Went to our Tally office for the first time in a while. Good visit in general, was there with Jim and Peter. Scared Jim in the car as Pete was driving. Overall good talks with both Dev and CS — I think there is some good cooperation potential there.
Add comment April 17th, 2007
Had my group meeting in Ottawa this time around to be a bit different (and since 3 of the folks are in or close to Ottawa anyway, it saves money). Lots of fun talk about cost of work (for example, spending $36K on authoring a document) and plans for how we be smarter going forward. Overall I found the meetings frustrating on our progress made - just need to keep at it to improve. Karen flew up a bit later we had some good tex-mex (see my earlier note on Mexican food in KW) and visited our friends Tim and Dianne in Carp to close out the trip. Had some fun snarkyness on the return trip from Air Canada and us attempting to sneak into the lounge even though we were on a WestJet flight.
Add comment April 12th, 2007
So, went and visited CIGI today (centre of international governance innovation) to meet with some folks and talk about what they have done. The funny thing is that they are all friends of mine (or at least the main ones), so it was mostly a waste of time for myself since I had a fairly good idea of what they do, how they did it and why (I do eat lunch with these guys regularly). Overall, it was funny being told details on hosted model/ASP technology/business when we as a team were largely the ones originally responsible in our company. Still, they are doing some more advanced stuff which is commendable. Not sure how it all fits into what we do. I was recruited however (for a programming position) — not sure I would be any good at that anymore.
Add comment April 3rd, 2007
So today for work, we had someone in to help us understand our products whom formerly used to work with us. Lots of good information, however, one of the things that I was surprised at (and this is me saying this), is how unfocused and arrogant the person was. Jumping all around on topics, never completing a thought and all the time their view was the correct one. At the end of it all, I had to step back and look at myself, because often I feel that I’m the same way and thought to myself, how to people deal with it?
Add comment March 30th, 2007
So, work today was frustrating — tried to do a first ever presentation to all staff, which makes one anxious to start with, but then due to technical issues had to cancel so we didn’t have 300-400 people wasting time while we try to sort out our powerpoint. On a more positive note, next time has to go smoother.
Add comment March 28th, 2007
Sara and I are at a metrics conference in Boston (where they called me "Addsen", which is too stereotypical Boston to believe). Learning lots about metrics, optimization and industry norms which hopefully will be useful in our work. One interesting thing is that we met some folks from CA there whom where trying to get their company processes and methodologies defined and metrics a fundamental part of their business. They are 10x our size… so that gives me hope that we’re ahead of the curve and getting to our problems before we are them. That said, there’s a company here called Line6 which is 60 people, and they are trying to address their problems before they become our size. Got called an entrepreneur by the guy whom runs the course because I contacted some folks he mentioned in his course material — I just thought it was problem solving).
Add comment March 21st, 2007
Every year we seem to do raises differently. It’s a massive amount of work and in the end, there are lots of dissatisfied people (took too long, wasn’t understandable whom got what, wasn’t sufficient, etc.) Not sure if that’s a systemic thing or something I can work to correct.
Add comment March 9th, 2007
Ok, so Pete must be with me today… (for those of you don’t know, Peter Near has TERRIBLE travel karma). I go to the airport in a taxi, it’s early morning, the dude only takes cash. I don’t have any cash. I run inside to find an ATM. No ATMs. I try to find a currency exchange. I find one, it’s closed. Says go to the other terminal. I run to the other terminal. I find a currency exchange. They can’t use my debit or credit cards. Plane is leaving soon (I always tend to push my luck and sometimes it causes problems). They tell me to go back to other terminal and a different floor and talk to that currency exchange. I get money. I head back to car (it’s been like 45 minutes). Guy is still there and has been calling the office trying to get a hold of someone who can get a hold of me. I pay him and get my luggage. He leaves. I go to try to check in. Machine isn’t working properly. Issues me only half of my boarding passes (going through Heathrow). I try to find someone manning the machines to help me out. No one around. Really close to flight time. Find someone. They can’t make the machine work for my itinerary any more either. Say, I’ll just have to talk to the connection people at Heathrow. I get to Heathrow, manage to get checked through without issue. Go get a sandwich and no yellow mustard. Only English mustard. Dammit! (ok, so that’s not so much of a big deal).
Add comment March 7th, 2007
Got together to hear the TCP team plans (bringing together two of our product lines into one offering). Was a very good meeting, the team is very interesting and seems quite technically sound. Had a nice walk around the late with torches and afterwards a campfire and beer. Makes meetings much more enjoyable.
Add comment March 6th, 2007
Left Bangalore in the wee hours (as usual) and flew to Zurich (for which I had to run to catch a connection). Zurich seems very nice as a city — think it might be nice to live here. Noticed a watch that K might like while waiting for the train. Off I went cross country to Kempten to see Norbert and meet the folks at the office. The Kempten office is really nice. The town of Kempten is REALLY nice. I loved the river running through it and the theatre up on a hill in the middle of the ruins of a fort. Gave me some ideas on what we might be able to do with Waterloo Park.
Add comment March 3rd, 2007
So, I’m here in Bangalore with a large group representative of the offshore team. James, Jim, Steffen, Tony, Martin — a bunch of guys whom will all have to work with the folks here. So far we’ve seen tours of the potential office space we would use, had several late dinners (10:30pm) after really long planning work days (which, is very draining) and sat by an outdoor pool which had an inordinate number of frogs swimming in it. All in all, a different kind of trip than December (since I’m the "experienced" Indian traveller) but still enjoyable.
Add comment March 2nd, 2007
A very strange thing occurred on the plane to Bangalore today (and Tony can confirm this) — but a bunch of Italian ladies roamed through the plane asking us to give up whatever food we could spare (or didn’t eat) to give to the children in the city when we land. Or at least, that’s what seemed to be happening, I don’t speak Italian.
Add comment February 27th, 2007
Headed off to Huntington Beach today for the last of the user conferences of Hummingbird. Flew with Karen’s boss Bill (and took him into the lounge with me) which was fun since he was also heading to that Irvine area, so we passed the time talking about Centre in the Square. First time I have ever been in California (it’s really quite nice), very close to the beach and have a full suite which I’m going to use for team meetings.
Add comment February 11th, 2007
So, due to the additional responsibilities, Kirk seems to have made adjustments to cover that particular. That’s good I suppose, although money isn’t the main concern for me nowadays (although that statement makes me sound like an overpaid git).
Add comment January 31st, 2007
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