BlackBerry the start of a new thing - con't

Well I'm happy to report this BlackBerry thing is working out for me. It syncs flawlessly wirelessly and USB. So calendar is wireless, and contacts, todos and memos issues are with USB. Can't wait for Google to get on the get on, and get a real contact DB and todos and notes all syncing wirelessly. The battery life is pretty darn good, compared to what I'm used to, I can go on at least two days of my normal usage and the device battery is not sweating. I even got some applications installed for expenses, and they are working good, the end of the month expense submission is painless. The wifi is not as useful as I would have liked. First I don't think it's possible to connect to wi-fi without being on the EDGE network, but I need to look into this, maybe it's my mistake. I downloaded the Opera mini browser and it works well.

The one drawback is the google IMAP client on the bb, it's not up to par. I can read emails and delete from the device. The syncing from BB to Server is fast, but showing server changes on the BB is very slow. Moreover, I can't move the emails from my BB to their specific folders, so it's not as efficient when I get to my desktop even though I know what I will find in my inbox, the BB doesn't allow me to action it /file it on the spot. Ideally I would like to create tasks from emails, or move them into their specific folders. The gmail mobile client doesn't allow for it either. I don't know why this is not implemented but I could really use it.

it's not the idea, it's the execution or is it the other way around?

So whenever someone ask me what I think about ideas vs execution, I will point them to this post Ideas vs Judgement and Execution. It does a great job to explain how this whole idea vs execution work. This from Paul Buchheit - google/gmail inventor

Microsoft SharePoint is a rocket ship

From Networkworld this platform is becoming a juggernaut, 1B already. My perspective, we've done projects on SharePoint, and we've always ran into some API immaturity. Nevertheless I believe it's a strong platform and a powerful one, MS is making it better with each release. The market can't seem to have enough of it. The projects we have done and are doing are pushing the limit of sharepoint, because we're developing add-ons to facilitate the co-existence of our clients product with Sharepoint. This intersection of two product lines to create something that will leverage each products strength is never a walk in the park. What is required from the two products is not all there, and some serious architecture work must be done to implement the missing functionality on top of the existing API. SharePoint is in the fast lane, and we're right there, and more than ever this is really a fluid environment, one where our creativity is put to test daily.

82000 Reasons for Ottawa

Check out our video for 82000 reasons for Ottawa, we had fun doing it I hope you enjoy. Big thanks to all participants and many thanks to JCB and Teresa for putting this together.

high end software development and haute cuisine!

I'm just finished reading Kitchen Confidential. What strikes me is how much similarities there is in the perception of what is cool in cooking and what is cool in software engineering, or how similar things have to be so that an organization becomes predictable.

The perception in software development is - one you write a lot of code, and two you get to exercise your creativity all the time. Well most of the software projects out there are software where you do add-ons, new features, rarely do you start from scratch. Regarding creativity, in order to be predictable and measurable, creativity must give way to some form of processes and discipline.

This is exactly what I found while reading Kitchen Confidential - if you think you want to be a chef so that you can cook crazy things, stay home, in your own kitchen. There is absolutely no improvisation on the cooking line, it's all mechanical and very precise movements, so that at the end of the line the dish that comes out is always the same no matter the day or the time of the day.

The creativity is not in production, the creativity is when you build the menu, just like us when we design for the users. The reality sets in when you get to talk about the cost of the products on the menu, the same for us when we start to factor in the business goals.

So for predictable and successful innovation there is a process and time for everything, just like when it's lunch time it's no time to try out new things. You have to depend on talent, people, and processes to funnel the energy and creativity in the most effective way, to read more about it see some material and here we have put together.

stickK.com - Put a contract out on yourself!

