Ten Forward crew

With 2017 rounding to a close, we're taking a look back at the year and what we've accomplished, as well as where we'd like to go in the future. We've welcomed some new team members, traveled the country and even have a book coming out! 

Read on for some of Ten Forward's highlights from 2017. 

Crew News

HELLOS

We welcomed several new crew members in 2017, including software developer Charielle, visual designer Jared, iOS developer Janie and strategy & operations director Katrina, bringing us to a total of 11 employees. 

With the new additions, Ten Forward is now 45% women, and our full-time tech positions are 50% women. 

Our staff racial and ethnic diversity numbers, while higher than the national tech average at 9% of total staff and 16% of technical staff, still aren't nearly where they should be. This is something we're looking to improve in 2018.

GOODBYES

We wished former Ten Forward VP Mark Norman a fond farewell this fall, as he stepped down to pursue other projects. We'll miss seeing him around the office everyday, but can't wait to catch more of his live shows.

Project manager Jennifer Gurske also parted ways with Ten Forward, off to the deserts of Arizona to pursue her own health and wellness coaching company. 

Community

VOLUNTEERING

Ten Forward staff volunteered our tech, mentoring and organizing skills at a number of local nonprofits and organizations in 2017, including:

• Maydm
• Startup Weekend Madison (save the date for 2018!)
• YWCA's YWeb Career Academy
• Organizing for Action Wisconsin
• Doyenne
• Madison Women in Tech 
• Wisconsin chapter of the National House Rabbit Society
• Team 19

SPONSORSHIP

We were also able to financially support several events and organizations we believe in, such as:

• The Bay Area conference for Advancing the Careers of Technical Women (ACT-W)
• Madison Women in Tech
• The first annual Women’s Entrepreneurship Day Wisconsin
• Intern via YWCA's YWeb Career Academy

HOW WE'VE SHARED

SPEAKING 

Knowledge and experience is meant to be shared, and that's our aim at Ten Forward. Here's a list of some of the conferences and meetups where we spoke in the last year.

• ACT-W Bay Area
  San Francisco, CA
• Midwest PHP
  Minneapolis, MN
• Swift By Northwest
  Seattle, WA
• RailsConf (watch a video of our talk)
  Phoenix, AR
• ThatConference
  Wisconsin Dells, WI
• Wisconsin Entrepreneurs' Conference (read an article about the panel we were on)
  Madison, WI
• Forward Fest
  Madison, WI
• Write / Speak / Code
  Portland, OR
• MinneWebCon
  Minneapolis, MN
• Codecinella (watch a video of our talk)
  Madison, WI
• Madison Women in Tech
  Madison, WI

BLOG POSTS

We've also shared on our blog. Here's a list of our top 10 most popular blog posts from the last year.

1. Integrating an array column with Simple Form in Rails
2. Finding my version of "developer happiness" through Write/Speak/Code
3. Recap: Midwest PHP 2017
4. New Crew Member: Katrina Tofflemire
5. How to Make Your Websites Not Ugly
6. New Crew Member: Janie Clayton
7. How to Make Github Magical
8. Ten Forward has a busy spring ahead
9. New Crew Member: Charielle McMullan
10. Accounting for Daylight Savings Time with Rails ActiveSupport::TimeZone

Client Spotlight

NEW CLIENTS

Founded by two Madison-area women, Deb Thompson and Laura Berkner, Stimmi is a caregiver app and website designed to support children and adults with autism and other disabilities, allowing users to securely track and share a wide array of vital information, including medications, care providers, allergies and triggers.

Created by the Wisconsin Bankers Association and Wisconsin Bankers Foundation, Banconomics provides community bankers with essential economic data and research to support public and private decision-making. Wisconsin banking indicators are presented in an easy-to-access yet comprehensive format for community bankers, public officials, reporters and industry leaders.

An international trademark management system, Brandscope was founded by Madisonian Lydie Hudson, and it uses a custom notification interface to handle maintenance concerns, renewal and other issues that might arise for companies with global trademarks. 

IN THE NEWS

• Stimmi recognized for efforts to help caregivers
• Virtual Badge wins 3rd place in startup competition
• WhenPeopleWork recognized for efforts to help former inmates
• Virtual Badge mobile app helps thousands of hurricane victims
• Innocorp named "Most Innovative Company"

COMING IN 2018

MONTHLY REPORTS

As part of our hosting and Bridge services, we'll be sending each of our clients a monthly report to help them track detailed performance metrics of their website and/or app, above and beyond what Google Analytics can show. 

It's a way for clients to access snapshots of important data about their sites and applications, tailored to their particular needs. 

BAD SIGNAL

This is a pet project that's been mulling around in Ten Forwarders' brains for a while now, and we finally found an opportunity (app-ortunity?) to make it happen:

“Bad Signal is a context-based event planning app for friends to easily organize impromptu meetups, game nights, happy hours, and more.  You can easily and quickly broadcast signals to private groups to let them know what you’re up to, and that they're free to join you.”

Bad Signal is currently in development; watch for a prototype in 2018!

BOOK RELEASE

Our queen of iOS development, Janie Clayton, has a book coming out! 

"The Metal Programming Guide" breaks down graphics and machine learning for the iPhone, and we're throwing her a book release party on Tuesday, Jan. 16th, from 5:30pm to 7pm. 

Come on over to Madworks Coworking at 505 S. Rosa Road, Suite 225, and pick Janie’s brain about all things graphics over hot boozy drinks and snacks. RSVP here!