Q2 and June Wrap-up: How big are you?

June marks my 2nd year at nGenera Corp. The company has seen the best of times and the worst of times – and changed many times in the process: pretty typical.

As always, among the hardest changes to take are the ones where people you enjoy and respect leave the company. We’ve had our share this year, as has everyone.

But, you can’t let it get you down and you have to keep perspective. On that note, I offer this scrib’d powerpoint deck. It’s something that I made up, based upon some materials I located a while back…I can’t even remember where I found them. I think it was in one of those religious e-mail chain letters that my mom sends me every so often. You know, the ones that you have to scroll down about 3 pages worth of header garbage because it has been forwarded so any times to actually get to the content.

But, in any event, perhaps this caught me at just the right time. Hopefully, it catches you too. Some might think it’s a bit on the existential side. However, I think it provides an optimistic, liberating message. Enjoy!

View this document on Scribd

2009 June Week 1-2: Wrap-up Thoughts and Launch!

Okay, okay…so when I sub-titled this blog “regular updates from the front” little did I know that would mean “annual” updates until now.

But, jimminy, one must admit that it is a challenge to present ones’ self across the myriad of internet presences. It’s not as if I haven’t been active. You can find me in many a location on the web:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Bryan Menell’s Austin Startup blog, where I have been writing about Cleantech and Freshtech
• Wikinomics

In addition, there is keeping up with Plaxo (which I’m dropping as officially broken for me at the end of June), Myspace (which I have a personal resolution to begin using for recordings by the end of summer), Youtube (same, but end of year), and of course the nGenera internal portal writing that I do, which is the main location where you could follow me…that is, if you had an e-mail account that ends with the phrase “@ngenera.com” on it.

Speaking of “following,” I also tweet a few times daily (as nGenera) and occasionally as me, though I definitely fall into the “lurker” category – clearly an artifact of my post-great depression, boomer DNA.

And, with this burst of mid-June 2009 activity – as we draw nigh on the end of the decade that brought us not one, but two(!) boom-and-bust cycles…dot-coms and derivatives – I officially pledge to produce a more timely mix of professional and personal musings.

Enjoy!

2009 May Wrap up Thoughts

Good month for nGenera – settling in with the Collaborative Enterprise Management (CEM) theme, which seems to be getting traction and filling the void in the enterprise that analysts can now see is left present by the consumer-esque, one-trick pony applications that dominate the market in web 2.0 for the enterprise

Great month for the kids –

• Lauren graduates St Olaf Magna cum Laude and also lands a job as a high school biology teacher for Teach for America in Memphis, TN – woo hoo!
• Ben lands a paying summer intern gig with Fallbrook Technologies, doing jack-of-all-trades work for the cleantech, Nuvinci transmission maker – thank you Rob Smithson!
• Andrew gets accepted to the TLC at Westlake high for his junior year – definitely the kind of program for him, where traditional school ain’t working

Super-fun month for the bride and me as we journeyed to NYC for our 27th anniversary weekend. There’s definitely no place like the Big Apple!

2009 April Wrap up Thoughts

Spring break was really weird this year, with all 3 kids having their breaks at different times:

• first Ben, home from Case Westen, pretty much chillin’ in front of the Wii and enjoying being waited on hand and foot
• then Andrew, doing the same, except substituting the xBox 360 for the Wii – fortunately we found a new one driving home past Zilker park one evening, purchased off the side of the road from a painter who was needign gas money to get himself back home to Colorado after a job here went bust
• finally Lauren, week 3, who was focused on getting her act together for her MCAT test and lining up things for her Teach for America application.

But, we did manage to get an evening of great music in at the Mohawk Patio, catching both the Ettes and the Hold Steady, plus 2 other acts. A pretty terrific deal at $20 for the cover charge. We love SXSW!

2009 Q1 Wrap up Thoughts

March – IT LDP Alumni program at Disney: went out in style with the final workshop, courtesy of Roger Berry and the great staff at Disney Orlando

February – SXSW coming to Austin 1-month hence – Metallica shows up to launch their Guitar Player vanity game

January – What credit crisis? No time like now to re-finance and add-on!