Tag Archives: Our Users

Posts about interesting users, and interesting use cases

The Kerika Elite: a group of our most influential users.

November 25, 2020KerikaDesign, Our UsersKerika

The Kerika Elite is a program we have set up to improve our product strategy and gather feedback from a select group of our most experienced and influential users.

There are two main elements to this program:

- Kerika Elite will be involved in the earliest stages of our product development: we will share with them proposed designs long before they are implemented, to get early feedback on features that we are considering building, and

Once new features are built, Kerika Elite users get early access them so they can provide real-world experience that can help us polish the product before it’s released to the rest of our users.

Kerika Elite users have contributed greatly to our mobile development efforts over the past year, and we look forward to their advice and suggestions for our future initiatives as well.

Can you be one of them? Sure. Anyone can nominate another user to be part of the Kerika Elite, although the final decision is ours to make.

Kerika Elite users are not compensated in any way; they simply enjoy being in the kitchen with the Kerika Team when we cook up delicious new dishes!

Free Kerika Accounts for folks at University of Malaya

February 24, 2019Academic & Nonprofit, Agile & ScrumAccount, Education, Google Apps, Kanban, Nonprofit, Our Users, Scrum, Task Board, TeamsKerika

We have added the University of Malaya to the list of domains from which people can automatically qualify for a free Academic Account: anyone signing up for Kerika+Google with a um.edu.my email — students, teachers and administrators — can automatically qualify to have up to 10 Team Members working on boards owned by their account.

Enjoy!

Making Kerika available free for most universities and schools!

October 11, 2018Academic & Nonprofit, KerikaAccount, Education, Kerika, Nonprofit, Our UsersKerika

We have offered free accounts to small nonprofits and schools/universities from the very beginning of Kerika’s existence, but this was always on an ad hoc basis: someone would occasionally ask us for a free account for their school or nonprofit team, and we would agree.

Looking back, we found that we agreed to almost 99% of all the requests that ever came to us: the only situations where we turned someone down were

When we couldn’t figure out what the nonprofit was doing, or even whether it really existed. (Having a domain for your school/nonprofit really helps, even if it is not in English.)
When the school was for-profit, (We dodn’t see why we should subsidize for-profit organizations.)
When the organization was essentially a governmental entity that was getting funded through public money in a normal way.

With these caveats aside, we have tried to be very generous and helpful for small organizations that are doing philanthropic work, or are schools.

But our old process for dealing with these requests was really haphazard, and when we implemented our new billing system and improved account management features, we also made it easier for us to grant nonprofit status to a much larger group of organizations, providing they are small teams.

Our new process makes everything much easier for schools and nonprofits: we are whitelisting entire domains so that everyone from that domain who signs up automatically gets a free Academic & Nonprofit Account.

This means that only person ever needs to make a request on behalf of a school or university: if that gets approved, we will approve it for everyone from that school/university.

With a free Academic/Nonprofit Account you can have up to 10 people working on boards owned by that account: it doesn’t matter how many boards you have, or how big these boards are.

If you need more than 10 people, you will need to sign up for a Professional Account, which is $7 per user, per month (normally billed annually, as $84 per user).

Here’s a partial list of schools and universities we have already whitelisted for free service:

