New Music

I never really expected to post something about music but I've been listening to a band called the V.L.A. lately and am really enjoying their music. The V.L.A. is the group whose song "When I Am Through With You" was used for the FX series 'Damages' that recently concluded. That song was entirely apropos for the series and the other songs of theirs that I've been able to locate are as good or better. It's of the rock genre and reminds me of the Cure, some guitar work similar to U2, particularly during the Joshua Tree period, and the Church. The lyrics are sometimes a little dark (but hey, I like Nine Inch Nails so that is fitting). Most songs have a haunting melody about them and while no particular element of the music or lyrics strikes me as being profound or brilliant, the sum is certainly greater than the parts. Their E.P. is available through the iTunes Store and they had a song or two available from their MySpace page the last time I checked.

A few days with the new cat (Leopard)

So, I received Leopard on Friday evening and we then headed out camping with the 'Stream. After Carrie and Sadie hunkered down I proceeded to install the new laptop hard drive and Leopard. Installation was uneventful and took about 40 minutes. If you're still reading this far you've already read at least a few reviews about Leopard so I likely won't have anything new to report on but I can tell you what i like and don't like.

Likes
Time Machine--who doesn't like it? It's a great idea with brilliant execution--I've never seen a more elegant backup solution that an end-user can do and understand
Spaces--I've tried several virtual desktop solutions and I like them for a while but seem to forget about them. Spaces, being built-in at the OS level seems better integrated. I like it so far and seems to do a good job of helping me stay on task.
Stacks--it's not revolutionary since you could do a similar thing with the previous iterations of the Mac OS but it's pretty elegant.
General performance--it's not dramatic but there is definitely a noticeable performance boost--Spotlight seems to actually be responsive now. In Tiger (10.4) it was so slow that I seldom depended on it and even though Google Desktop was considered by the Apple fan-boys to be poorly written, it flat out worked
iChat--I'm a heavy IM user and the new iChat is great. The tabbed conversations and the new special effects are super cool.

Dislikes
honestly, there isn't anything I really dislike, I'm generally quite happy with the upgrade

Other
Menu bar and dock--yeah, they're different and I do wish it was a little more obvious in the dock which programs were running but I'm finding that I'm getting used to it and the menu bar being semi-opaque doesn't bother me, it seems a little better actually than it did in one of the developer versions I checked out

All in all, I'm happy with the upgrade, I'm not overwhelmed but from better performance (on my 2 laptops and 1 desktop), Time Machine, and the new iChat, I'm quite pleased.

Leopard on the way

Wow, I am just floored at how much press the new Apple operating system has garnered. Even though most reviews have said it's evolutionary and not revolutionary, the volume of coverage is HUGE. Yes, I test drove a couple versions of the beta and yes, I have a copy being delivered as well. I'm going to swap out hard drives on my MacBook so I can keep my 10.4 (Tiger) version intact but in an external bootable enclosure. Besides that, I wanted to step up to the new 7200 RPM SATA 200 GB laptop drive anyhow.

I guess I was pretty excited with Vista too, I think I test drove no fewer than 3 versions of the betas and was one of the first in my organization to install it on a production machine. While it was a much larger departure from XP than Tiger and Leopard are, I still muddled my way through it and enjoyed the new tricks and eye candy.

No matter what press or what religion of operating system you subscribe, the new generations are fun, exciting, and many of us are salivating to get it running on our own gear. I'm sure it will be an improvement in most regards, and not quite as good in others.

Back to my first sentence though--I know Apple has gained in market share dramatically in the last few years but it still holds such a small percentage of the overall business yet has a hugely disproportionate amount of press. Having been a user of Apple products at home and work for the past 4 years (not exclusively, but it's joined my cadre), it is becoming a little less cultish or special as more people are discovering it. It has been kind of fun sitting back and taking the ribbing from some of the dyed-in-the-wool MS fan-boys and in the last couple of years they start asking more questions than making wise-cracks. With this popularity, I feel like I might need to run out and find something else now....

Gmail Gets IMAP Capability!

In this morning's daily morning news and blog readings, I found a couple of sites that said some people's Gmail accounts now have IMAP functionality. I quickly logged into mine and lo and behold, there it is! I enabled it on mine (settings/IMAP/POP) and configured my mail client to check it for IMAP and within a couple of minutes I now have my IMAP'ed Gmail account working with my fat client. For those who aren't already aware, IMAP is a long-requested feature for Gmail. IMAP, as opposed to POP, is server-based mail storage, keeping a duplicate hierarchy of folders and sub-folders on the server. Most modern IMAP mail clients allow you to download the mail folders and contents onto your local computer but the messages still exist on the server. This is huge for people with more than one computer or who frequently check their mail from other computers.

THANK YOU GOOGLE!

Cover Letter

Here's a letter of interest for a position that I really am enthusiastic about. I received a positive response this morning already.