You know with any significant changes in my life, sometimes I use it as an excuse to let an old habit to creep back in. So with  the arrival of Nathaniel in our little family, well my pop consumption went back up again. I had been good for the last several years sticking to one a day, and now I'm back to several a day. The excuse is I'm tired and I need the caffeine, this is a whole pile of bull, it's the taste, I just like the damn taste. So I decided I was going to reduce the consumption again, and I will most probably use stickk.com to make it happen. I will commit publicly with a $ figure that will be painful enough to pay out if I don't deliver. So stay tune, my date is May 1st, I'm giving myself a little bit of fun and game until then.

important non urgent category

This category is full of stuff for me, and I'm having a tough problem going through it. It takes a lot of discipline to be prepare in advance, but I think it's key to any kind of success. The best way I find to deal with the non-urgent important, is book yourself a meeting with yourself, and treat it as importantly as if it was with your most important customers. In a meeting with your most important customers, I'm sure none of us are checking their blackberry for emails or answering calls, well such is the rule for a meeting with ourselves as well. I like to think that fire alarm is ok, everything else is off. Then, since most of the time I'm not done with what I had set up myself to do, always too optimistic on the time it will take me to do something, so just before my meeting is over, just like with my most important customers ask what should be the next steps, and when should we meet again and then I put another appointment in my cal, and I keep moving the rock forward.

WordPerfect antitrust case greenlighted by the Supreme Court

It brings back so many memories. I was right there in 96 when Corel took over WordPerfect. No body knew what we were getting into really, in retrospect. The joke at the time as they say in this article was really that Novell was mismanaging things, the examples were check Unix, since Novell bought it, it's dying, check out WordPerfect same thing. So the joke would wrap up - if MS wants to win a given business they just have to have Novell buy that business and it's just as good as stick a fork in it, it's done!

LinkedIn Answers addictive new habit to become better in business development?

I just started to look into the Questions/Answers section on LinkedIn. I started by follow up on a few topics. Now not one day goes by without the urge to answer a question, it's addictive. I guess it's the problem solver nirvana that place. On a lighter note hopefully this will cool me down for those meetings where I need to be quiet, I will have answered so many questions already that I won't feel the urge to answer my clients our counterpart. I will be able to practice better the art of the wise sales guy, sit pretty and nod! You may find that funny, but it takes a lot of practice for an engineer or software developer to resist that temptation to answer every darn questions the client has, when you can sound much better by being quiet, or asking a question back. Often it shows in a much more powerful way you really know what your talking about, and this is what differentiates you from the guy before or after you that your prospect is sure to meet.

Cebit: Hannover

Look at the picture below, do you guys have any theory as to how they mow the lawn off of the cones?

here is another one -

Hannover I was told was on of the cities in Germany which got bombed by the allies quite significantly. The story goes that the allies could never quite reach Berlin, for some reason or another, and on their way back from their failed attempt they would drop their bombs on Hannover, a large city right on their patch back to the UK. So Hannover's architecture is both modern and old. The picture below shows one of those more modern buildings.

Cebit : memory keys

Check those memory keys - delightful ain't it?

Nice neck lace wouldn't you say?

Cebit in pictures: con't

Now given what we hear on the news about Serbia and Kosovo, I just thought the following Serbia booth messaging was spot on!

Cebit in pictures: con't

Ok - here is the IBM booth, it's one of the biggest, SAP has probably a similar size booth but not as trendy. Green is big in Europe, companies are messaging they care about the environment. MS' Steve Ballmer even mentioned it in his keynote, that MS is greener with Vista than it was with XP, with it reduced power consumption etc.

Ok now what about the food! Here you go - So on the left hand side is the typical sausages they can serve with sauce, and on the right hand side is pork with breadcrumbs(or what seems to be).

Cebit: In pictures - Life is tough!

Look at this guy on the day prior to the show. Every one is busy around him setting up the booth, it was just too much for him!

