Subject: Technicalities Resent-From: nystaff@agency.com Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 11:12:54 -0400 From: Mitch Golden To: "Staff (New York)" Technicalities Sept 21, 1999 *) Oh Brother, not again! I had _everyone_ coming down on me after last week's missive. Benyo complained that utilization went all to hell while everyone read the letter, HR warned me that the wording might violate government guidelines for the proper use of humor in the workplace, and the techies were offended about my promulgating stereotypes. (Those folks are _so_ sensitive.) Really, people, mea culpa, I'm sorry! But look, right now there are _important_ matters to discuss. I promise I'm not going to send one of these every week. You have Aaron's word on it. *) Welcome, welcome! We have a new member joining us this week. Please give a rousing tech department welcome to Cathy O'Sullivan. COBOL, Fortran, Java, C - MS-DOS, IRIX, Windows NT. Goooo TEAM! Cathy, who comes to us from Anderson Consulting, will be joining the folks on the BA account, initially working on the Exec Club / Venture Club project. I am really excited about our new colleague, since she brings lots of technical and leadership experience. Cathy comes to us from Andersen Consulting, where she was a Technology Project Manager for engagements at AT&T and American Express. Prior to joining Andersen Consulting, Cathy worked as a Software Development Consultant at clients such as Bank of Montreal, Kidder Peabody and Paine Webber. She has also worked at Nortel - in roles such as systems engineer, product manager and market analyst. Our technical work for BA has slowly been growing over the past year or so, and we have a strong team on it: Phaedra Divras, Ralph Seaman, Andy Trafford, Olivia Wu, and now, Cathy. (Jamil Ellis has been swatting in as well.) *) The man who went up a mountain and came down a Hill. There's no doubt: the tech department is the company's great mystery. You have no idea how many times people tell me that they have no idea what it is we do. It's our own fault really - as you all know it's because most of us would rather install device drivers than have a conversation about the weather. Here's a hint: we make our clients happy. Laurence Hill is the Tech Lead on the Sprint Ion project. Tech Lead is a role that normally keeps a geek comfortably ensconsed with his/her great love - software. On most jobs the role requires less client work than is put in by, say, the Account Manager. Not in this case. Laurence has gone down to Kansas City I don't know how many times in the last few months. Each meeting begins with someone handing him his head on a plate. Who knows what went wrong? Maybe it was something we did, or maybe it was just a lost e-mail. Even in a headless state, Laurence is unflappable. He calmly puts his skull back on his shoulders and straightens out the problems. By the end of the trip, we have a way forward, marketing and IT working together, collaboration with us reestablished. The Sprint ION team (including Tom Clarke from the tech department, of whom more in a future note) is shipping the site this week. *) Notes from Underground. I sit on the fourth floor nowadays, and indeed relative to 9 it does change one's perspective on the workings of the organization. What I've been noticing these last 6 weeks or so is how hard the Compaq team works. I tend to keep relatively late hours, and it's pretty unusual that I leave when the office is full. What has been so intriguing recently is that I was always saying goodnight to the same people, who sit in the middle section of the fourth floor. Often they were gathered around a pizza, clearly intending to put in quite a few hours more. I'm sorry to see these folks go down to be the first colonizers of 20 Exchange Place. We aren't currently doing any coding-oriented work for Compaq, and so no tech department members are going. Chris Stetson, who is their advisor on matters technical, will be spending a day or two each week downtown. If you check out Chris's Skills Database on the intranet, you'll notice that he filled in a "1 - Would like to learn about it" under "Ability to be in two places at once". Until he reaches a higher score, that may be why you aren't seeing him around here as much. *) Still Psychotic after all these years. Someone asked me if her receipt of these Technicalities meant that I no longer had time to write my monthly newsletter of philosophical / technical ramblings about New Media. She was crestfallen to learn that, no, time will not be a problem, and The Psychotic State will continue. I told her that I write my diatribes at home, and since us techies don't have a social life anyway, I certainly would be able to compose both. If you haven't ever seen it, you'd be wise to stay away from the CTO and the Tech/Creative Collaboration rooms on the intranet. I've posted the first twelve issues in Tech/Creative Collaboration, and Larry Krakauer plans to move them to his room soon. And if you want to get off (or, for whatever reason, on) the mailing list of people receiving these, let me know.