###

I wanted to take a moment to discuss with you my interest in the Chief Information Officer position. I have already submitted my application and documents to the search committee but I also wanted to touch base with you. I know you're extremely busy #your position# so I will be succinct.

I've reviewed and researched much about the #organization Y# and #Organization X# and explored #the strategic plan# and I am very excited about the opportunity to interview for the position.

I come from a background of private and public sector experience, including four years with the University of Nevada, Reno where I held the position of Director, Information Technology, Campus Computing & Security. I very much enjoy the academic environment and feel that I have a keen sensitivity to needs of faculty, staff, and students as I have worked on several collaborative projects with all three groups. I particularly enjoy working with new and innovative technologies to provide improved technology performance and offerings to serve the campus community. My experience at UNR includes having worked with the Nevada State Higher Education (NSHE) group (comprised of all of the public Nevada higher education institutions) likely parallels the #organization Y#.

#Name#, I enjoy technology and especially the practical but innovative application of it to improve efficiency, stimulate creativity, and to bridge gaps. While social networking applications have been around for a few years now, much of it is still in its infancy and using it to improve teaching and collaboration is an area in which I have particular interest and excitement. I also have extensive experience in implementing centralized hosted applications and services. At UNR my team and I used the 'carrot' approach to reduce bring nearly all of the campus onto a single mail and calendaring service (coming from more than 15 disparate services). We also implemented centralized file services, secure remote access, and a higher degree of service through a project designed to simplify the computing environment while still providing the necessary liberties to ensure our faculty being able to do everything they needed. The net result was less down-time of computing services, greater performance, software licensing compliance, and a strategic and sustainable environment.

From what I've read of the CIO position, the direction with new leadership, and the community, the position seems an excellent fit. I believe my experience, enthusiasm, vision for future technologies as well as ability to implement centralized services (where applicable), leadership, and creativity will complement the strategic planning for #organization x#.

#name#, thank you for your time to read my note. I am at your service should you have any questions for me. I look forward to discuss the position further with you and the search committee.

Microsoft and Windows Mobile, Part II

Microsoft's Windows Mobile is a neat idea, but I really don't think a Smart Phone user has much need for at least half of the functionality of their operating system.

There are a couple of smaller groups within Microsoft Corporate that have done alternate operating systems that seem to interact just fine with the full-fledged Windows operating systems though.... X-box and Zune both have non-Windows operating systems but they still manage to interact just fine with Windows. They are snappy, operate on smaller or dedicated purpose processors, and look great. While the Zune isn't exactly a huge commercial success, it bested the iPod's user interface (UI) (at least until the Fall 2007 iPods, anyhow). How about Microsoft enlisting one or both groups to develop a mobile operating system for Smart Phones that provides the same core level of functionality as the Blackberry? These guys could make something attractive, snappy, and that has the requisite functionality? That's my two bits.

Brand 'Me', Part II

So in Part I there was an example of bad branding and I mentioned that I'm somewhat apprehensive about marketing in general. So in this segment, what's MY brand?

I've been thinking about this for a few weeks now and it really just came to me a little while ago. My thing is that I'm really good at figuring out how things go together, what the various parts are, and how to improve the bits and provide service to the customer. In my two previous positions I was hired into one job and within a few months, promoted into a much higher level position. I attribute it to my ability to quickly get the lay of the land and being able to make improvements in bite-sized chunks and after enough chunks, you can have a pretty big meal. That's what I do.

When I left my previous position at the University I got some really flattering farewell messages from a lot of people but also several from people with parallel responsibilities operating outside my department and division. I hadn't actively thought about it but I was able to facilitate service because I knew what the various parts were and was able to involve the right teams to solve problems. I think this comes back to my personal adage: It's not what you know but it's about being able to find what you need to know. When a couple of research departments were thinking about building a collaborative project that required technology support they didn't go to the individual responsible for the infrastructure, they came to me. Naturally, I involved the infrastructure team and even though the departments knew who was responsible for that portion of the University's technology, they wanted me involved. I took this as a huge compliment and after a while with meeting with the responsible parties and the researches together I was able to hand it off but I really like this reputation. This is part of my brand.

The other thing that I heard from people was that I was pleasant to work with. This bugs me; not that people find me nice to deal with, but that it seems to be so uncommon with technology people. There is a certain arrogance and lack of communications competency that seems so prevalent within technology that it's really quite embarrassing to me. More than once I heard about this from people after they met with some of our most talented individuals. It makes me shudder and as a manager we can try to coach people on these things but the reality is that they need to make a decision to be civil and professional. We as managers CAN NOT continue to give these people high marks based on their technical skills alone. Re-write the job description if you need to but let's not give people a reason to want to outsource their technology needs!

Brand 'Me', Part I

There has been a lot of discussion on branding oneself on the web lately. CIO magazine has discussed it and there are books about how to do it. There is a part of me that has long been suspect of marketing--someone else's or my own. On a conscious, logical level I know that there is value and importance to it--many of my favorite products have brilliant marketing but then again, most of them are not as overt as the marketing that makes me shudder.

