HomeField Improves its 40-yard Dash Time with "Dynamic Pagination"

By Dan

The Holidays are a great time to step back, relax with friends and family, and recharge for the new year. They're also a great time to write code and push out awesome features. So I added a bunch of smaller (but much needed) features to HomeField, as well as refined some details to really smooth out and improve our user experience. Dynamic Pagination is the most visible of my stocking-stuffers...

Pagination (via the "Previous" and "Next" links with page numbers between them) is common on the web: it allows you to browse many results, one page at a time - instead of a single, overly long and very slow page. As HomeField usage has been going through the roof this year, we've seen users with many videos on a page, so it was time for pagination. As you'll see in your account (and in the picture to the right), whenever you have a lot of videos (or documents) in a category, they will be split up and those orange links will appear. This improves page load time drastically for users with many videos, while still showing you your most relevant videos on the first page.

Please check it out, and tell me what you think. By the way, I've called it Dynamic Pagination because you don't have to wait for an entire new page to load. When you click Next, your list of videos - and nothing else - gets updated dynamically.  This makes the entire process smooth as eggnog.  Enjoy!

(psst:  If you aren't seeing pagination in your chalkboard, upload some more video!)

On Preparation

By Reece

I had a meeting with a potential investor recently, for which I prepared a pitch deck and an extended executive summary.

Prior to my meeting, I went through every slide and every paragraph to make sure our story and our projections were air-tight.

I also had versions of both prepared in Keynote and Pages as well as in Powerpoint and Word. Then I made PDF versions of each, and for the pitch deck, I made versions including every stage of the builds and without. I had copies on my laptop, on a USB drive and in my Gmail.

When I got into the meeting, guess which docs I actually used?

None.

I sat down and simply started talking. I told our story from the heart and I rattled off our pitch, our plans and our trajectory with honesty and confidence. The result? A successful telling of our business, that had my audience interested in investing.

So it seemed all that preparation was a waste, but without it, I wouldn’t have been in a position to tell the story. Sure, at this point (two years in), I can pitch HomeField off the cuff. Likewise, Tom Brady can still throw a football pretty well. But does he still practice? You bet he does. In fact, in the lifetime of an athlete, you'll generally spend more time practicing than actually playing!

In my life - whether it’s sports or business - the game is always changing and practice is the eternal must. I’m glad I know how to do it and thankful for the people who taught me the importance of practice along the way.