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Job Advert : PHP Programmer (Adelaide, South Australia)

Hi,
We are looking for someone who wants to help change the world.
Films on the Fly is developing an online, interactive video platform which will change the way people think about films. It will change the way people make them and how they experience them.
Remember those old choose your own adventure books? Think of that, but as online video and expand the concept even further. We call it Multipath storytelling and it’s engaging.

Films on the Fly is about working for the better. For the a better environment, a better world and the betterment of humanity.

We are currently looking for a part time PHP programmer, someone that has an interest in database design and is familiar with MVC and OO.
Extra points if you’ve already used the Yii framework and a triple point score if you’ve setup a cloud computing app on Amazon EC2 or have an interest in doing so. Don’t worry if you haven’t. If you are interested in autonomy, mastery and purpose then we want you.

Autonomy : Films on the Fly is a flexible company. We want you to work when is best for you and in the most convenient location. You can work at our office in the Adelaide CBD, or even from home. Although you will need to be available for scrum meetings and easily available online.

Mastery : No matter what your programming proficiency there will always be interesting and rewarding challenges. Together we will learn and grow, allowing us to reach even greater heights and more fascinating problems to solve.

Purpose : Did I mention we are interested in changing the way people think about and view interactive media and will be having fun making the world a better place whilst doing so?

The position is initially for 3-4 days a week, for 17 weeks, but we hope that as you help the platform and company evolve and grow, the position grow and evolve into a full time position. The job starts in June (2010).

If you are interested then please email fun@filmsonthefly.com, check out our website or call 0433 483 008. Extra kudos if your a Film maker or artist, Michael, John and Sunny are, and we look forward to hearing from you.

PS : If your a Flash scripter, web designer, data visualisation artist, or film maker then let us know, we’ll be recruiting for such positions in the future.
—
www.filmsonthefly.com
The Films on the Fly team : Michael, John and Sunny
“Do well with nothing, do better with little, but most of all, do it now” — Kino

The original post is online at : https://www.filmsonthefly.com/wp/2010/05/business/job-advert-php-programmer/

May 17, 2010 Category: Business No Comments

Films on the Fly’s Aims and Principles

Defining a companies aims and goals are never easy. The wrong goals can have disastrous effects. As Dan Pink writes in his book Drive, Goals should came with a warning label. “Goals may cause systematic problems for organisations due to norrow focus, unethical behavior, increased risk taking, decreased cooperation, and decreased intrinsic motivation. Use care when applying goals in your organisation.

For those not aware of Dan’s work, check out his TED talk on the Surprising Science of Motivation, an amazing talk which brings home what the likes of Google’s 20% time, and Netflix’s presentation on their Corporate Culture are about. Intrinsic Motivation.

The founders of Films on the Fly, John, Michael and Sunny all want to make the world a better place and hope to work with people who share our passion. We also believe that engaging, interactive video can be used as a catalyst for social change. What better way to change the world than by creating a platform which can be such a catalyst.

To better explain our ideas we have created some company aims and principles.

Films on the Fly‘s main aims and principles are :

To promote and excel at Multipath storytelling and interactive video.
To grow South Australia into a world renowned hub for interactive and online video.
To use our skills, power and wealth for the benefit of the local and broader society and environment.
To use science and technology to increase our understanding of what we do and help devise ways to do it more efficiently and effectively.
To foster an environment of innovation and creativity, both inside and outside of the company.
To, whenever possible, try and fix the root cause of problems, instead of just treating the symptoms.

Films on the Fly sees itself as a ‘for-benefit’ company where the profit-maximisation principal has been augmented with the social-benefit principle. Similar to the idea of an L3C (low-profit limited liability) company, we favour long-term value and social impact instead of short-term economic gain. We aren’t adverse to making money, but we want to make sure that cutting corners now won’t cause catastrophic issues in the future. Examples of companies who have done this include Enron and their accounting practices, Ford creating the health hazard known as the Pinto, and Sears car repair staff trying to meet sales quota’s, so doing unnecessary repair work, ultimately undermining customer relations and long term profits.

One way of putting these concepts into practice is to adjust the way we value things.

In the current monetary system products and services are generally valued according to the scarcity (supply/demand), and human labour required to create it, with a single focus on maximising profits. This was fine 150 years ago when energy was mostly derived from slavery instead of oil and we didn’t have the power of the Internet to expose companies rights and wrongs on such a large scale. When considering the costs of a product or service Films on the Fly likes to include the costs of human well-being and the environment into the equation. For example, whilst the monetary system may value the costs of outsourced child labour very low, because of the damage to human well being we see it as a being more expensive than a normally paid adult worker in Australia. Although if possible we prefer to replace monotonous, repetitive tasks with automated systems or change the design so it does not require such a boring job in the first place.

The cost of a coal fired powerplant might be cheaper in the short term in the current monetary system, but in the long term the smoke and increased environmental destruction is simply not worth it when clean, renewable energy sources like solar and wind are available.

Also, coming from Adelaide we prefer to increase the size of the pie rather than our percentage of it. It is better to be best company in a $500 million industry, than the only company in a $10,000 industry.

The interesting bit for our financing team will be trying to run an internal for-benefit economic model within the current monetary system. It will take some time to find out the true costs of products and services and we will likely try out various algorithms and weightings, but we hope that other companies will follow our lead and choose the smarter long term choices, which ultimately lead to greater profitability for everyone.

If you have any ideas or suggestions regarding this, please comment below or email contact@filmsonthefly.com

April 27, 2010 Category: Business No Comments

MEGA – Pitch Presentation

MEGA, the Mobile Enterprise Growth Alliance, is an amazing program that teaches it’s participants some very important information about starting and running a mobile phone application development company. Everything from Marketing and Finance, to Pitch Presentation, writing a business plan, and much more. The course promotes teamwork, hard work, passion, and is where Films on the Fly started.

Films on the Fly originally started as the concept of Non-Linear Narrative, which itself was initially developed by Fee Plumley. Fee had been working with Derek Munneke to develop the idea further and create something for Kino Portable, a mobile phone/research branch of the Kino film making community.

At the Kino Adelaide Kabaret at the start of the year, Fee ran a small workshop extra which explained the Non-Linear Narrative concept to the Kino Adelaide Film Makers, two of which, John Willanksi and Michael Kubler, later became founding members of Films on the Fly.

As Fee was moving to Sydney, and unable to continue the Kino Portable project, she requested that John Willanski, Michael Kubler and Sunny Wu, continue the develop and spread the idea of Non-Linear Narrative. All three of us are film makers, and we were taking part in MEGA. Throughout the MEGA course, we developed the concept throughout the MEGA program. we developed the NLN film making concept into a business proposal, learnt about the main steps required in creating a successful startup company, and also developed a 31 page business proposal. None of which would have been possible without the help of Derek Munneke, an amazing mobile phone application developer, and the weekly mentoring mettings with Andrew Plumer, the CEO of Ballistic Publishing and the CG Society.

At the end of the course was a Pitch Presentation day, where Films on the Fly, and over 10 other businesses had 5 mins to explain their business concept to a panel of judges and possible investors. The pitch day was a great success, with Films on the Fly making a lot of very useful contacts, as well as coming second in the overall prize, winning a Gold NV phone watch.