Adler Graduate Professional School, adler.ca
American Quality Leadership & Educational Management, aqlem.com
Arizona State University, asu.edu
Austin Community College, austincc.edu
Australian Pacific College, apc.edu.au
Bethlehem University, Palestine, bethlehem.edu
Boston University, bu.edu
California State University, Fullerton, csu.fullerton.edu
Campbell University, campbell.edu
Carnegie Mellon University, cmu.edu
Catholic Education Diocese of Wagga Wagga, Australia, ww.catholic.edu.au
Clemson University, clemson.edu
Cochise College, cochise.edu
Coconino Community College, coconino.edu
College Euroamericano, Monterrey, colegioeuro.edu.mx
College La Grange du Bois, Savigny Le Temple, clg-la-grange-du-bois-savigny-le-temple.fr
Colorado State University, colostate.edu
Cornell University, cornell.edu
Crefito-3, Sao Paulo, crefito3.org.br
Drew, drew.edu
Duke University, duke.edu
Edmonds Community College, edcc.edu
Escuela de Educacion Secundaria Tecnica No. 5 de San Martin, Argentina, galileo.edu.ar
Everett Community College, everettcc.edu
Faciplac, Brasilia, faciplac.edu.br
Fundacion de Estudios Superiores Universitarios, Medellin, fesu.edu.co
George Fox University, georgefox.edu
Humboldt State University, humboldt.edu
ICDL Colombia, icdlcolombia.org
Iḷisaġvik College, ilisagvik.edu
Indiana University, iu.edu
Institucion Universitaria Colegio Mayor del Cauca, Colombia, unimayor.edu.co
Instituto Potosino de Investigacion Cientifica y Technologica, Mexico, ipicyt.edu.mx
Instituto Superior de Ciências Económicas e Empresariais, Cape Verde, iscee.edu.cv
Instituto Superior de Formacion Docente Salome Urena, Dominican Republic, isfodosu.edu.do
Iowa State University, iastate.edu
Kalamazoo Valley Community College, kvcc.edu
Kirtland Community College, kirtland.edu
Kuruwi, Cabo San Lucas, kuruwi.edu.mx
Lane Community College, lanecc.edu
Macquarie University, mq.edu.au
Maricopa Community Colleges, maricopa.edu
Michigan Tech University, mtu.edu
Mid Michigan College, midmich.edu
Milwaukee Area Technical College, matc.edu
Mount Holyoke College, mtholyoke.edu
Mount Wachusett Community College, mwcc.edu
Mundo Sin Fronteras, Oaxaca, sinfronteras.edu.mx
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology, Tawian, kuas.edu.tw
National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, ntust.edu.tw
Newman University, newmanu.edu
North Carolina State University, ncsu.edu
oc.unlv.edu
Oregon Health Sciences University, ohsu.edu
Ośrodek Szkolenia, Krakow, straz.edu.pl
Paul Cuffee School, paulcuffee.org
Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, pcom.edu
Politecnico Grancolombiano, Bogota, elpoli.edu.co
Portland State University, pdx.edu
Purísima Concepción School, Madrid, pconcepcion.escuelateresiana.com
RB Institute of Management Studies, Ahmedabad, rbi.edu.in
Regional School Unit 5, Maine, rsu5.org
Robert Morris University, rmu.edu
Rosalind Franklin University, rosalindfranklin.edu
Rowan University, rowan.edu
Saint Ambrose University, sau.edu
Saint Joseph’s University, sju.edu
Salish Kootenai College, skc.edu
San Mateo Community College District, smccd.edu
Santa Barbara City College, sbcc.edu
Santa Clara University, scu.edu
Seattle Central College, seattlecentral.edu
SKH Bishop Mok Sau Tseng Secondary School, Hong Kong, mst.edu.hk
South Seattle College, southseattle.edu
South Shore Educational Collaborative, Massachusetts, ssec.org
Stanford University, stanford.edu
Tecnologico National de Mexico, itcelaya.edu.mx and itoaxaca.edu.mx
The New School, New York, newschool.edu
The Philadelphia School, tpschool.org
Uniguacu, Brazil, uniguacu.edu.br
Universidad Autonoma de Baja California, Mexico uabc.edu.mx
Universidad Autonoma de Gabriel René Moreno, Bolivia, uagrm.edu.bo
Universidad Continental, Peru, continental.edu.pe
Universidad de Ingeneria y Tecnologica, Peru, utec.edu.pe
Universidad de Puerto Rico, upr.edu
Universidad del Valle, Columbia, correounivalle.edu.co
Universidad Nacional Pedro Henriquez Urena, Dominican Republic, unphu.edu.do
Universidad Politecnica de Chipapas, Mexico, upchiapas.edu.mx
Universidad Popular de Cesar, Colombia, unicesar.edu.co
Universidad Puruana Union, Peru, upeu.edu.pe
Universidad Tecnologica del Sur de Sonora, Mexico, uts.edu.mx
Universidad Tecnologica, Uruguay utec.edu.uy
Universidade de Integracao da Lusofonia Afro-Brasileria, Brazil, unilab.edu.br
Universidade Feral do Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, ufrn.br
Universitat Pompeau Fabra, Barcelona, upf.edu
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, comet.ucar.edu
University of Alaska, alaska.edu
University of Antioquia, Medellin, udea.edu.co
University of Arizona, arizona.edu
University of British Columbia, chem.ubc.ca
University of California Davis ucdavis.edu
University of California San Diego ucsd.edu
University of Central Missouri, ucmo.edu
University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, uccs.edu
University of Columbia, columbia.edu
University of Georgia, uga.edu
University of Kentuky, uky.edu
University of Massachusetts, umass.edu
University of Melbourne, unimelb.edu.au
University of Michigan, umich.edu
University of Nebraska, Lincoln, unl.edu
University of Nebraska, Omaha, unomaha.edu
University of Ottawa, ottawa.edu
University of Pittsburgh, pitt.edu
University of Southern Mississippi, usm.edu
University of Southern Queensland, usq.edu.au
University of Texas, utexas.edu
University of Toronto, utoronto.ca
University of Virginia, virginia.edu
University of Washington, u.washington.edu and uw.edu
University of Wisconsin-Madison, wisc.edu
University Technical Colleges, Plymouth, utcplymouth.org
Victorian Institute of Teaching, Australia, vic.edu.au
Western Governors University, wgu.edu

