Month: June 2009

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:

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!

2008 Wrap-up Thoughts

December –

Took the family to London-Paris-Geneva for a holiday get away – daughter Lauren won her way into a January-
term intership at WHO.

Otherwise, I clearly had no life for the rest of 2008 other than work at nGenera, hence…

November – Spin out of the Talisma CRM and higher education units to Campus Management

October – Basking in the afterglow of another great ACL; just one year to go until ACL 2009

September – CRM Magazine recognizes nGenera with a “rising star” award

August – Sold all stock positions and narrowly missed the stock market collapse out of sheer luck

July – nGenera recognized by AlwaysOn as a game-changing technology and company

June – Wikinomics called the best business technology book of the year for 2007

May – Talisma acquisition

April – Name change from BSG Alliance (affectionately BSG 2.0) to nGenera

March – Iconixx and nCent acquisition

February – Son Ben turns 18: pledges November loyalty to Obama

January – Who knew this would be the last of Jobs’s famous Macworld appearances?