The Bamboo Mantra and Why You Should Care!

Hey readers... this is Joel Oleson AKA SharePoint Joel.  I'm doing a guest blog series on some of the cool things happening over here at Bamboo.  I've spent some time with Lam, Steve, Jonas, among others at Bamboo and noticed some very important characteristics, and values that set them apart.

I recently spent some time in Asia and one of the cool things around the Buddist temples was the brightly colored clothes of the monks with their shaven heads and the awesome chanting.  The chanting (see a buddist chanting youtube video) is essentially a prayer that help them focus on the right things to help them get closer to enlightenment. 

So as I spent time with the Bamboo team I noticed a set of best practices among the team I'll refer to as their mantra.  These aren't things they have to boast... I see it much easier to talk about as an outsider.  I see these as Development best practices...

1. Minimize Assemblies and use as much out of the box functionality as possible - They really try to have the smallest footprint.  Since more code turns into more support and harder upgrade.  Support turns into lost revenue and dissatistied customers.  More is less.

2. Minimize security footprint with CAS Policies - many people who'd call themselves developers would simply ignore any best practice around web part security.  There are truly things that can be done to minimize the security required for a web part.  In long conversations with the Bamboo dev team, Jonas called out, they spend more of their time trying to minimize the security footprint and "do it right" than they do on the feature or solution.  I believe it. 

3. Commitment - I've seen such an amazing committment to the solutions these guys come up with.  They know that when you purchase a solution or web part, there is a commitment to protect, support, upgrade, and see you through to success.  This "Guarantee" is often unspoken and sometimes improperly assumed with other vendors.  Bamboo Solutions is not an SI (Systems Integrator) they do have a ton of partners and relationships with the best, but they personally don't make money on any problems or challenges you might have in your deployment.  They lose if you lose.

4. Embrace the Community - I think you've seen the Bamboo Nation, the real revolution to energize and empower the people...  the blogging, the opening up of betas... hey I actually did a post on what Bamboo has been doing.  Bamboo loves SharePoint MVPs, and really reaching out to connect with customers.

5. Bamboo Listens - More than any other, I've seen Bamboo essentially take to the streets like Jay Leno in his Jaywalking clips...  At the SharePoint Conference they gave away hats and shirts and now they're giving away $500 gift certificate and other gadgets to listen to you rant and rave...

Well I hope this gives you a glimpse of what makes these guys and gals different.  Next time you hear or see a Monk you'll think of Bamboo.... well maybe that's a stretch :).