West Michigan’s IT industry is growing faster than companies can staff. Collective Idea, one of the region’s leading software development consultants, added eight new team members during the first three quarters of 2015, nearly a new person every month, and a 47 percent growth rate over 2014. Among the additions are three women and the former co-founder of Ars Technica.

Leading the growth is an increase in client work and growing demand among companies looking to “on-shore” its software programming. Collective idea specializes in web and mobile software development for multi-national, mid- and small-businesses and startup organizations.

Among Collective Idea’s 2015 additions are Dana Jones, Laura Mosher and Brianna Onken, three women who collectively bring more than 25 years of technology and development experience to the Collective Idea team. Each bring a diverse set of skills in front-end development as well as coding languages Ruby, Rails and Erlang, a popular language in mobile communications.

“Michigan’s technology ecosystem is distinct from other parts of the country. It is diverse, uniquely collaborative, highly accessible and defined by a work ethic that values action and experimentation. That’s deeply attractive to the tech community,”.” said Daniel Morrison, president of Collective Idea. “Collective Idea’s developers aren’t just employees, they are entrepreneurial people from across the country who are passionate about designing, creating, integrating and launching software that aligns with the needs of people.”

Jon Stokes, another new addition, is the co-founder of Ars Technica, among the world’s leading technology news and information websites. Stokes considers the Collective Idea team “amazing coders,” and among the hundreds of development companies in the United States, chose to join Collective Idea.

“Programming is a creative profession, and it has been a great pleasure to work with Collective Idea on my projects for more than four years, and now to work with them side-by-side to create new software for our clients,” said Stokes. “The Midwest is a hot spot for high-caliber developers who have critical insights, can quickly identify problems, and find solutions using the right code.”

Collective Idea’s newest team members have come from all over the country with eclectic backgrounds of interests and talents. They include Ray Brown, Mike Kopchick, Joshua Kovach and Ben Lambert.

The hiring landscape is highly competitive for qualified programming talent. To win the best talent, Collective Idea offers originative ideas of their own, including a way for team members to have some fun at work.

“We’ve recently added a small fleet of bicycles for the team to use around town as they please,” added Brian Ryckbost, Collective Idea vice president and veteran developer. “They’ve already been places like the lake, several restaurants and have baskets so bringing delicious food back to the office is always a possibility.”

Full bios for new team members and others can be found at: www.collectiveidea.com/about

About Collective Idea

A Michigan company founded by Daniel Morrison in 2005, Collective Idea is a collection of developers, designers, marketers and makers that collaborate to craft user friendly and innovative software experiences for multinational companies, small startups and everything else in between. More at www.collectiveidea.com