Cebit - pops, beers and sausages

Little things
- getting a pop in a bottle or in a can forget it, it's all in glasses. All glasses have a mark at 200ml or 350ml and they fill it up to the mark and here you go, no more no less.
- driniking from a bottle of beer and walking around just about anywhere with the beer is not frown upon, and it's actually ok. Beer is not a special drink either, you drink beer just about any time of the day, not that I do but from what I see.
-sausages, the poutine of germany, this is the snack around here, with fries or potato salad.
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Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

calendar setup

I have a setup I like for my calendaring now. We don't use exchange. I'm using outlook, google calendar, syncing the the two with syncmycal. On the blackberry I use google sync and everything goes back and forth between outlook and the bb, going through google calendar. Over the air sync is pretty useful if you ask me. Then an added bonus is that I can share my cal with the family, no longer locked on my laptop or portable phone. The one problem I have is with timezones, there is no timezones in google cal, so when you change your timezone on the bb all the meetings are shifted to the bb timezone, it's no good for that.
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Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

CEBIT - strategies!

If you have a booth, giveaway big big bags - this way people walk around with the bag hanging off their shoulder advertising whatever you want all over the place. Intel got that - the bag is bigger than my 8yrs old son, it's a huge back, and people are stuffing it with all sorts of things.

reportonbusiness.com: Unlocking India's promise

Here is a nice write up from our very own Haveli's Raj Narula on the globe and mail reportonbusiness.com: Unlocking India's promise. India is huge in seven ways from Sunday - Raj has been building bridges between India and Canada for some times and it looks like it's starting to pay off in a big way. I'm glad to see clients like Trialstat and other success stories in the making like Recognia are getting traction out there, this pretty darn exciting!

Cebit - Long days

The excitement of the first couple of days is settling down. The exhibit days are long from 9am to 6pm and then it's schmoozing opportuinities galore from 6pm to 9pm. Cebit is full of parties organized by vendors and trade missions. Bou-hou-hou I hear already: "you talk to people all day about how great at creating software products macadamian is and then you get to drink free beers all evening" Tough life I know! Don't worry I'm hanging in there, I'll make it through!
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Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

Cebit is a huge show!

Allright it's just mind boggling. 6500 exhibitors and yes 25 pavillions. Get this though the 25 pavillions don't include companies with their own pavillion, like ericsson for example or companies with booths on wheels on an 18 wheelers! So anyway it takes me more time to walk the conference from one end to the other than walking to the hotel.

Lots of companies, and if you're not organized, like thinking you will walk around and see the companies you want you are seriously mistaken. We have this list of companies to meet sorted by halls, this is the only way we will get to meet the people we said we were going to meet this week.

An interesting this is happening with the adsense, but every time I mention cebit the adsense sustem if feeding me bikini, and sexy partners married or not junk adds - so pls don't be offended I have nothing to do with it!

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Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

CEBIT - con't

You know the show is big when - 1)there are three bus lines just to move you around on the site itself 2)hannover roads going out of the city are also now going in the city except for one lane and more interesting facts later on as I come to grasp with the immensity of the next 6days#
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

CEBIT - part II - different country con't

Ok we're in a different country - you wake up at 6am to go to the gym, because you won't have time to go tonight or any nights for that matter. the gym hours are from 9am to 9pm every day except for Tuesday and Thursday where it's from 7am to 9pm. This is quite a contrast with our gym culture in North America where they are open pretty much all the time. I guess over here people work out at lunch time or after work, not before work.

 

Note to self - check out gym hours the night before I plan to go!

CEBIT part 1

All right first day out here in Hannover. We walked a few of the 25 CEBIT pavilions every thing is still under construction, the show starts tomorrow. This show is huge, remember Comdex it was 250,000.00 attendees, CEBIT is 1,000,000 attendees. There are over 25pavillions. The booth for IBM alone must be the size of the Ottawa Senators Ice rink. For lunch we went to a typical american dinner, we're so adventurous food wise!! Anyhow every one here eats their burger with a fork and a knife, I just thought that was a cultural difference!!