48 Hours in Austin: 5 Things
Wednesday, Feb 15, 4pm. Austin, TX.
I wrapped up my trip to Austin this afternoon, after roughly 48 hours in town. Here are 5 (more) things about the trip:
1) My purpose for visiting Austin was to run a planning workshop onsite with a customer. The meetings were a success. We got a lot of information we needed, cleared up a few issues that they were flip-flopping on (see next item), and further raised the customer's confidence level in us.
2) Usually my department does this planning work remotely, passing emails back and forth and running Webex meetings. I'm glad I pushed to do this one in person. It would have failed remotely. In fact, we basically tried to do it remotely the past two weeks, and those meetings were frustrating and not very productive. With this customer it was critical to have the stakeholders in one room, in one conversation.
3) No, I didn't have any time for sightseeing in Austin this trip. I rarely do. Dinner Monday night was meeting up with an old friend. Dinner Tuesday night was with a business partner. It was just the two of us. At an upscale restaurant full of couples celebrating Valentine's Day. Fortunately nobody asked us if we were "together".
4) Weather in Austin these few days has varied widely. Monday afternoon it was 80. When I went out for lunch on Tuesday it was 50 and blustery. Today was a bit warmer, around 60.
5) Speaking of weather, the next place I'm going- Denver- has had varied weather, too. It snowed there earlier this week but by tomorrow it'll be 72. I think that's typical for late winter/early spring in Denver, though. It can be shorts weather one day and snowing two days later, or vice versa.
I wrapped up my trip to Austin this afternoon, after roughly 48 hours in town. Here are 5 (more) things about the trip:
1) My purpose for visiting Austin was to run a planning workshop onsite with a customer. The meetings were a success. We got a lot of information we needed, cleared up a few issues that they were flip-flopping on (see next item), and further raised the customer's confidence level in us.
2) Usually my department does this planning work remotely, passing emails back and forth and running Webex meetings. I'm glad I pushed to do this one in person. It would have failed remotely. In fact, we basically tried to do it remotely the past two weeks, and those meetings were frustrating and not very productive. With this customer it was critical to have the stakeholders in one room, in one conversation.
3) No, I didn't have any time for sightseeing in Austin this trip. I rarely do. Dinner Monday night was meeting up with an old friend. Dinner Tuesday night was with a business partner. It was just the two of us. At an upscale restaurant full of couples celebrating Valentine's Day. Fortunately nobody asked us if we were "together".
4) Weather in Austin these few days has varied widely. Monday afternoon it was 80. When I went out for lunch on Tuesday it was 50 and blustery. Today was a bit warmer, around 60.
5) Speaking of weather, the next place I'm going- Denver- has had varied weather, too. It snowed there earlier this week but by tomorrow it'll be 72. I think that's typical for late winter/early spring in Denver, though. It can be shorts weather one day and snowing two days later, or vice versa.