Most modern technology managers are also aware that their IT departments could use some good PR. IT people tend to be a little bit reclusive, often don't follow-up as well as they could, and treat projects as a problem that needs to be fixed. As a result, many IT departments and individuals are not seen as being part of the rest of the organization and may not be included on as many business and organization high-level projects as they could be. Like most things in life, a certain level of balance is necessary to be successful. It's not realistic to expect your strongest programmer to be an extrovert and actively meeting with the departments to find new opportunities but if they stay holed up with the lights out and complain about the operation then they're never going to make it very far.

Not long ago my department included some very diverse, creative, and intelligent IT personnel. One in particular was capable of a lot more than he was immediately tasked with but he seldom looked to work outside his immediate group though he would throw barbs at other areas of the technology staff and the organization as a whole. It's completely normal for people to whine about their employer and others but that's all it seemed like he ever did. I encouraged his manager to work with him on the notion that anyone can criticize, the successful people are those who can provide solutions. In his case he would provide solutions for other people's problems but not to them, to their supervisors instead. As a result, it was interpreted as him complaining about others instead of actually providing solutions. It's a reputation that was earned quickly and will take a long time to improve, even if he chose to actively work on it. I guess that's an example of branding, though not well.

Microsoft and Windows Mobile, Part I

I've talked to a lot of people about this but clearly not the right people because it hasn't happened yet....

I've been dealing with 'smart phone' mobile devices for a while now, and before phones, it was PDAs.

Let me address the semantics first--by 'Smart Phone' I'm referring to any of the cell phones with the ability to process e-mail, calendar, and contact items integrated with either a desktop computer or enterprise server(s). Some examples include the Windows Mobile based phones, Blackberry devices, Apple's iPhone, and Palm Treo phones.

I've used examples from all of the above and as much as the Windows-based products seem like they should work the best in a native Microsoft Exchange mail server environment, they often have the poorest overall performance. That isn't to say that the communication with the server is poor, it's really a combination of problems--operating system reliability, synchronization errors and conflicts, and general performance (operating system speed).

For anyone who has used a Windows mobile device with some regularity will be well-aware that the devices need a reboot pretty much at least once a week. After using a Windows-based device and then going to a Blackberry or iPhone, you'll be amazed at how much more responsive the others are by comparison. Why is this? Windows Mobile is based on a scaled-down version of the full Windows operating system you have on your desktop. While this is neat in the sense that you can open and edit (if you're brave) Word and Excel documents, there might be some overkill in what it delivers considering that it could well be at the expense of the core functions of the devices. What else could Microsoft do for mobile devices, there has to be an alternative....

MS Office for Mac 2008

Oops, guess I wasn't supposed to post anything to my blog about Office 2008, I have since deleted the post. It's still cool :).

My 'Stream

I thought this would be as good as any place to describe my own Airstream and what I've done to it so far.

First, it's a 1972 Airstream Trade Wind (not Tradewind). The options on it include:
dual front Vista View windows
double step entry (aluminum)
Dual full-sized front and middle gauchos

What I've added or upgraded:
New Suburban NT-30 furnace
New Dometic Single Door fridge
New front Fantastic Fan with thermostat
New Suburban 22" range/oven
New Shur-Flow Whisper Quiet water pump
New catalytic heater
New 6 gallon propane and electric water heater
New porcelain bowl toilet
Added 19" widecreen HD television
Added AppleTV with 160 GB hard drive
Added Sony car stereo with iPod and auxiliary inputs
New tires
New break-away safety switch
New Optima battery
Added low profile A/C with heat strip
Added new vent/range hood with light and fan
Replaced and added several area lights
Replaced original mattresses with memory foam mattresses
Replaced original Univolt with Inteli-Power 65 amp charger/converter
New OPD 7 gallon propane tanks
New LPG regulator and hoses
New Ultrafab 3500 lb jack with extension

I still have to install the new 'Bat Wing' antenna and I'd like to replace the flooring with a laminate, also need to replace the weatherstripping

I also fantasize about adding a gray tank and polishing the trailer, as well as adding an awning, but the reality is that I will probably replace the trailer with my dream 25' Safari SE FB instead of doing that work. In the mean time we have a bunch of fun with the trailer as it is. I find it absolutely amazing the cult following Airstream trailers have. There's a vintage Airstream podcast ('The VAP') that broadcasts every couple of weeks, DIY Network has produced a series on it, and the on-line resources are HUGE. It's a fun brotherhood to belong to.

More Cover Letter - Qualifications Stuff

So I just applied for a position that has a lot of promise--it's near one of the few areas of southern California that I really like and the town itself is in the top 10 of best places to live according to Money Magazine. Of everything that I've come across so far this is one of the more tantalizing opportunities, it really seems like a good fit based on the description and I think it would be an excellent opportunity to use my background and provide services for the organization. It looks like a neat area and has a sense of community to it.

