Pete Forde slaved away in the shadows of Microsoft development for a decade until Ruby on Rails clicked its heels three times, forcing Pete to help found Unspace. Demanding, innovative, and not a little eccentric, Pete is the sort of person whom interesting projects tend to follow around. Pete’s concern for quality is as much a personal drive as it is a professional one, and informs his approaches to programming and brainstorming with unwavering strength.
Pete has deftly handled clients from retail entities like Chapters to energy brokerages and government institutions — all while managing to drum in a rock band in his "spare" time. Dedicated to the idea of constructive community, Pete is the monthly host of Toronto Rails Pub Nite, and couldn’t be happier to go to work every day with the most intelligent people he’s ever met.
One Degree: What is Looking Real Good all about?
Looking Real Good is a fun, non-commercial web project where every day there is a new, interesting person on the homepage for 24 hours. People are encouraged to upload portraits of themselves, and describe where they come from and what they are passionate about. In contrast to similar concepts, we do not allow visitors to comment or vote on the photographs. We’re hoping a smiling face will inject some positive energy into your day when you get to work in the morning.
One Degree: How did you come about the idea, and what do hope to accomplish with it?
In Toronto we have NOW Magazine, which has a weekly My Style feature. My sister Lindsay is a talented costume designer; we both read that page even though it sucks. I wanted to support her work, as well as adapt the NOW feature for the web, but without the suck.
One common complaint in web development circles is that we have these specialized abilities, but they are often only used to realize the dreams of other people. Simple concepts like Looking Real Good are an opportunity to do something fun that hopefully makes the world a slightly more interesting place.
