Who is this ScrumMaster and what did he do with my Project Manager?

Recently three Intela Employees (Allen Johnson, Russ Baker and Tom Szymanski) became Certified ScrumMasters (CSM). This does not mean that they reached level 85 on World of Warcraft or defeated all their foes in Dungeons and Dragons.

In our agile development process, the ScrumMaster is responsible for making sure the team lives by the values and practices of agile development.  The ScrumMaster protects the team by making sure they do not over-commit themselves to what they can achieve during a sprint.  They are also responsible for removing any impediments that a team may have from completing their tasks.

A ScrumMaster is not a Project Manager or Team Lead though.  The team itself is responsible for making sure that they are able to complete their projects.  The ScrumMaster does not dictate decisions within the team or the process, but instead makes those decisions into realities for the team.  You can think of the Agile Scrum process as a race car.  The race car itself is the team, the driver is the product owner and the mechanic is the ScrumMaster.

As our development team continues its expansion we will look to our new ScrumMasters to maintain our agile and lean ideals, even if their new title is a little odd!

Posted by: Tom Szymanski, Director of Software Management

Although Cake can do much of what DT had been able to do for us in the past, what is the big deal you may have asked yourself? A lot of time and energy went into making Cake happen by all departments, and Production is very thankful for this to be finally done.  Cake touches nearly every department from Sales, Accounting, IT, LeadGen, Network, to Email.  With that being said there is functionality with tracking that we have never been able to do before. Global pixels, Postback urls, Advertiser Tiered Pricing, or a combination of these functions implemented giving us the ability to bring in offers and broker them out in ways we never have before. Affiliates are signing up for offers that they never would have been able to run before on account of Cake’s functionality.

In addition, there is more functionality being built for us that will be pushed through now at the end of November into the coming months. So please ask your local production how Cake can help you.

It has come to my attention that many do not know what a pixel is and how it functions. So here is a basic guideline for your beer reading.

A pixel is a 1×1 image that is placed on an advertisers confirmation page. When a user fills out an offer and loads the confirmation page the pixel will fire. This is how we track sales and leads.

Basic Pixel Process

• User  clicks on an email creative, banner, or link
• Cookie from Cake is put on the user’s computer
• User is redirected to the Offer landing page
• User fills out offer and is sent to a confirmation page
• Pixel is read by the user’s computer
• Pixel searches for cookie placed by Cake’s link on user’s computer
• If cookie is found, a lead is tracked in Cake. Pixel Fires
• If cookie is not found, no lead is tracked. Pixel does not fire.

If cookies are disabled or blocked on a user’s machine the lead will not track. What then?  Cake has options…

Cheers!!

Posted by: Felicia Bowman, Senior Production Analyst

We got our first snowfall in Boulder this week, 6 inches (15cm) of wet, heavy snow fell yesterday taking down a lot of branches and caused some massive power outages! Even though it’s supposed to get back up to 50’s (10C) this weekend it sure feels like winter with all this snow on the ground.

Just like winter, November is right around the corner.  It is however no longer known as November at the Intela US office, but it is officially Movember! For those of you that don’t know, Movember is a national movement where men grow mustaches to raise money and awareness for Men’s health issues, specifically prostate cancer and other cancers that effect men. The Intela men have been sporting beards for the past month, getting ready to show their support for this great cause. In addition Intela has generously offered to donate 25¢ for each dollar raised up to $1,000 for our team. If you are wondering which moustache would be right for you, here is a style guide to help you choose:http://www.americanmustacheinstitute.org/mustache-information/styles/ I have decided to go with the “petit handlebar” myself.

So this Movember help support us and this great cause. I encourage you to unleash your manliness and become a ‘Mo Bro’. Ladies, don’t worry, you can show your solidarity by becoming a ‘Mo Sista’ too… If you would like to donate safely and securely, click our name to support the Intela Team, COLORADOMO. If you would like to start your own team or would like to learn more, check out http://us.movember.com/

Happy ‘Movember’ everybody!

Posted by Nick Haggerty, Country Manager AU/CA