February 13, 2008 • 10:27 pm
Flying home from Toronto this evening we descended from a inky night sky towards the city in a languorous loop, circling Manhattan at least twice as we flew into La Guardia. I looked up from a great book that my friend Jayse recommended to see a model city laid out under a 200′ ceiling. The sky above was crystal clear and the cloud layer was skimming the top of the sky-scapers of the city. There were tidal pools of clear sky in between, giving you glimpses of the energy of New York city as we flew. I was mesmerized by the scene. I realized that it had just rained and the air was so clear i could make out potted plants in the windows of apartments. Beautiful, the city at night, crowned in an under-lit layer of whipped cream.
Toronto was beautiful as it snowed for a whole day and when we arrived in the airport the city looked like it was in a snow globe. I went with 5 colleagues from the New York office it was a grand old time with much beer, stumbling in the snow, wrestling, French food (braised lamb shank on organic quinoa with sweet prune chutney), snowball fights (Adam beaned me from about 3 feet away, right in the third eye!), and trudging through the storm.
I think I picked up a girl in the hotel bar, or could have if that was the sort of thing I do … very strange how simple it is to talk to strangers in an hotel bar. It was a pleasant ego boost and very surprising but it felt very odd when I realized what was happening. So I brought her over to meet all the other peeps I was with to diffuse the situation. After my inability to meet people during the customer empathy part of Camp O, this was a huge surprise.
Filed under: USA, nyc , flying, nyc, toronto
January 11, 2008 • 1:16 pm
So last night I hooked up with a few Sapient alums for an evening of (I thought) quiet drinks. It turns out that ’shish new every frickin’ bartender at every bar we went to. It was a fitting intro to NYC night life (something I have been kind of avoiding). I have no idea where we ended up but lets just say it was (for me at least) a 6 hour epic. I get the feeling that for ’shish it was just a Thursday. Still, it felt like I was back in my 20’s, zig zagging around the city, hoping bars, hanging with people I barely know and some I’ve worked with for years. It was awesome, but I’m sure it’ll become expensive very quickly if I am not careful …
fun nyc
Filed under: USA
January 1, 2008 • 9:28 am
So like every good la wai, I started the New Year with a resolution to exercise a little more. So this morning I ventured out of my cozy, bland midtown apartment to go for a run up towards Central Park. As I left the weather closed in and began a metallic drizzle, whipped up by random gusts of frigid wind thrown from the tops of glass & steel towers. The city stench was overpowering … the reek of dog sh!t, horse sh!t, and human waste from every imaginable place was lifted onto the damp arctic air. I gagged as I ran with the other foolhardy souls, pondering the move, the wisdom of running off a treadmill, and what will my first day at my new job tomorrow bring … Happy New Year everyone, 2008 will be a big year of changes for me and my family.
Filed under: USA, exercise , exercise, moving to nyc, nyc, running, stink
December 31, 2007 • 2:49 pm
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
December 26, 2007 • 10:29 pm
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:
- I am getting quite good at managing internal consulting systems
- I can manage profit and loss, invoices, operations, staffing, people, pretty well
- 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
November 15, 2007 • 12:21 pm
Have you thought about 19 20 21? A fascinating project to try to redefine the way we live on this planet. Some startling facts, some concerning observations, some startling reality. What is the world were governed by cities not countries? Makes you wonder … what happens to the non-super cities, is Washington DC the Clark Kent of super cities? Where might this leave little old New Zealand?
Blogged with Flock
Tags: USA, NZ
Filed under: NZ, NZ vs USA, USA
I have had several discussions with friends of mine of late that have given me considerable pause. Like many of the folks I know, I’m want to spout ill considered sound bites from the left regarding the current situation in Iraq and US’s part in it. A good friend of mine said “We’re not qualified to comment on what’s going on in Iraq, the US is not at war in Iraq, the Marine Corp, the Army, the USAF, they are at war”. It made me think, he’s right (as ever). You and I are likely not feeling the deep seated fear, patriotism, or need to volunteer to fight in another country to help resolve the humanitarian suffering. Our armed forces are doing something about it (for right or wrong).
Another friend of mine has just been deployed (you can follow along his blog at SgtGrumpy). I think he puts it best at the end of this post School yourself about the surge :
If you are against the war, or for the war, please get literate on the reality, take time to read (TV doesn’t count) before you open your mouth. As a fighting man, I believe I can ask that much of you, those who I would kill and die for to keep safe.
I have not done enough reading or thinking to qualify as someone who can comment … have you?
Filed under: USA, government, other people
So I’m sitting in La Colombe Torrefaction in Philadelphia, it is hotter than a hairy guys armpit out in the city. So of course, Dean needs a teenie tiny cup of boiling hot diuretic … ah coffee is there anything it can’t do.
I got back from a big pharma client yesterday … wow now THAT is a product still manufactured in the US. Which means big coporate campuses, gorgeous LEED buildings, and MONEY! Now I’m hoping a train from Philly to NYC for a 2 hour meeting … gotta love the east coast!
Filed under: USA, consulting, mobile, personal improvement
Well, it has been a while since I wrote anything here (quick Google blog search on this term showed up ~107M posts to this effect!). So a new resolution to post on a much more frequent basis is in order. Part of the reason for the lapse in posts (and as some have noted quality of the posts) is explained by the following …
I have been struggling with a career-quake of (religious tome of your choice) proportions. I have drifted into a career trajectory that was aligning me and my career with the US Federal Government. The catalyst was that I was offered a senior government position (probably half a step from CTO of a government agency). This caused me to look long and hard at where was I going, career wise, where was my family going, was I happy, what was going to make me happy in the long run, you know, the usual stuff.
My wife reminded me of something we had talked about at length prior to getting married: we will be an international family. I am from NZ, my wife grew up in China, we both live in America, we want our kids to grow up exposed to different cultures. Not just visiting them, but LIVING them. We can think of no better preparation for living in the 21st and 22nd century than global exposure.
After much sole searching and working out what I want to do next, I have decided to return to commercial consulting. Working with commercial clients, building new dynamic web2.0 web presences, creating innovative capabilities that will take client further, and generally solving much more interesting problems much quicker than I have been in the fedgov.
I will chronicle my move from Federal consulting to commercial over the next few months and spend a little time diving into why I made the choice I made. My ultimate goal is international experience and taking myself and my family somewhere new … where that is remains to be seen. Please read along, follow the journey! It promises to be quite a ride!
Filed under: NZ, NZ vs USA, USA, consulting, government, personal improvement