So anyway, here's what I wrote for the meat of the cover (there's more behind and in front but it's a pretty honest sentiment of what I think I'm about)...

I offer you over 12 years of progressive technology management and hands-on technical experience with private and public sector organizations, including a public university where I oversaw support, training, security, communications, custom applications, classroom support, and project management and implementation. I have managed diverse groups and actively managed and participated in collaborative interdisciplinary teams and committees with disparate groups with students, faculty and staff, and research areas. I have a high degree of sensitivity to academic needs balanced with fiscal responsibility. I am an ardent supporter of higher education and practical application of technology. I also believe in the use of technology to improve processes, facilitate learning, and expand communication. Even though I consider myself a technology evangelist, I also am aware that technology can be used inappropriately and often for the sake of itself. My 6 years with a consumer electronics manufacturer traveling to several continents to deliver training gave me a unique sensitivity to how different people learn and embrace concepts; these skills have helped me in every venture subsequent, and particularly in my service to higher education. Technology is my passion, as is enlightening others as to the use of it in new and creative ways, and few arenas are as exciting or receptive as higher education. I believe I am a strong coach, mentor, manager, and collaborator and am eager to put my experience to use to improve the organization. I am an advocate of social networking and Web 2.0 applications.

Social Networking and Anonymity

As I delve deeper into the world of social networking/Web 2.0 I have to keep stuff in mind.... I can fully understand how people can easily slip into a sense of false security that what they post and share will be viewed by only the people they tell and exchange links but just about anyone reading this now will know otherwise. With that said, I always try to keep in mind the 'what if' where something I posted or replied to hit the front page of the newspaper. I don't randomly post things or nothing too incriminating anyway. Be careful about what you post, someone can find it and potentially use it against you.

An article I recently read on branding yourself said to be sure to Google your own name periodically to see what's out there. Most people are amazed, particularly if you work for a publicly held company in a high level role or many positions in a public institution.

The other thing that I considered is using a pseudonym. You know, I really don't get that. I guess I do if you are trying to run around and flame people without stuff truly getting back to you or if you're doing things that border on being illegal. If you're being real and aren't hiding something and you stand behind what you say, why not use your own name (or at least the same pseudonym)?

DiggIt

Just a random tidbit here....

I've long subscribed to Digg RSS feeds through my browser but never actually set up my own account and used the service. Now that I've 'dug' a couple of articles I can see how cool this is, I will be using it more, and this is pretty cool so far.

For those unfamiliar with it, the idea is that you create an account and optionally set up 'friends/contacts' and when you see an article that's of interest to you, you can 'Digg' it and if you've already logged in, it is registered as a story that you found interesting. Optionally you can add some text to stuff you Dig. You can pass out your account name so people can subscribe to your dug stuff. It's kind of like blogging, kind of like Twitter, but different....

On Networking....

So I have been building up my LinkedIn connections and even contacting recruiters through it, though only a couple have accepted my invitations. These are very targeted corporate and large firm recruiters. I am not about to say whether or not this is a good approach because in many regards it makes sense and gives the recruiter more information about the potential candidates than simply e-mailing a resume, at least if you have built your profile. On the other hand, does it smell of stalking? Hard to say yet, I suppose it depends on the audience.

Anyone have any success stories using LinkedIn? The job search portion is a little thin but I need to spend some more time on that still....

Interesting Job Description

There was an article on CIO.com recently about a new type of high-level IT position that is starting to evolve. It's along the lines of the whole theme of IT being more involved with the respective business units of the organization. Here's a position that came up recently at a large apparel retailer/manufacturer, the title is Senior IT Consultant. Here's the description and qualifications:

Description

This role leverages business knowledge and expertise to recommend process improvements or solutions which create value and drive benefit for our Brand. The Senior Consultant works closely with the Brand Lead and the business to complete the envisioning process and partners with Enterprise IT during the project scoping process. The Senior Consultant assesses business impact of high-priority issues and provides proactive analysis and communication to the Brand.
Identifies brand business opportunities and recommends strategies/solutions.
Works with Business Lead and business partners to identify benefits and risks and complete Envisioning process (high-level business case).
Facilitates business process sessions to create new/streamlined processes.
Collaborates with IT enterprise partners during planning and scoping processes.
Supports business issue resolution (business and project issues).
Supports assigned desktop tools and business-created solutions.
Manages end-to-end projects for “quick hit” solutions, inclusive of envisioning through implementation.
Consults and makes recommendations around solution adoption and change management, and prepares the business for system readiness.
Assesses impact to brand of high-priority issues (severity 1 and 2).
Represents the Brand to Enterprise IT and vice versa.
Leverages technology solutions (New Strategic Initiative, Supply Chain & Financial Modeling) with the functions and considers integration across enterprise functions and Brand strategic initiatives where appropriate
Provides focus on key business metrics for the Brand to facilitate inventory planning, information reporting, and decision making.

