1.	In November of last year we started working on a new piece of software designed to facilitate internal communication at UserLand. We have people in the US and Canada, on both coasts, and were largely using email to narrate our work.
2.	Like many groups who depend on email for communication, we were frustrated and inefficient, messages were lost, as were opportunities. It was hard for me as the manager of this group to know what people were doing, when they hit milestones, or dead-ends, when they needed help from me, and if they were in synch with the rest of the group. We desperately needed something to make our work flow more smoothly.
3.	We've been using this tool, which we call an Instant Outliner, since November. We shipped Radio 8 with it. When we switched over, our workgroup's productivity soared. All of a sudden people could narrate their work. We've gotten very formal about how we use it. I can't imagine doing an engineering project without this tool. We decided that we had to make a product out of this. It's too good to keep to ourselves.