History

Every program starts with a problem...

 

    once upon a time, in a very special place not too far from here, there was a community of people who worked very hard.  It seemed the harder they worked, the less they got done.  Some of the people became very frustrated because they were falling behind.  Mistakes were made, conflicts occurred, and soon people were mad at each other without really knowing why.  Two groups were especially unhappy with each other – the athletics department and the transportation department.  Something had to be done but no one had the time to think about a solution. 

 

A new community member named Cliff saw what was happening and because he loved technology, he wondered if there was a technology solution to this dilemma.  So he started to study the problem and think about it and he realized that many of the people in the community had developed Chronophobia, the fear of time.  It seemed strange that such a competent bunch of folks who had never manifested symptoms of such a condition should all come down with it now.  Cliff became more and more curious and began to inspect every corner of the community and he discovered a very unusual object – it was called “The Purple Form.”   

 

He noticed that people fought over the Purple Folder and when they got it they tried to hang onto it. 

People were nervous if they didn’t get to see it every day because its contents were changed frequently.  They would say mysterious things to each other like “I want to schedule a meeting of the drama club but I need to check the Purple Folder first and I don’t know who has it!” and then they would become panic-stricken.  It seemed that lack of access to the Purple Folder was one of the reasons that nobody was getting their work done.  Everyone developed Chronophobia because they had no control over time because of…the Purple Folder. 

 

Cliff noticed another thing happening too.  Many of the community staff members received calls from 

parents who were wondering where their children were supposed to be, what time they were supposed to be there, and when they would be finished.  The parents never got to see the Purple Folder which contained this information, and so they would call in and ask these questions every day, or many times a week.  Staff who had to take these phone calls couldn’t answer the questions unless they had the Purple Folder, or unless they had cleverly made a copy of some of the information in the Folder before the call came in.  Even then, if they used their copy to answer the question, their answer might be wrong because the Purple Folder may have changed again! 

 

One more thing made Cliff very suspicious of the Purple Folder as a possible cause of this dysfunction.  He noticed that facilities often got double booked for different events at the same time.  If two different events were scheduled in the same place at the same time, a fight would break out as community members tried to decide who had to move.  The group that had to move suffered because it was hard to find another facility that was just right at that same time.  At one point, one group even started rentingspace in another community because at least they would be sure they had the space at the time they needed it!  But Cliff learned that if two groups looked at the Purple Folder together when they made their plans, there would never be a conflict. 

 

Cliff could plainly see that the Prple Folder was the cause of all this anxiety and the Chronophobia that 

was plaguing the community.  So he worked with three guys in the community, Scott, Andrew and 

Octavian, to see if they could create a better kind of Purple Folder that would solve these problems.  

What if people could see if a facility was available for a meeting before they scheduled it?  What if they could schedule an event for a group they cared about WITHOUT finding the Purple Folder first?  What if parents didn’t have to call in because they could see when and where their child’s activity was scheduled?  The Fearless Four (Cliff, Scott, Andrew and Octavian) became dedicated to creating a better Purple Folder and they went to work.   

 

Scott liked the idea because it helped people.  Andrew liked it because it was something new that had 

never been done before.  Cliff liked it because it would reduce stress and conflicts in the community.  

Octavian liked it because…well, we’re really not sure.   

 

After thousands of gallons of caffeine, hundreds of pizzas and a change of season, the Fearless Four had invented the cure for Chronophobia.  They called it the BCSEMS.  (The last three letters stand for Event Management System, and to this day, no one remembers anything about the first three letters.)  They shortened it to EMS because people couldn’t pronounce BCSEMS.  EMS lived in one place, on the “web”, so no one could ever hold onto it for themselves, like the Purple Folder.  Everyone in the community could access it whenever they wanted, and they could see only the events they cared about.  When something changed, everyone who needed to know found out right away.  Even the parents could see it, so they always knew where their children were supposed to be, what time, and when they finished.   

 

The whole community was delighted with EMS, especially a community member named Terry, who 

became an expert in how to use it.  Terry helped everyone else learn, and she made sure that EMS was nice and clean and up to date. 

 

Terry and the Fearless Four praised God for the happiness and peace that prevailed in the community.

What happened next was completely unexpected. 

 

Kronophobia 

 

Some of the parents who used EMS told the Fearless Four they would like to have it for other 

communities their children were in.  Other communities asked the Fearless Four if they could use or buy EMS.  After considerable puzzling over the matter, the Four decided because they were a non-profit community to give it away to others who wanted it.  Several names came to mind; “Trailhead”, “Fireball” and “Flagpole.”   They finally settled on “Kronophobia”, and they launched it on the open source repository, Source Forge.  Kronophobia had a cool Shrew as a mascot, 

demonstrating how incredibly stressful it can be if you actually have Chronophobia! 

 

After awhile, they started to get calls from the people who had begun to use it, asking for help in using it the best way.  The Four tried to help but quickly realized that they could never support Kronophobia 

users the way they would like because they had day jobs, and they were very busy. 

 

Cliff felt bad about not being able to support communities who wanted to use Kronophobia, so he 

brought a new community member in to figure it out.  Bryan joined the Fearless Four and they became 

the Fightin’ Five.   

