Over 15 years experience with Microsoft technologies and specialization in integration using BizTalk server. Broad range of industries and sizes of implemented systems with excellent verbal as well as written communication skills.
The article references a paper from 1980 called "On Understanding Laws, Evolution, and Conservation in the Large-Program Life Cycle". I just skimmed it - incredible insights that continue to be relevant.
This is great! I think it would be useful to provide more details about this. Perhaps include a 360 degree view (rotate); a view of the administrator's interface; sample report/audit report; details about connectivity.
Just a day on the job as far as they were concerned. As with many things you might do, you only realize what you were doing was important (often) long after the fact.
I try to keep it simple - use the rss feed with something like newsblur and click stories I find interesting. So you can skip the big company stories and focus on what you prefer.
Plus, who knows, by reviewing all of the headlines you just might find a gem of a story.
I think a better experience is possible with a start button over a static background to provide the viewer with an idea about what they're about to get into.
Your story is really nice and your motivation is well stated in your blog post: "...the fragmented condition and outdated technologies of the commercial real estate industry continued to frustrate me.....I decided to find a better solution"
I feel your story stands out with that one sentence - it would have been better to lead with that. I also feel the emphasis on your age and role as a single parent takes away from your central motivation when you lead with those points.
..."in a non-Enterprise environment" - yes...well..expanding into an enterprise; using BizTalk server (Microsoft).
I design and create SOA solutions through services exposed by/through BizTalk and build an ESB solution to orchestrate the services which acts as a substrate for 'composable' applications (again, using BizTalk and apps that use the services are web-based, or whatever client apps the organization wants to use; many apps are integrations between systems like line of business using various approaches that include EDI, etc).
From the article..."Create an alternative", "...Find another way to give people a similar experience."
Maybe PhoneGap...balsamiq...plus there are lots of apps for prototyping using an iPad.
The article also advises to find your niche...be careful of going too specialized - there are thousands of apps around and getting too specialized could be detrimental since so many other apps might cover your niche plus many others (like teaching only addition when other math educational apps teach other operations in addition to addition)
>>...which is an extremely scaled down version of a real application
You're putting the candidate in a very vulnerable and stressful position:
You're potentially asking a candidate to solve a problem with your application (even if scaled down)--
The question/assignment could be a long-standing issue your staff have been unable to address on their own and you want to try to find out whether you can get a free solution from qualified people.
The candidate(s) could get the correct answer, yet you could walk away from the process with a free solution.
>> "I think very few people have ever declined"
That's short-sighted - they're not declining because the want/need a job and are already vulnerable during the process; many would not, understandably, have the presence of mind to decline.