Qualifications

5 or more years IT business or systems analysis experience.
4-year college degree or equivalent work experience
Ability to use innovative problem-solving approaches to proactively tackle a broad range of problems, regardless of the technologies, and develop appropriate recommendations.
Ability to create and deliver presentations to educate/influence the Brand on IT strategy.
Ability to seek out and assess technology and business changes that produce Brand opportunities or threats (e.g. technology, legal/regulatory, industry/competitive trends).
Ability to provide advice about both technical and non-technical solutions to support the core processes related to the Brand’s operating model (e.g. ensures solutions conform to supply and demand requirements).
Ability to identify strategic and tactical changes to enable customer to leverage available technologies appropriately (e.g. develops a clear business case).
Ability to identify cause/effect relationships and addresses root causes of problems wherever they exist.
Ability to apply cost/risk/benefit principles in advocating for best approaches to process improvement for business partners (e.g., technical and non-technical).
Ability to apply an in-depth understanding of business processes to define potential improvement strategies for Enterprise IT to implement.
Ability to develop a clear, complete understanding of customer needs and problems (e.g., through careful listening, probing, encouraging or summarizing).
Ability to develop and deliver communications (both oral and written) that have clarity and impact.
Ability to establish and maintain effective relationships with customers and is dedicated to meeting customer expectations and requirements.
Ability to use rigorous logic and methods to solve difficult problems with effective solutions.
Learns quickly when facing new problems, enjoys the challenge of unfamiliar tasks, and is willing to experiment and be creative to determine solutions.
Ability to skillfully negotiate in tough situations with both internal and external customers, and influence business partners at all levels without damaging relationships.
Experience in tools, practices and IT industry in working with and supporting teams with strong financial and retail practices
Preferred experience in merchandise planning and allocation business processes and technologies. (e.g. Inventory Management)

More on the Job Search and some sample recruiter questions

So today I was contacted by a recruiter from a large software company. Flattering, certainly, as I had in years past submitted my resume online to several and never heard anything back other than the receipt from them whereas this response came about a week after I submitted and it was from a human being! The recruiter asked that I fill out the questionnaire so I did. I thought it had some interesting questions so I thought I'd share with anyone who's interested the questions and answers I provided.

Do you know anyone at Company X that could act as a reference for you?

Are you willing to relocate, if necessary? yes

Are you a US citizen, permanent resident; applicant for legalization or amnesty asylee or refugee. If no, what is your Visa status or country of citizenship? Yes, US Citizen

If you currently work through a visa, what type & how many years remain? n/a

Have you signed any agreements that could preclude you from working at Company X? no

Have you ever worked for Company X before? (Please include if FTE and /or vendor contractor and yrs) no

Why are you considering a full time position at Company X? Most recently the article in Business Week about the revised attention being paid to employees piqued my curiosity. Other than that, I’ve long respected Company X as a company and liked the individuals from Company X with whom I have worked in the past as a client.

Are there any timeline issues that would affect a potential start date? no

What is your current compensation? $X base with 30% bonuses, 5 weeks vacation/year

What are your expectations for base salary? It really depends on the job expectations, location, benefits, and many other factors. I would really rather learn more about the position than simply putting out a number at this point.

Interests
If you have reviewed the job description – what interests you about the role?

Skills:
What are your 3 strongest technical skills (please rank your ability on a scale of 1-10 (novice to guru) and years of experience in listed skills)

What do you consider your areas of strength? My strengths include the ability to oversee and participate in collaborative/cross-functional teams and negotiations. I have particularly strong vendor relations. I am a believer in being extremely familiar with the available resources, not in having things memorized but knowing where to go for nearly anything.

What are areas in which you would like to improve? I am well versed in many areas of technology but not an expert in any particular narrow aspect. I’m not sure that I would like to become heavily focused, as it’s more of my nature to be a generalist because I like to see how everything fits together.

Why are you considering new career opportunities at this time? Do you have any offers outstanding? I presently work in the mortgage lending industry and our company, like many others, is trying to cope with a huge downturn in business. There is a strong possibility that the company will not survive the current downturn. I do not have any immediate offers pending and I am able to take the time to make the right decision.

As you look ahead to potential career opportunities, what are the “must have” criteria that you will be using to determine which opportunity is the right one for you?
1. A creative and challenging job that isn’t clearly defined
2. One where I can use my technical and non-technical skills on a regular basis
3. One that values and rewards its employees, particularly its star performers

How can Company X best utilize your skills? I can see several potential opportunities, some that readily come to mind include:
• Internal business liaison—working between departments, particularly in a client-provider relationship, providing strategy and vision
• Social networking tools—while I’m not a developer, I get how people use social networking and can see the evolution. There is a huge demand for enterprise-level applications and Company X is a logical provider but the current applications are a long-ways from being suitable for the real needs of the ‘Web 2.0’/Social networking. I can be the one to work with product development to help people get it.
• Customer technical relations—with the interest in learning everything that the organization has to offer in products and services, I am often very well suited to listen to the customer needs and recommend at least one or two solutions.
• IT Operations/Support management—I have a long history of customer service, I know how to balance resources and providing for the users’ needs and wants.
• The Gap recently posted a position that seemed remarkably apropos for my interests at this link.


