I want to thank everyone who has helped out with iMadness 09. Like basketball this was a total team effort and I want to take some time to acknowledge everyone for their hard work. This was a fun project to manage and think everything came together nicely. I am already looking forward to next year as we have some big plans! But most of those have to be kept secret. So bookmark the imadness blog and check it out now and then through the off season as we will keep it up to date with basketball news and progress on iMadness 10.
Albert Pardo
What can I say about coach, he brought everything together like only a coach can do. He initially came up with the great idea for iMadness and through his connections and love of college basketball Albert was able to get this entire thing put together. Alberts enthusiasm and great ideas helped to keep the project fun and moving forward. Having someone with such a deep knowlege of college basketball and bracket pools was an important part of the project.
BURGER KING®
Our friends at BURGER KING® were able to make iMadness 09 free to the public. This allowed for a much larger audience being able to participate and play along during the 2009 college basketball tournament. Their branding and design tied in nicely with the app and still allowed a nice unobtrusive user experience. We thank them for giving us a shot and working extremely fast in order to meet this tight deadline.
Ralf & Bettina
They came on board to help with the initial funding to get the app started and things moving. With such a tight deadline this was critical things got started on time and because of them they did. They also handled most of the administrative side for iMadness. In addition to the administrative side they also helped serve as our street team handing out postcards at various sporting events in the South Florida area.
Luke Salsich and his team
There is no way this project would of gotten done without Luke and his team. They managed to squeeze this project which normally would take 8 months to complete and got it done in about 4 months. The thing that impressed me the most was the fact that they were always reachable and would respond to your requests and emails within in hours. When it came down to crunch time and launch the app they were there to fix the last minute bugs and problems we encountered as you would with any project of this size. Top notch service with a personal touch.
Jessica Mears
Jessica created the icon and brand behind iMadness. Her design helped shaped everything to come after the logo such as the postcards and website. iMadness has a strong identity that lets users know exactly what it is yet maintaining a fun and simple look. In addition to the icon logo Jessica created a Facebook group and was very active in the social media promotion of the app creating blogs, commenting, posting and doing anything to get the word out.
Tom Carroll
Tom played a key roll in securing the sponsorship for iMadness and working through all of the presentations and negations. Tom handled point on the talks with BURGER KING® and put that aspect of the project together in a very short time due to the tournament looming. Without his efforts we would not of been able to release iMadness for free to the public. In addition to those tasks Tom also handled the administrative side of things for AgencyWeb on this project.
Mark Hughes
Mark was in charge of making sure our analytic tracking platform was in place so we could measure everything on the site to help our marketing efforts and come up with a strategy for 2010. He also worked on generating traffic to the site through paid avenues and social media forums. These figures will be important to us next season as we want to grow and improve on this project. In addition to that he also created the support videos showing users how to register and use the iMadness site.
Bauer
Bauer is the unsung hero on this project. He did lots of the behind the scenes technical aspects of the project that are often taken for granted. He worked with Rackspace to set up our hosting, got our domain name situated, he configured all of the email addresses, installed the blog, seeded the teams and scores for the simulations. He put together all of the technical aspects needed for this to work.
Betsy Cox
Betsy helped to make sure our press releases and content were perfect and also helped with the initial kick off our grass roots marketing effort with different basketball groups and leagues.
My Friends
Finally I would like to thank all of my friends who helped us get the word out about iMadness 09. Many of them updated their Facebook status, handed out postcards, emailed friends and did anything they could. Three people in particular Derek Watson, Mark Owens, and Maurice Corbett were extremely helpful. Thanks for everything!
#1 by Tom Carroll - March 23rd, 2009 at 12:35
Josh Hughes
Josh had the vision tenacity and endurance to make this app a reality. He was the nudge that kept everybody going, in line and with enthusiasm. Bauer did help him from time to time, but Josh was our Hercules when it came to iMadness. Selection Sunday in a hot conference room with Coach at the table and after Luke put the kids down, he managed to push the app and site over the finish line, or should I say–nothing but net from half court. What a great job Josh. I still think Gonzaga has a chance. Tom Carroll
#2 by Mark Hughes - March 23rd, 2009 at 13:10
This was a fun, challenging project because the iPhone App development space is so new there are no benchmarks to measure against. Mark