Being the bee

I don’t know about you, but I always fancy the last week before going on vacation to be a calm one. You know, get to relax a little bit before getting to relax for real. I seriously like the thought of that, it’s just that that it never happens.

This year is no exception of course, for the last few weeks I’ve been busy as a bee. I tried really hard to make room for a calm last week, to get some extra time for the ongoing Euro 2012 and so on. Well, I didn’t succeed. Yesterday I found myself working during the Italy-Germany game (looking back I should have worked during Spain-Portugal instead, as nothing really happened for the first 90 minutes in that match anyway). Sure, I know that many work while “watching” football games nowadays, but it’s not a habit of mine. When I watch football I want to do just that: watch football.

Now, I’m not really complaining. No, not at all. Honestly. I’ve been working with a smile on my face most of the time. But you know, that crazy hope to be able to relax a little before you can relax for real still pursues me.

Anyways, the projects that will go on during the summer are now prepared and planned for, working hard pays out in the end. Our focus right now is to improve stay rates among new users, and that focus will go on during the summer as well. We will revamp the old manager license; removing tedious, bad, annoying parts of it and keep things that’s worth keeping. And then turn into a better introduction for beginners. We have also made a really short intro to the game/site before that, to allow new users an instant feel of the game. And we also plan some changes to My Office, to improve the information flow and make it more useful. It will be really interesting for me to come back after my vacation and see how all this feels like (I hope it’s ready for test by then at least).

We have also made a first test of the new ratings among our staff, a test that will end after the weekend now. This test has been about verifying that the rating data we will display is correct, before me move on and focus on the visualization and interface (and more proper tests). It’s really looking good though (in the sense that there was no major problems), so it looks we can start working on the visual things quite soon.

After some dark times we have had a really nice winter/spring in Hattrick. We released some really nice things in the game, Tournaments in particular. But what I’ll remember most is in fact all the warm feedback and appreciation we’ve got these last few months, it’s been a really positive attitude in the forums and in the community. I’m so grateful for that, because it just makes it so much funnier to work. And it makes me really look forward to coming back from vacation and continue building on this.

But now first: vacation. And the plan is more or less to do nothing at all. See you in a few weeks again!