What product/technology/application are you most interested in working with? Right now my primary interest has to do with the social networking, but I also find the home media to be fascinating—it seems like we’re right on the cusp of something huge but we’re not quite there. I enjoy wireless, authentication, Exchange, SharePoint, and other messaging applications.

What would your ideal job be? I think this depends on the company and the timing. In a small to mid-sized company my interest would be CIO/CTO but in a larger company, I see myself as a senior technologist/business liaison. In the future I see myself in a large company CIO/CTO or COO role.

What are your longer-term goals? Professionally my goal is to be CIO/CTO or COO of a Fortune 100 company. Personally, I want to live a full and satisfying life and never wonder ‘what if….?’

What is the next role you see yourself in? For my next role, I see myself as either CIO/CTO of a small to mid-sized company or a senior management IT role in a large company.

What will you have to work on or learn in order to reach this objective? To be successful in getting to the next level, I believe I will need more familiarity with enterprise applications, namely an ERP. I am currently bolstering my familiarity with telecommunications.

Describe your current or most recent company/what is the line of business/who are the customers? It’s a mid-sized mortgage lending company that is dealing with the general downturn of business in its sector. The customer of the company is ultimately someone who holds a residential mortgage.
What is your current position? Chief Information Officer

Describe the product you work on – what does it do and who is the end user for the product? My responsibility includes overseeing the managers of the shrink-wrapped applications and the custom applications that query the Oracle and SQL databases. The primary enterprise application we use is called NetOxygen and that is a loan origination application. My group also supports the servers, network, and desktop computing. Our immediate customers are internal employees.

Describe what part of the product and product development you work on and what percentage you own. Most of our applications are small custom-written Java-based apps. My group owns those 100%.

How many people are you working with on your current project? What are their roles? Most of my IT projects involve between 6 and 10 individuals. Presently we are working on customization to a document imaging solution that we have implemented. My group includes three major components: 1.) Infrastructure—network and server and desktop; 2.) custom application development and DBA; 3.) standardized application support

Do you now (or have you previously) had direct reports? If so, how many and what were their roles? Yes, I presently have 4 managers who report to me and my department of ~20 individuals. In my previous position I had up to 14 direct reports and more than 40 in total.


What is your expertise in the group? (What do you work on that is different form others on your team?) Strategy and vision.

What are the goals/objectives of your position? One of my main goals of my current position is to provide an appliance-like standard computing platform (in terms of reliability) and then to collaborate with the departments to develop new offerings to provide a competitive advantage. We work with them to listen to their business and expose them to supportable technologies, often brainstorming to determine a way to take advantage of practical opportunities.

How do you measure your success/know if you are doing a good job? Because my group is responsible for an array of services, it depends on the group. For the support side, simple metrics are logical. If it has to do with custom applications, a new application that provides business intelligence or improved reporting that is used regularly, and of course, a pat on the back is usually a pretty good indicator.

What do you enjoy most about your job? Working with others to find creative solutions or new ways to use technology.

How much experience in cross group collaboration do you have? Please describe a specific example of when you had to exercise these skills. I have substantial experience, more than 15 years. My MBA program focused heavily on collaboration and group activities. The best example I can think of is at the University of Nevada where I took part of several cross-functional committees involving researchers and academics from disparate disciplines. In academia the professors and researchers are often so heavily focused in a narrow area that working to get sight of the larger vision is challenging, but very rewarding. One committee I served on was the Faculty Senate Technology Committee. In this group I provided information on upcoming projects, listened to and responded to feedback, and worked to establish standards and expectations.

What do you consider your (non-technical) strengths? My main non-technical strengths include collaboration, problem solving, the ability to relate to business units and engineers and systems administrators and developers. I hold myself to an extremely high moral standard and am committed to the organization that I believe in.

Do you have any industry certifications? n/a

What has been the most challenging situation you have faced professionally? Did you work with others to solve? A couple come to mind, most recently is has to do with the fact that my present employer’s industry has faced a huge downturn in business. When I accepted the position in July the slated projects included creating and implementing a disaster recovery/business continuity solution, implementing business intelligence applications, improving customer service, and providing new remote access solutions. In just a few weeks after arriving the business declined rapidly and the revised projects included reducing licensing costs, restructuring and laying off several individuals. We have completed that portion of the project but the business has still not improved. One of the biggest challenges now is keeping current staff motivated. We are now working to provide the business intelligence tools and finding new and inexpensive approaches to conducting business.