 

Bryan was an expert in wine and in banking, which somehow helped him in his new role.  The only place in the community for Bryan to sit was in the library, which was supposed to be a very quiet and studious place.  Bryan tried his best to remain quiet, which was always challenging for him, but here it was extra difficult.  Which turned out to be a good thing because every time he got too loud and was asked to “step outside, please”, it was because he was taking a call on his cell phone from a community that wanted to use EMS.  And they would be willing to pay for it.   

 

Finally, the Fightin’ Five agreed that there were enough communities who would enjoy using 

Kronophobia that they formed a for-profit company that could sell it and then provide the support their 

customers needed.  So one day, three of the Fightin’ Five left the community and became the Thrifty 

Three. 

 

Octavian had other things to do and Cliff didn’t leave the community but he stayed involved with 

the effort, and he and his wife Diane even loaned money to the Three to form the company.  They 

couldn’t stay in the library, so they made an office in Bryan’s house and got busy. 

 

They needed a more descriptive name for the product that wouldn’t scare everyone, so they changed 

the name to “School Calendar.”  This name was really simple since all the communities who used EMS 

were schools, and it really was a calendar.  A very special and powerful calendar, but still a calendar.  It made sense to name the new company “School Calendar Associates (SCA)” and that name lives on to this day. 

 

Every day, Bryan from SCA made phone calls to tell communities about School Calendar, Scott worked on the software to make it better and fix things that were broken, and Andrew helped with coding, 

trained and supported customers and even handled the money going in and out.  More and more 

communities bought School Calendar, loved it, and told other communities about it.  Sales went up and 

time went on, and finally, the Thrifty Three were so exhausted that they knew they needed more 

people.  And they needed to get out of Bryan’s house since he had no life. 

 

Is anyone in the bathroom? 

 

The Thrifty Three hired a new guy named Mark, and asked for help from Diane in managing the money.

Mark got paid and Diane didn’t, but she helped out anyway.  So they became the Frugal Five.   

 

They loaded all their stuff into a truck and moved to a garage, which was attached to a building occupied by an orthodontist.  It was a small space, but very cheap.  The only problem was that the orthodontist’s patients shared the same bathroom as the Five, so sometimes things got a 

little awkward. 

 

Mark studied books on selling and started to call customers.  This allowed Bryan to spend a little bit of his time thinking up new names for the product and the company.  They decided to name the company “Intand” and the product “Tandem”, because a Tandem bike makes people more efficient, it requires more than one person, they share the same direction and it’s fun.  Intand means that the company is working In tandem with the communities they support. The “I” in Intand is also a marker for a technology company. 

 

Everybody was working as hard as possible, sales were increasing, communities were happy with 

Tandem and then the Frugal Five hit a wall. Because the Frugal Five used to be the Thrifty Three, Intand had very low operating costs.  They worked in a garage and adding new customers didn’t require any more hardware or software because of the web-hosted model.  There wasn’t any way to reduce costs so the best way to ensure that they had enough staff to provide support for their customers was to get more new customers, i.e., increase sales. 

 

Bryan knew some great sales guys but there was no room for more people in the garage.  A friend from church offered Intand some free office space in a very nice building, and they were off to the races.They loaded up the truck; hired 3 new employees; settled in their new offices and went to work.  The Frugal Five was now the Energetic Eight. 

 

It took a few months for the new sales guys to learn to sell Tandem to communities, and several combinations of staffing roles were tried, but finally there was one Account Manager and three sales 

representatives.  Scott and Andrew still worked on the software, and on the software tools internal to the company; Diane managed the money; Bryan got the whole world excited about Tandem; Darin took care of customers; Mark and David and Brian sold Tandem to new communities. 

I’d work here even if they didn’t pay me 

 

Being a charismatic sort, Bryan was able to attract all kinds of new people to help out at Intand.  

Sometimes they got paid and sometimes they didn’t.  Either way, they were happy to be associated with Tandem and Bryan and the whole gang.  Dave helped with the sales team; Sherri helped with some introductions to partners and some market segmentation; Alex helped with 

marketing execution.  In addition to Bryan’s charisma, the team enjoyed quarterly golf tournaments 

and ate pizza every Thursday.  They wore flip flops and shorts to work, and they even had a mascot named Freckles! 

 

More and more communities joined the happy users group for Tandem.  Parents raved about it, school 

principals and secretaries had much less stress, facilities directors felt like heroes, and communication directors basked in the glow of positive PR.  Some customers even started to sell other customers on 

Tandem!Tandem was now being used by over 1200 communities in 40 states.  Google said so.  It was pretty amazing. 

 

Office space at Intand was pretty hard to come by, just like Initech.  So when Sherri came in to stay, 

Brian left.  Things got so exciting that Cliff was able to spend more time with Intand so they became the Notorious Nine. 

Of Course We Have Enough Space! 

 

The team was pretty stoked about how things were going, so the Board of Directors gave them the go- ahead to hire two more people.  After an exhaustive search with over 60,000 applicants (at least it felt like that), Matt and Sarah were hired to join the Intand team. 

 

And just like that, they became Intand’s Eleven. 

 

They have values… 

 

Integrity, Optimism, Service, Creativity, Stewardship 

They have a mission… 

 

To Be the leader in connecting organizations and their communities through simple, efficient 

communication tools 

They have a vision… 

 

Excellent Communication, 

Optimized Resources, 

Strong Communities. 

 

And they can pull it off.