Subject: Technicalities Resent-From: staff.newyork@agency.com Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2000 14:16:58 -0500 From: "Mitch Golden" To: nystaff@agency.com Technicalities Mar 9, 2000 *) I Just Can't Take The Pressure I was back mere hours from my two weeks of vacation when my e-mail box started to fill with admonitions. "Hey, there hasn't been a Technicalities for quite a while. What is _up_?" People came up to me in the halls and reminded me of my obligations. Look folks, I was _away_. I don't know what was going on here. THAT'S THE POINT OF A VACATION. *) Same Old, Same Old Without any real data, I can only speculate on events during my absence. All I can tell you is this: Upon my return, I found that I didn't recognize anyone who was sitting near me, I was on 5 projects I knew nothing about, and Remedy's unusable interface was being feted for its first birthday. I was in a Gucci meeting in which the client was describing one of his co-workers as a member of the Hitler Youth, and Compaq still hadn't signed off. The week I came back, someone from The People Organization gave me a hard time about something I wrote in this newsletter. It's good to be home - some things never change. *) techdept++; The last of the Stony Brook Class of '99 members has arrived. Haimei Duan started here during my vacation. She has a masters degree in CS, and remarkably good experience in jobs she held in China. (That excursion to Long Island was one of the best hiring trips I ever made. The best part is, Tamer Elmenayer, Alan Wang, and now, Haimei would all be working in Woodbridge if Janowsky and Benyo had had their act together enough to send someone out there to do the interviews as they had promised to, rather than bagging me at the last minute to cover their butts. Hah! Woodbridge's loss is our gain.) Of course we gave Haimei the typical AGENCY.COM welcome, staffing her on Compaq. As you can imagine, she's been spending a lot of time setting up her machine and reading Java books. I would tell you to go up to her cubicle to say hello, but I have no idea where it is anymore. *) Their Teeth Are Sparkling Too Some of the most interesting work the Tech department is doing is happening for the Colgate client. The team is a good bunch: Dante, David, James, Jamil, and Yuju. The Colgate job is consistently using all five of them - and occasionally others - which makes it one of the larger projects we're doing. It is also technically deep - they're builing a platform for all the future work that Colgate will do. The project is using Bluestone to do a content manangement system, and the content is stored in an Oracle database. They're also implementing something called Boldfish - don't you just love these names - to do e-mail marketing. The team is led by James and Yuju. I like to observe the difference between their managerial and motivational styles. Yuju keeps people in line with her generally stern demeanor, whereas James cheerily promises to bring in Scottish food if the team has to work late because they fell behind - deep fried Mars bars are his favorite. Between the two, somehow, the project seems to be going well. *) Now He Charges $5 For An Autograph By now you certainly know that Chris Stetson is famous. You've seen those Bluestone ads he's taped up all around. You know - the poster of Chris smiling into the camera, with his finger on a seesaw, and a miniature earth on the other end. (You probably won't see the ad in any of the publications you're likely to pick up, unless there are some closet geeks out there I don't know about.) According to Chris Stetson, Senior Technical Director of AGENCY.COM, Bluestone software gives you the power to leverage your global business. Get it? Just look at the picture, dummy. He's got a seesaw with a globe on the other end. He's _leveraging_ business, and it's _global_, see? That's what I love about creatives. They think of these things that we techies would have missed entirely. In case you haven't seen the ad, stop by Chris's cubicle; there are three copies of it on the door. He'll be happy to make you a copy of it too, if you want. *) We're Party Animals. Really. Well, Laurence Hill finally scheduled the Tech Dept ski trip for Vermont in June. Clearly, executive action was required, and he was immediately yanked from the role of Manager Of Fun. A key position like this cannot go unfilled for long, and luckily there was someone at the ready to step up to the plate. Now, it's Jamil Ellis who's going to force us to have a good time. Rumor has it that he's going to make us fire paint guns at each other. Look, some people think that it's fun, I'm told. Jamil is, by the way, back from a thoroughly debauched four-day weekend in New Orleans. I can't tell you precisely what he did there - hey, his private life is his own concern. But Jamil looked pretty ill on Monday, so I think it's safe to conclude that he's relived some small aspect of George W. Bush's youth. *) Feel Sorry For Me I want you to know just how dedicated I am to AGENCY.COM. Coming back from vacation, I was looking forward to throwing myself wholeheartedly into the deepest aspects of teamliness. I _wanted_ to work that extra hour and a half per week. Hell, I was even thinking of attending the staffing meetings again. Instead, damn it, I'm getting sent to Florence, Italy for some silly discovery meetings at Gucci. Can you believe it? I'm going to have to be out of the office all week! Plus, all that travel can really get a guy down. There are TWO ENTIRE DAYS of meetings, and the rest of the week I'll be recovering from the flights and trying to do research into the Promise of the Gucci Brand. Just wait til I get back. Then you'll see.