Among small nonprofits we have whitelisted:

A Rotta Love, arottalove.org (animal welfare)
Child United, childunited.org (children’s welfare)
DEXX Network, dexxnetwork.org
Freedom Youth Program, freedomyouthproject.org (children’s welfare)
Frontline Club, frontlineclub.org (journalism)
Hospital De Clinicas Porto Alegre, hcpa.edu.br (hospital)
Heart of Florida United Way, hfuw.org (public welfare)
MCA Church, mca.tv
National POLST Paradigm, polst.org (medical welfare)
Mainland BC Morale and Welfare Services (veterans welfare)
The Bridge Church, mybridgelife.com

(Update Oct 12, 2018: we did a better sort of the list, to be purely alphabetical by organization name.)

Kanban vs Scrum: what’s the difference, and which should you use?

November 15, 2017Agile & Scrum, Government, Kanban & Lean, Kerika, TutorialsGovernment, Kanban, Kerika, Our Users, Scrum, Task Board, Teams, TutorialKerika

We have a complete (one-hour long) video of the tutorial presented by Arun Kumar, CEO of Kerika, at the recent Lean Transformation Conference on the subject of Kanban vs Scrum: what’s the difference, and which should you use?

(The slides for this talk, and more, can be found on Slideshare.)

Topics covered:

Forming a team 00:01:32

The Product Owner 00:02:01

The Scrum Master 00:02:55

The Scrum Team 00:03:55

Pulling Work 00:04:04

The Product Backlog 00:05:45

Scrum Stories 00:06:25

Writing a good Story 00:07:35

From Epics to Stories 00:10:25

From Stories to Tasks 00:11:13

Estimating with Story Points 00:13:04

Organizing a Sprint 00:15:00

How long is a Sprint? 00:19:15

Sprints in theory 00:20:32

Sprints in real-life 00:20:53

Daily Standups 00:23:25

Burndown Charts 00:24:13

Team Velocity 00:25:35

Best Practices for Getting Scrum Right 00:28:00

The Nuclear Option 00:30:57

Where does Scrum work best? 00:32:02

Scrum in Government 00:33:25

Where does Kanban work best? 00:35:43

Collaboration Networks 00:37:25

Paper doesn’t scale 00:38:30

Using Kerika for Personal Kanban 00:39:50

Using Kerika for Team Kanban 00:40:24

Using Kerika in the Public Sector 00:40:37

Using Kerika for Scrum Projects 00:40:54

Capturing stories as “virtual sticky notes” 00:41:20

Summary 00:42:57

Question: how do you deal with poor performers on the team? 00:49:15

Question: in Scrum, are units of measure like lines of code still applicable? 00:50:08

Question: how do you measure individual performance? 00:51:03

Question: how do you handle poor performers within a team? 00:52:25

Question: when do you use the Nuclear Option? 00:54:20

Question: how do you estimate stories? 00:55:54

Photo credits: Abdul-Rasul Kassamali, Jama Abdirahman.