Perhaps a better example with are greater resolution was at the University I worked where we were facing enterprise wide shutdowns of systems due to rampant virus outbreaks. I created a plan for a ‘supported platform’ that gave us a supportable desktop environment without restricting the ability of the academic departments to use the software and hardware they needed. This included implementing enterprise-grade anti-virus and update services as well as sophisticated custom-coded alert notifications. We went from an environment of people experiencing network and software outages lasting more than a week to virtually no outages. The most challenging part of this was the ‘sell’ to academic departments who feared a loss of control of their freedom to do what they needed. This often involved meeting with individual departments and explaining to them how it would improve their reliability and performance with minimal impact to performance or academic freedom. This required marketing materials, several meetings, and support of the faculty senate but the net result was virtually no downtime of entire segments of campus and a supportable and sustainable computing environment.


Please include a copy of your resume as a word document attachment with your response.

Modern Nomads

Having an Airstream makes it hard to not become interested in the history, living with one, and what others are doing with theirs. My in-laws gave me a subscription to a relatively new Airstream magazine called Airstream Life. I recently listened to a VAP podcast interviewing the founder and publisher. Turns out the gentleman, his wife, and daughter sold their house and are traveling full-time with their Airstream and they have a great blog. Most recently they have been in western Montana, my old stomping grounds and it's a really nicely written blog/journal. I've enjoyed the magazine and now knowing some more background on them makes it that much more interesting. Even if you're not an RV fan, they visit some pretty neat places and are having some wonderful experiences.

Vintage Airstream Resources

Owning any old item that you're trying to maintain or restore requires a strong network of other enthusiasts and resources. Having a 35 year old Airstream travel trailer is no exception, here are some of my most frequently visited resources....

• The Vintage Airstream Podcast
• Vintage Trailer Supply
• The Vintage Airstream Club
• Airstream
• Airstream Forums
• Vintage Airstream Photo Archives
• Vintage Airstream Resources
  

Any others you recommend? Please post them!

New fangled RSS thingie?

Most of the technology friends I have know that I've been espousing the virtues of RSS like Don Quixote and with about as much success.

I guess I was an early adopter of RSS and that was just for getting news content. RSS is the backbone of other technologies too, such as podcasting and photocasting which is an RSS feed with photos. The appropriate program can subscribe to the feed and display the photos on your computer and notify you when there are updates, some programs elegantly integrate them in with your own photos, such as Apple's iPhoto.

When coders first started delivering RSS feeds there wasn't really an elegant way of delivering the content to your average or casual computer user other than adding another program. Last year Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7 to the masses and finally, all the major browsers would support RSS feeds natively. Prior to IE7 for the Windows users you had to use Firefox as your browser (and their implementation of RSS wasn't very elegant) or a third-party program for subscribing to and viewing feeds.

According to my theory on how your average person (and they will be dinosaurs before long) uses a computer, a third program for regular viewing is just too much to handle. Your average dinosaur uses e-mail and web, anything beyond the first two is something used for work, a chore, or a project, such as Word or Excel or Photoshop Elements.

So, now we have a situation where the excitement about RSS has worn thin just because the people who dig it have been using it for a long time and it's commonplace OR others tried it with a 3rd party viewer and it was too clunky for the majority of them and they haven't re-visited it. Outlook 2007 for Windows did add the ability to subscribe to RSS feeds in the mail application, which is surprising because I would have expected Apple to introduce it first, although it should be included with Leopard 10.5 operating system sometime in October 2007.

I am still an avid RSS user, I love getting my news updates as headlines + 2 sentences and I can readily click on the rest that I want to read. For me it's really the closest thing to being able to skim the newspaper or a magazine and then delve into the articles that interest me. I have collections of feeds in folders in my browser, such as 'IT', 'Industry', 'Local News', and several others. Whenever there is a new article a little number indicating the number of articles shows up next to the folder and I can click on it and check them out. It's incredibly convenient and keeps me up to speed on most of the news that interests me.

I've tried to explain how it can make you productive to lots of techie and non-techie friends but I'm running out of breath so it'll be my thing for now.

On Camping & Airstreams

Since having a baby, I've been wanting to start camping again. As a child my parents would frequently take us all camping in remote areas in Montana and Canada. Our camping gear consisted of Army-Navy surplus tents and Coleman fleece sleeping bags. Invariably, we would end up someplace beautiful but there would be lots of wind and rain and often cold. If you have any experience with the old canvas tents you can relate to standing in the rain and wind for an hour trying to get the tent together, only to discover that the thing really doesn't keep water out very well. And as cozy as the Coleman sleeping bags are on a warm or slightly cool night, they really don't do much for you below 55 degrees. Of course, I don't think we were really aware of another novel camping conveniences known as a sleeping bag pad or mattress. I don't fault my parents, we just didn't know about these things, they hadn't grown up with them, and we couldn't have afforded them. Nonetheless, despite the leaky tents, cold sleeping bags, and rocks in the back, it was still a lot of fun and my brothers and I all have fond memories and still enjoy camping, but we do have more amenities....

