screen using the Y coordinate

Now for the fun part

Here's what happens with our animation:

• Change the App_background opacity from 0 to 1
• Move Slide_1, the xiti logo, up to it's original position as shown in the design
• At the same time, bring the Tab_Bar up as well but delay it by .1 second
• Also bring the Bullets into view by changing the opacity from 0 to 1
• When the bullets have finished animating, change both the opacity and scale of the active bullet using a "spring" curve

Let's take a close look at our first animation call.

// Animate our app's background App_background.animate({ // Set the end state properties: {     opacity: 1.0 },  // Set the desired animation time time: .5  // On end, do stuff }).on("end", function(){     Slide_1.animate({... 

Now let's add them all together.

App_background.animate({     properties: {     opacity: 1.0 },  time: .5  }).on("end", function(){     Slide_1.animate({         properties: {             y: Slide_1.originalFrame.y         },         curve: "spring(377,31,0.50)",         time: .2     })     Tab_Bar.animate({         properties: {             y: Tab_Bar.originalFrame.y         },         curve: "spring(477,41,1)",         delay: .1,         time: .2     })        Bullets.animate({         properties: {             opacity: 1         },         delay: .2,         time: .1     }).on("end", function(){         Active.animate({             properties: {                 opacity: 1,                 scale: 1             },             curve: "spring",             time: .1         })     }) }) 

If you've really been paying attention then you'll notice a few extra lines of code that I didn't cover, the .originalFrame, delay and curve properties.

• .originalFrame refers to an elements initial state or the end state that I mentioned above
• The curve property configures the type of animation used by the object
• The delay sets the amount of seconds to delay the animation before start

Wrapping things up

I think it's pretty safe to say, that's a lot of words. Over the course of this series, we've:

• Covered a proposed RAD flow
• Used the DevRocket Photoshop plug-in
• Setup a GhostLab site
• Briefly addressed why designers should code
• Created app icons using the Ben Markowitz method
• Used those icons and adjusted the screen to accommodate screen size
• Made the app full screen by adding it to the home screen
• Used Fastclick to make things feel quick-fast
• Checked out a new version of Framer
• Created global variables for our views
• Added sound effects
• Configured our view states
• Animated our views

We're really just scratching the surface of what's possible with Framer—there's so much one can do. I highly recommend visiting the example library and spending some time digging into the samples. Staggering, dragging, chaining, snaps, states and more all nicely organized and commented for your educational needs.

Check out the entire Get RAD series below!

• Get RAD, Part I: DevRocket + Prototyping
• Get RAD, Part II: App Icons

• Read more about Open Sourcing Boxen @Intridea

In the year since Intridea started using Boxen (GitHub's Puppet-based automation solution for OS X), a lot has happened. Not only are folks all over the company embracing it, but we've also become extremely proficient with it. Boxen's documentation, while improving, has us wanting to share our configurations as a way to help new users. However, due to containing client information, we have been unable to share our Boxen repository.

Until now.

Today, we are open sourcing our Boxen repository.

To do this, we are maintaining two repositories: One public and one private. The only difference is in the project-related details. The contents of each user's project manifest is empty in the public version, like so:

class projects::people::gary { } 

While the private version contains whatever projects they would normally include as part of daily use:

class projects::people::gary {    include projects::intridea::omniauth   include projects::client::secret  } 

The user's project manifest is then included in a standardized way:

class people::gary {    include projects::people::gary  } 

Using this layer of indirection for projects, along with the personal project inclusion pattern shown above, makes for dead simple maintenance between the repositories. Said pattern creates a line between public and private information, keeping sensitive details stored exclusively in each user's project file, and then using a blank placeholder on the public version of the repository. Using placeholder project manifests combined with the indirection we add for personal project inclusion ensures that no client information will be leaked to the Web.

Why go to all the trouble of open sourcing configs?

Every piece of knowledge can help someone else, no matter how trivial it may seem. When we first got setup with Boxen, writing a personal manifest seemed like a daunting task. Boxen's documentation, although better now, is still lacking. In many cases, reading others' configurations can be a bigger help than sifting through Boxen's code and Puppet's (good, but exhaustive) documentation.

Just as we found Plyfe's boxen repo to be so helpful that we used it as a baseline for our own configs, our goal in open sourcing our Boxen configuration is to pay it forward for the next organization that takes up Boxen.

Got any tips or tricks for using Boxen? Send us a tweet or message us on Facebook!

• Read more about DiceBot: The Twitter Controlled Dice Roller

The intersection of man and machine has always been of great interest to Intridea. While much of our work focuses on software, we've also been exploring the hardware side and the increasing demand for human-software-hardware interaction.

The machines we interact with are no longer just typical computers and phones. They're increasingly specialized hardware devices like the Nest thermostat, Fitbit, 3D printers, and more. In our exploration of these interfaces, we've built a multitude of gadgets and devices. Some playful and some serious.

Over the coming months we'll show you what we've been up to, delve deeper into how these gadgets came to life as well as what it means for UX, software, and the future Internet of Things and Social Machines.

Our first example, DiceBot, takes a 1920's antique dice game and adds some additional hardware and a few software layers to make it interactive and connected.

We added a motor to the dice roller so we didn't have to spin it manually then connected it to a RaspberryPi via a L298N and GPIO so we could control the motor programatically. Then using OpenCV we created a program to recognize the pips on the dice that got rolled and output a count.

The device is connected to the Internet and controlled via Twitter using a couple Ruby scripts; one that listens for Tweets and queues jobs and another that listens for jobs, spins the wheel, counts, and puts the results back on a queue. To operate the device you simply send a tweet to @IntrideaDiceBot with the hashtag #RollTheDice and it will add you to the queue. When your turn comes up, it will spin the dice, count the pips, and Tweet back to you the count, plus a picture of the roll. You can see all the latest rolls on dicebot.intridea.com.

