Romania the place to go!

A story in the G&M a few days ago about Romania being the hot spot for programmers but also the spot of organized crackers. We've been in Romania for over two years, and I've been working with Romanian developers since the early of my career. This is no secret they are smart, capable and hard worker. I wonder what the point of the journalist is when they tie it up with computer crime, who are they trying to inform. The companies setting up shop there like Macadamian, EA, Microsoft, Oracle, Amazon clearly thinks the business environment is good and it's worth the investment to learn how Romania works. It's not a too shabby list of companies btw, validating the fact it's indeed worth a look

The ones who will be using this information are the organizations who can benefit from the fact there is computer crime there, they will use it as FUD to discourage any organization thinking of making a go at leveraging great talent, innovating faster, hitting their market window, and releasing great products. It doesn't take much to change someone's mind when that someone is already outside of their comfort zone, ie working for an organization doing things one way considering change.

I have two advices for organizations considering outsourcing - 1)to be trusted vendor involves credibility and reliability - make sure your selection process gives you the answers you need to verify both the credibility and reliability and at that point you will be able to select from the shortlist the one that matches best what is needed for the project at hand. 2) It's not one vendor that a company needs to mitigate risk(whatever they are) and get everything done, it's an eco-system of vendors each bringing a set of strengths making your organization stronger. It may be more overhead but the name of the game is getting the right product of the door, the error margin is narrow, make sure you have the best for the job at all times.

Myths of Innovation

I'm on a streak, it's the 3rd book in a row, the myths of innovation that I pick up I actually enjoy very much, it's been a long time. Right from the introduction, the author calls it like it is, if "I don't hook you with the first chapter, then this book is not for you", no need to tell you I haven't put the book down yet. One has to enjoy historic references, and general knowledge the author uses to drive his points home. If nothing else it makes for great conversations at parties as the saying goes... "Did you know that Columbus, the great man who discovered America was also ..." You will have to pick up the book and read the first chapter to know what he also was! For me it's both business and pleasure. Anyway more on it once I finish it.

Education system

An interesting post from Kevin Dee about the skill shortage and our education system. He mentions that Eagle's scholarships aren't cutting the muster, ie not effective at getting kids in tech programs. "For the past several years Eagle has contributed scholarships at three different colleges in Calgary, Ottawa and Toronto. Every year we give 14 scholarships of $500 each in the hope that it will be used to encourage kids into the technology field. I think the idea was reasonable. I think that the execution leaves a little to be desired. Here is how it appears to work …" Throwing money at a problem is not going to fix it no matter how much, it's an important part of the solution, and it's got to be spent right. As a CEO of a huge and successful company like Eagle I'm sure the days are crazy busy, but he would have a huge impact with his credentials if he was getting involved at any level, OCRI, Schoolboards, Province etc. His in insight in the problem would prove well worth the money his company has been given in scholarships over the years. I'm positive it would be a better investment for him. Perhaps I should give him a call to see if he would be interested in what OSC and OCRI and hopefully OCE shortly are doing to raise the level of awareness of tech among kids.

Nova Scotia is well worth the trip!

For the last two weeks we had rented a house in Nova Scotia, Riverport to be exact, just outside of Lunenburg. The place we had rented was fantastic, the weather was for the most part very good. The whole family, grand parents, etc. We got to enjoy the Ocean, and the great beaches. Depending on what beach you go, the water temperature varies quite dramatically. If you go to Hirtle's beach, the beach itself is magnificent, but the water is quite cold. If you go to Queensland just outside of Hubbards the water temperature is much better, but there are lots of marine plants floating, which can be a turn off at first. The waves are quite impressive, my son and I body surfed, and some of those waves roughed us up pretty bad. Don't miss Chester, and Mahone Bay two very nice postal card type little towns. We went out sea fishing for haddocks and cod, but the experience led me to conclude I'm much more of an earthling than a sea man if you know what I mean. Any was we didn't catch as many fish as we wanted, probably because some of us were pretty darn sick, but we did catch some, and it was enough for a great NS chowder the same evening.

Vacation Reading

"Le cinquième Cavalier" is the book I just finished while on vacation. I highly recommend it to anyone who is into reading thrillers. It's certainly in my top 5 now. Rarely have I read a book like this where I didn't have to skip page(s) because I was bored with details. Only a couple of times did I have to skip part of a page. I just couldn't put the book down. It's about Terrorism in NY, but it was written in 1980, at the time atomic attacks were much more on the mind of people, remember the day after kind of idea. So the gist of it - Lybia has got the bomb, and they have got one in the middle of NewYork and they give the US 36hours to get/convince Israel to get out of the occupied territories or they blow up NewYork. Great book, I recommend it to anyone who likes to read a lot in a very short time. I'm sure there is a translated version for it, it sold over 30M copies.

vacation

I'm on vacation in Nova Scotia this year. We have rented a house and we're planning to take it easy for a little while by the ocean and touring the area. The funny part is I don't have cel phone coverage and my internet connection to write this post is a neighbor's connection that I'm bumming. Yesterday I was at the corner store, and I asked the cashier there "so do you guys have cel phone here?" - "Oh yeah he says, we do!" - Me - "Well that's weird cause I don't have coverage" - Him "Oh I see, you have to go in the parking lot of the elementary school just up the road, the reception is good there to make phone calls." - Me - "I see"

California!

California: Land of opportunity | Managing | Strategy | Canadian Business Online: "Two of them, Matt Hately and Frederic Boulanger, are looking to tap into that circuit." We got profiled in Canadian Business last month, pretty cool stuff. Have a read.

A cooking magazine for the fans of debugging

Cook's illustrated is the magazine for you. I have been buying the zine for the last few months now. I like it because there aren't huge numbers or recipes in it, but they are very well researched. It's not easy to reproduce something you ate at some restaurant in another country or even at your neighborhood joint. The guys at Cook's illustrated are pulling all the tricks they know and they experiment, and experiment, and experiment again, until they get it right - ie reproduce all the flavors of the original but in a setting you can find at home. One recipe recently they cooked over 100lbs of beef short ribs to be able to explain how to get beef short ribs done à la Korean, using the beef cuts we typically find in butcher shops in North America as opposed to Korea. The results are very good. You have to enjoy reading the trial and error of getting things right, the experimental development various phases. Happy cooking.

Review of iPhone

I'm proud to admit I didn't cave in the iPhone craze, but yet I'm still eager to get to see one live in use and play with it. Here is a review that will bring a smile to your face. Paul Kedrosky: Best Shorter iPhone Review