A few years ago I bought my wife-to-be parents Coleman tent trailer. While it was a standard model that lacked a shower, toilet, fridge, and heater, it was still a huge upgrade from sleeping in a tent on the ground. It had a stove top, large comfy beds, a dinette, built-in 12 volt lights, etc. It was a HUGE improvement. We took the trailer to Montana with us, went camping in the Sierras, and even early this year I added a propane furnace to it. After having Sadie I really wanted to use it but we did desire some more conveniences, such as a shower, toilet, hard sides, etc. Once we determined that we were ready to upgrade, I started scouring the web and local papers for a vintage Airstream. After several months of looking (including a trip to southern California to look at one totally mis-represented on Craigslist) I found one south of Sacramento and we went out to look at it. It was very clean, functional, and almost ready to use. I bought it and picked it up a few days later. We wanted to camp on the way back but that didn't work out and makes for an amusing story for another time.

I sold the Coleman trailer to my brother who lives in Albuquerque and we met at Mt. Charleston near Vegas to do the hand-off.

The Airstream, a 25' 1972 Trade Wind, is now pretty functional with new appliances, an LCD TV, a 160 GB AppleTV, a nice Sony head unit, new tires, and some other stuff. We towed it to Montana through Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho and have probably camped in it 12 or so nights so far this year. It's cozy, vintage, cool, and though I enjoy it thoroughly, it also makes me lust for a newer Airstream 25' front-bed (FB) Safari Special Edition with the recessed halogen lights, aluminum interior, and a great floor plan.

With that said, my standards for camping have changed but we all have a lot of fun with it and have been to many new places and camped where we never would have before. It's a bunch of fun and even still one of Sadie's best nights of sleep is in the Airstream.

Job Search Ideas

So I'm trying out some of the new sites that might, in theory, help me identify and/or be identified for finding a good match for a new position.

Over the past year or so a few of my friends, former work-mates, and fellow MBA cohort friends have asked me to be a part of their LinkedIn networks.  I always accepted but now in surfing around on LinkedIn it could have more potential than I might originally have thought.  I have now updated my LinkedIn profile, added a button on this blog to it (see the right-hand column).

Another job identifying site that looks interesting is JobFox.  It's a little different than the more traditional HotJobs/Monster/CareerBuilder sites in that it creates a map of your skills based upon a series of questions.  It allows some personalization and is a welcome change from the usual sites.  There's a link to my JobFox profile at the bottom of this page.

Most of my technology friends won't be surprised by this but I'm using RSS feeds whenever possible to get updates to new positions.  Craigslist doesn't appear to support Boolean searches so I have several RSS feeds per locale but it does all aggregate nicely into a single button in my browser.  It's a fairly elegant way to get frequent updates.  Unfortunately not all sites support RSS yet so I still depend also on the e-mail notifications and periodic web site visits.  I still have to get my HotJobs & Monster searches dialed in since they seem to return a lot of unrelated results.

I wouldn't say that I have a distinct favorite job search site but so far RSS is the leader for finding jobs, IMHO.

The Search is On

Early this summer I accepted a job offer from a financial services company in the Bay Area, more specifically, Marin County, California. The position had some attractive elements--the location, a distinct step-up from my previous position (to Chief Information Officer, a senior VP position), and a sizable income boost. My wife and I were both excited so I accepted the offer. I had been with the University for about 4 years and it was a good experience but I was ready to move to the next level. We really liked Reno and the surrounding areas but the opportunity was too good to pass up. The other senior management had identified some exciting projects on which I was to begin with, such as disaster recovery and business continuity, user-friendly remote access systems, SharePoint, social networking, systems for business intelligence, etc. We sold our Reno house in two weeks and made a tidy profit on that sale although we will miss our good friends and neighbors there.

Unfortunately, this company's primary line of business is mortgage lending. As most people know by now, the housing and mortgage business is not doing well at this point. My new employer didn't deal with the sub-prime mortgages that some analysts claim started the whole downward spiral but nonetheless, much like the other lenders and banks, they have all been impacted. Many of our competitors have closed their doors entirely, some almost two months ago.

Since I arrived our business has continued to wane, although there is a minor blip in activity lately, but certainly not enough to sustain the company in its present incarnation. My planned projects changed from implementing new systems to working with vendors to figure out ways to reduce licensing, sell assets, and cut personnel. We've had a couple of strings of layoffs and as of Monday October 1st, nearly everyone has received 60 day notice. Unless business picks up and the company is able to rescind the layoffs, we will most likely shutter the operations in December.

With that said, I'm trying to keep my group's spirits high and work toward providing necessary service to run the company. If things are still looking dismal come early November, we will begin to ramp down and consolidate systems. It's an odd time and although it's a somber environment, it's a unique time as people are more candid than they might be normally. It's a good group of people, many of whom have worked together for the past 4 years here and at least 3 years before in the same company.

I've begun my earnest job search as well. My wife and I would prefer to stay in the Marin-Sonoma county area but we're receptive to the rest of the Bay Area and Sacramento for the right position. We're in a good position financially and we're not locked into a lease for our accommodations at the moment so we have a degree of flexibility.