One of my company's IT staff dropped a bombshell email on the company today. He announced that all employees must bring their computers and other electronic devices (except smartphones) that access company IT systems, up to new security standards. That includes installing antivirus protection, changing passwords, and adding multifactor ( Read more... )

Thursday, 26 July 2018, 8pm

Running along the edge of craziness, trying to keep on the sane side, continues this week as I'm working a customer POC that keeps threatening to go off the rails in various ways big and small. As I noted in a previous blog, the first two days this week were dominated with problems caused by rough edges in our product ( Read more... )

Tuesday, 24 July 2018, 6pm

Whew, this week's been a tough one. It hasn't been the all-out mad dash that some weeks in the past have been, though it has constantly threatened madness. And it's only Tuesday! Thankfully I've been able to keep the cray-cray at bay.

Work this week has been dominated by a proof of concept (POC) exercise with a ( Read more... )

Southbound from SF - Thursday, 22 March 2018, 6:30pm

As I ride the train home from San Francisco this evening I am in great spirits. People often complain about how things go wrong. Sometimes, though, they go right. Unexpectedly, gloriously right. Thus is was with our POC project today.

I noted yesterday that we experienced a great turnaround in ( Read more... )

San Francisco, CA - Wednesday, 21 March 2018, 9pm

Today was Day Two of an onsite POC project at a customer in San Francisco. Like yesterday it was the best of times, it was the worst of timesWe began the day with an idea for how to solve the main problem that held us back yesterday. We'd tested it in our own environment from a table in the hotel ( Read more... )

I spent the day Tuesday onsite with a customer. It's not my customer per se, just a customer of my company. One of our professional services engineers was in the middle of an onsite engagement to get them up and running with our new product. The work site was nearby so I joined him for a day to see what the customer experience- and the field ( Read more... )

Toronto Travelog #5
Wednesday, 5 Oct 2016. 8pm.

It may seem odd that when I travel on business, like I'm doing this week, I don't write much about the actual business I'm doing. Instead it's planes-trains-and-automobiles, cultural differences, and various observations about the area I'm in and life in general ( Read more... )

"Just answer the question."

When you read that phrase you probably picture yourself scolding someone who's being evasive in answering your question- or remember times when others have scolded you for beating around the bush. But this week I encountered a situation at my job that reminded me it's actually good advice to practice yourself. ...Okay, ( Read more... )

In the new team I'm working with at my company we use a ticketing system. Y'know, the sort of thing that can manage IT requests, customer support cases, projects and tasks, etc. Ticketing systems are widely maligned. I hear various complaints from colleagues, customers, and even our executives on occasion. Sure, ticketing systems can be implemented ( Read more... )

Wednesday onsite at the client's office had been a rollercoaster of emotions. The configuration was a mess when I arrived (boo) but I was able to fix it up (yay). I was there to demonstrate an integration that broke our product last time (boo) but I had in hand a new release that promised to fix it (yay). That new release looked really good when we ( Read more... )