When working mothers are a central feature of your company’s design

October 8, 2017Agile & Scrum, Kanban & Lean, Kerika, Team Collaboration, TechnologyKanban, Kerika, Our Users, Scrum, TeamsKerika

What would your company look like if working mothers were a central feature of your organizational design, not a bug to be patched?

Kerika + Box Platform: a user’s perspective

October 5, 2017Agile & Scrum, Kanban & Lean, Kerika, Team CollaborationBox, Kanban, Kerika, Our Users, Scrum, Task Board, TeamsKerika

How great is Kerika’s integration with the Box Platform (that powers our direct signups?)

Free up your brain

September 7, 2017Agile & Scrum, Kanban & Lean, Kerika, Team Collaboration, UsabilityGoogle Apps, Kanban, Kerika, Our Users, Scrum, Task Board, Teams, Usability, WorkflowKerika

A fun video we made recently featuring Faith Trimble and Kate King, from the Athena Group, talking about how a consulting company can function as a truly distributed team — and get great work-life balance as a result!

Migrating users from Kerika+Google to our own storage

January 15, 2016TechnologyGoogle Apps, Our UsersKerika

We don’t offer this as a regular service — because it involves some special back-end work that can be a little time-consuming — but we recently helped a bunch of users migrate their accounts over from Kerika+Google to the new version of Kerika that lets you sign up directly with us, and have Kerika store your files instead of linking Kerika to a Box or Google account.

This is the version that you sign up for when you click on the left side of our Sign Up page:

Sjgning up directly with Kerika — Signing up directly with Kerika

With this option, Kerika stores your files for you using our new integration with the Box Platform.

Migrating away from Kerika+Google to this new platform helps our users save money: they could discontinue their use of premium (paid) Google Apps which they had adopted only to use as a sign-up mechanism for Kerika.

Handling this migration isn’t something we do for everyone, but this is one of our oldest customers. 🙂

Join us at the Lean Transformation Conference

October 14, 2015Agile & Scrum, Government, Kanban & Lean, KerikaGovernment, Kanban, Kerika, Our Users, ScrumKerika

Once again Arun Kumar, Kerika’s founder and CEO, will be speaking at the annual Lean Transformation Conference organized by Results Washington.

This conference is all about Lean and Agile in the public sector: thousands of folks from state, county and local (city) government agencies will be attending, and as usual Kerika will also have a display booth on the 5th floor of the Tacoma Convention Center.

Arun’s topic this year is “Can You See It Now? Visualizing your Lean and Agile Workflows”.

We look forward to seeing our Washington users at the conference; please do stop by our booth or sign up for Arun’s talk!

Attaching content to the board itself, not just to cards

September 8, 2015Agile & Scrum, Kanban & Lean, Technology, UsabilityDocument Management, Kanban, Our Users, Scrum, Task Board, Teams, Usability, Whiteboard, WorkflowKerika

We have added a new feature that should prove handy for a lot of folks: you can now add content — files from your laptop, images from your mobile or tablet, Web links from your Intranet or the Internet, or canvases — to a Task Board or Scrum Board itself.

If this sounds like something that was always there, maybe we need to say that differently: you used to have the ability to add content to a card, now you can add it to the board itself.

There are many situations we have encountered where we want to share content or a canvas with a team, but there wasn’t any obvious place to still it — no single card on the board that seemed like the right place to attach that content.

And that’s because the content we wanted to add was applicable across the entire board, not just relevant to a single card.

This was getting frustrating, so we decided to scratch our itch: a new button on the top-right area of your Kerika app will let you add files, Web links and canvases to the board itself:

This should make some of you as happy as it has made us!

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