Adrian Harris - Behind The Most Powerful Forum Software: vBulletin

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Adrian Harris

CEans,

CrazyEngineers at heart is a "community" of engineers. Today, thousands of engineers & engineering students with diverse backgrounds from over 180 countries gather on CE Forums to discuss innovative ideas, share knowledge and help each other. Thanks to the world's most powerful & advanced forum software - vBulletin that powers the CE Community.

We are excited to have Mr. Adrian Harris, Senior Operations Manager at vBulletin to answer our questions about vBulletin 4. Check out our Small Talk with Adrian -

CE: Hi Adrian, could you tell us a bit about your background and responsibilities you handle at vBulletin (IB)?

Adrian: Sure! I am originally from an island off Australia, Tasmania, and am a “farm boy”. At vBulletin I oversee the customer service teams, marketing, PR and daily operations. It’s a really enjoyable job, and no day is the same!

CE: You are a mechanical engineer by education. How did you get into the software industry?

Adrian:  I would say chance, I am a technology geek at heart, so it has a common theme! I worked in the manufacturing and the automotive industry previously, I was a volunteer administrator for a number of years on a large automotive forum that was acquired by Internet Brands (#-Link-Snipped-#) and was offered an opportunity to work with them. While I really enjoyed working as an engineer, I thought it was a great opportunity to have greater involvement in an industry that is really expanding, as well as have a great outlet for one of my passions (forums!)

CE: vBulletin 3.x is a successful product that powers many large forums. Why did vB team decide to rewrite it from scratch for vBulletin 4?

Adrian: vBulletin4 utilizes a lot of the successful elements from vBulletin 3, and builds on them. Separately it has also added in some new elements as well (Content Management System, Table-less design etc.), we actually intentionally didn’t rewrite vBulletin4 from scratch – both because the timeframe from a development standpoint would have been excessive, but also the risk involved in redoing a software from scratch with the scope of vBulletin would be extreme. We have taken a far more “iterative” approach, to minimize risk, and increase our flexibility. Expect that approach to continue.

CE: What's vBulletin's plan to remain a step ahead of the competition?

Adrian: A number of things. We have a reasonably strong vision of where we want vBulletin to go – however we want that vision to be flexible enough that we can adapt to a changing marketplace and environment, as well as incorporating more feedback from our customers. We are fortunate enough to have a very large team (32 strong!) working on vBulletin, with a very varied background (the countries represented by our employees are Switzerland, China, Argentina, Italy, Russia, Romania, India, China, Taiwan, USA, Australia, UK, Poland, Mexico, The Philippines… and Texas =D ) and everyone brings something to the table. Naturally a large (or diverse) team doesn’t necessarily preclude success, everyone needs to be working towards a common goal, have good communication amongst the team and be passionate about what they are doing. I am confident that with the resources we have, and the direction we have for the product we can take vBulletin to the next level.

CE: What should we expect from vBulletin 5?

Adrian: A few game changing ideas, I really wish that I could talk more about them.

CE: How will the new ownership at vBulletin affect the product?

Adrian: It shouldn’t. The team here (both management and development) will be remaining the same, and we can continue working as we do today on our long term plans.

CE: How's your typical day at office? Could you share few pics of vBulletin office (vB team working)?

Adrian: It usually starts with a coffee, and a joke at Fabian our VP of technology about his shirt that he has worn that day. We have our Developer standup first thing, which involves the entire Dev and QA teams, as well as a few people from the support staff, and we discuss progress on projects from the day before, and what we have planned for the coming day. Then I try my best to read our support forums as much as I can, respond to any questions that have been asked that I can answer, and help out my team. I will usually catch-up with Alan (our Senior Product Manager) and Fabian on a daily basis to strategize about the future products in vB, “spitball” some ideas and concepts, and work on mockups so that the product is continually evolving, I also try to integrate as much feedback on these items with our customers.

CE: Thank you for participating in CE Small Talk. What is your message to all the CEans aka Crazy Engineers?

Adrian: It is a very cool community you have, and one that I think is very useful. I actually used CrazyEngineers for research a few years back when I was in college and working on a project (Formula SAE car).Discuss this

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Small Talk with fellow CEans in following thread on CE Forums: #-Link-Snipped-#.

CrazyEngineers is thankful to Mr. Adrian Harris for his time & support in making this Small Talk possible.