Unwired in New York

Having finished at my old position on Friday, I am now laptop less. I am trying to work in the most wired city of the world, through a 320×240 pixel Windows Mobile screen. It is both liberating and frustrating.
Despite playing it out in my head a million times, I was not prepared for the huge sense of loss as Sharine, Kylie & Hunter drove down 39th Street back to DC. I was also unprepared for the sheer number of tourists and people in Times Square … OMG
Sharine felt right at home in the throngs of the city. I felt like a kiwi trying to fly … pointless.
I can already feel the loneliness of thw big city settling around me. I want to share things with people, but this is NYC …

Filed under: NZ vs USA, USA, consulting, marketing, mentoring, mobile

Moving to New York City

Well, it’s been a while but I have finally decided to leave my current employer (a company that I love) to move to the big city and change jobs. When I got my butt out of government consulting I re-tooled myself into commercial consulting with a long term aim of international experience. Over the last 7 months I have come to realize a few things:

1. I am getting quite good at managing internal consulting systems
2. I can manage profit and loss, invoices, operations, staffing, people, pretty well
3. I hate doing those thing … they are a necessary evil but not what I wanted to end up doing

So … what do you do when you wake up every morning saying “oh no, I have to to X again”? Simple … move your own cheese. I went through another exercise of trying to work out where I wanted to work, what I liked, what I disliked, what industries I preferred and many other aspects. I read Drucker and HBR again on managing yourself, re-read the Seven Deadly Habits of Successful People, dusted off David Allen’s Ready for Anything, cruised lifehack and other great blogs.

I decided that I wanted to get back to the presentation layer. I am very excited about the push towards a richer client-side experience (DHTML/AJAX, Flex, Adobe AIR, and Silverlight) and very excited about the future potential of multi-touch interfaces (moving away from the “mouse” to a tactile interface). I went looking for companies that might be interested in what I can do, while not needing me to manage the operations side of the business (that I do not like!). Unfortunately, the only road up at my old employer is up to “general manager”, business unit lead, C-level business executive. There are no specialties (short of being bucked down the org chart a few levels!) at the Director level.

So things are getting weird … I am leaving a company I have been with for seven years, that has grown me from a simple software architect into a fully fledged Director and engagement lead. I am moving to a smaller company, who is growing quickly. I am moving away from my home of 10 years, Washington, DC. I am moving to New York City to get closer to some international experience. I will be away from the family for a few months while they finish the school year and we sell up the house. I am feeling rather unsettled.

Filed under: NZ vs USA, USA, ample sufficiency, personal improvement , family, moving, multitouch, nyc, rich internet application

Spare some time to think about this

So many of you probably think I’m some pinko commie subversive but this blog entry about giving pause really got me thinking. Spare some time to think about this It occurred to me that I am actually pretty focused on the present … what can I directly effect, here, and now. Yes I plan forward, and I’m sure I do my share of living in the past, but in all reality, I spend most of my time focused on the here and now. How about you?

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Tags: wblproductivity philosophy life

Filed under: Getting Things Done, personal improvement