Here's an example:

@naffis: Hey @IntrideaDiceBot, I'm feeling lucky #rollthedice cc @intridea

@IntrideaDicebot: DiceBot rolled you a 7, @naffis. See your roll at dicebot.intridea.com #DiceBot #INTRIDEA

Stay tuned! In the next few posts, we'll be illustrating each step for creating Dicebot:

1. RaspberryPi GPIO and L298N control of the motor.
2. OpenCV image recognition program to count the dice pips.
3. 3D Modeling and printing of the enclosure and other apparatus.
4. The scripts and workers that interface with Twitter and allow control of the device.
5. The Single Page App (SPA) that ties it all together using Firebase and AngularJS.

So next time you're playing D&D or you want to use a physical random number generator take the DiceBot for a spin.

Got any suggestions or cool projects you're working on? Keep the conversation going!

• Read more about Causes We Love: Milagros para Niños

At Mobomo, building things is our passion, and sometimes an opportunity to build comes through supporting a worthy charity.

Last week, we were honored to support Children’s Hospital’s charity, Milagros para Niños at their inaugural brunch. Milagros focuses uniquely on aiding Hispanic patients at Children’s Hospital, a group that accounted for approximately 55,000 patient cases in 2013, with mostly uncompensated care. Through Milagros, children whose families may not have funds to pay for their hospital bills—or worse, lack basic Metro fare to visit their children—receive services uncovered by insurance, such as translators, therapies, transportation, and other crucial resources.

Mobomo and other supporters enjoyed a Latino-inspired brunch at the Embassy of Mexico’s Mexican Cultural Institute, and were entertained by a mariachi band and celebrity emcees Cindy Pena, and 107.9 Morning Host, Pedro Biaggi.

The day was filled with countless wonderful moments, but the highlight was the announcement that Milagros had raised $20,000 through the event! To offer your support to this great cause, contact Ashley Nolan, Assistant Director of Milagros para Niños.

• Read more about #GirlsWhoCode: A Weekend with Cyberjutsu Girls Academy

At Mobomo, we love to give back—and there’s nothing better than giving back while doing the thing that we love most: building things.

This past weekend, we were thrilled to support a great organization, Cyberjutsu Girls Academy, a non-profit STEM program that seeks to empower girls to build bright futures by teaching them about cybersecurity and technology.

In an engineering lab at the University of Maryland – College Park, and TeqCorner, Arlington, VA, Mobomo led approximately 50 middle school-aged girls on their quest to build their very first Android app. Utilizing MIT’s savvy program, App Inventor, the girls were given four development objectives, which ultimately resulted in four working apps!

These budding developers loved coding so much, that some went on to make apps far more complex than directed: by the end, we had apps that could talk, apps that were 5 modules deep, apps that could be erased with a shake—and even fortune-telling apps! The girls also played with Google Glass, and took expert videos and pictures, and successfully searched for Scotland’s national animal.

Great job, Cyberjutsu! With such enthusiasm and smarts, we may have to hold a few jobs here at Mobomo for you!

• Read more about How to Say You're Sorry

It happens even to the best client services teams. Eventually you’re going to fail a functional test or break a build. And when you do, you’ll need to apologize for missing the mark. Here’s how.

Decide whether you’re actually sorry.

Clients sense insincerity right away. If you’re not actually sorry don’t fake it. Instead, respectfully listen to your client’s position and look for a way to address her concerns. But you can’t say you’re sorry when you’re not.

Say the words:

“I’m sorry.” If you agree you’ve fallen short of the mark saying the words “I’m sorry” makes it clear. Don’t be ambiguous.

Express sincere remorse.

Never issue a politician’s apology. Tip: if the first word after I’m sorry is if, you’re doing it wrong:

“I’m sorry if your perception of relationship boundaries diverges from mine. I understand that for some sensitive people this divergence can cause angst.”

Better:

“I’m sorry I made a pass at your sister and I won’t do it again.”

Do it in person.

While most client management can be conducted remotely, kickoffs, launch parties, and apologies all happen in person.

Issue the apology forthrightly and move on.

Groveling makes people suspect you want their pity, which never breeds respect. Instead, be specific about what you got wrong and how it hurt your client.

Invite your client to vent.

While you must show up with a plan to cure, don’t move to the cure too quickly. Invite your client to express frustration, and don’t let it get under your skin. Remember: you let them down, they’re human, and they need to vent.

Share your plan to cure.

After the words “I’m sorry” your plan to cure is the most important component of the apology. It shows your client not only that you understand where you fell short, but you also have identified the behaviors that led to the shortcoming and understand how to change those behaviors to fix the problem. Be detailed: what will you change? When will it happen? How can the client measure the change with interim milestones? But…

Don’t over-promise!

This is the hardest piece of advice to follow when issuing an apology. You let your client down, you feel terrible, and you want to move heaven and earth to make it right. But when you over-promise on the heels of an apology you’re just feeding your own narcissism instead of trying to fix your client’s problem. Promise only what you can deliver and no more.

Fix the problem and don’t let it happen again.

Clients are just like you. 99% of your clients are smart, hard working, care about what they do, and don’t relish conflict. Don’t embarrass your client or yourself by finding yourself in the same conference room eight weeks later issuing the same apologies and making the same empty promises to cure. Virtually every client you encounter will give you a second chance. No one will give you a third.

Have you had a tech company apologize to you? What was it like? We'd love to hear from you.