I’m concerned about the lack of communication from Google throughout the ADC I process could end up turning people off to the platform and hurting all of us in the long run. I think this lack of communication is risking the dilution of the initial “hard core” group of about 3000 developers – the people that on the evening of April 14th cheered “Google!” and are now wondering “Hey, Google, what’s going on?.” All of us make choices as to what technology to learn next based on multiple factors, but one factor is consistent – few of us will stick with a technology or vendor where we perceive we aren’t informed of direction and status, and are not treated professionally. All of us want Android to succeed. A flourishing technical community will only be beneficial – professionally and financially – to all of us. I would like to make a few suggestions to improve the process.
First, we need a single contact point at Google – someone who is responsible for answering questions in a timely manner. I respect Dan Morrill’s efforts – man, this guy must be overloaded – but I think the developer community deserves a dedicated level of support. It’s easy for Google to throw money at the ADC, but in my experience a company is serious about a project when it dedicates its’ most precious resource - high quality people - to the project. The key word is dedicated – not part time. Second, whoever is in charge of the ADC (does anyone really know?) should send an immediate email to every submitter giving us the current status of the challenge, and commit to send a continuing status at least once per week. Since none of us have heard anything from anyone in Google management, I’m starting wonder if the ADC was a well intentioned effort by a bunch of developers, and it became much more popular – and too big – for them to handle, especially while doing their day to day work. Third, we deserve to see in concise terms what the current judging criteria is, the qualifications of the judges (no personal info, just skills and length of experience), how judges are actually assigned and what process the judges go through to evaluate the applications. Not just some sporadic posts, but a single set of terms. Since we don’t know the evaluation sequence, many of us are on edge right now because we don’t know if our app was spot checked or if that quick “in and out” is the extent of the evaluation. I read a post that judges are assigned randomly – does this mean that a game developer could be assigned to review a client/server app, or vice versa? Since we have had no communication, we are seeing tons of angst filled posts. Fourth, we need an escalation process if we can prove that our application was not evaluated fairly. We are dealing with globally- written apps being globally evaluated – at a minimum, there are bound to some language and cultural miscommunications. Fifth, we need to know results of the judges review of our application. We all worked an insane amount of hours on our apps, it’s only fair and professional that we get to see the review. Not only will this help us to improve our apps for ADC II, but it will allow us to determine if we have been treated fairly. If we don’t see the results, then many will conclude that they have been treated unfairly. I’m not saying that is right, but it is human nature. People need to feel that they are part of the process or they will leave, which is that last thing any of us want. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Challenge" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-challenge?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
