The Time Jive Launched a Rocket

A software release, a model rocket, and a memory of the kind of people who made Jive Software a fun place to work.

From the archivesWriting from an earlier age of the Internet, recovered from holyarmy.org.

Editor's note, 2026: The original was a 102-word launch announcement wrapped around a YouTube video and a Flickr photo. Both links are gone. This version keeps the surviving photo and the part that matters now: the people and the memory.

I went to the University of Iowa with Bill Lynch and Matt Tucker, who founded Jive Software as CoolServlets.com. I worked at Jive first as a system administrator, then returned in 2007 and stayed for another decade. I eventually became a Staff Engineer, but in 2009 I was working across the company website, internal applications, and professional services.

Jive was full of smart people who were willing to make work strange in the best way. When we launched a new product called Social Business Software, somebody decided the occasion called for an actual rocket. The running joke was simple: NASA used Jive, so Jive should use rockets.

Paul Biggs, Tyler Walden, Jeff Brandt, and others helped make it happen. We took the rocket out, sent it up, filmed the launch, and put the whole thing online. It was unnecessary, a little ridiculous, and very Jive.

The company was later acquired and mostly shut down. Its official Flickr account disappeared along with a lot of the odd, fun material people made there. This photograph survived my own archive.

A model rocket lifting off from a launch pad as Jive coworkers watch — Jive launches the SBS rocket. Photo originally published by Jive Software on its official Flickr account.

I still like space. I still like working with people who will turn a software release into an excuse to launch something.