Having been involved in the creation of an Enterprise 2.0 community in a huge pharmaceutical, I am now embarking on a much different journey. I have just joined a tiny software firm (only 7 people), and I have offered to take to responsibility for setting up our own Enterprise 2.0 suite. At the moment I am going with Mediawiki for the wiki, and intranet homepage, backed up with a Drupal blog site for internal blogging and group discussions. I think it will be an interesting contrast to setting up E2.0 in a large company......

WOW It really has been a while since I have blogged!!!

Rest assured its not because I have suddenly gone off blogging, far from it, but I have been a bit busy.

In October, I proposed to my lovely girlfriend, who after an unexpected amount of crying said yes! This was great, but it did pose me with an immediate problem - I was living in deepest darkest Kent, and she was living in London!
After a lot of thinking I decided that the best thing was for me to pack my things and go to the place where the streets were paved with gold!!

So started the job hunting!! I wrote two CVs, one technical, and one leaning on my experience consulting on Enterprise 2 technologies. I decided pretty quickly that whilst I loved Enterprise 2, and have had some of my best working experiences whilst touting the joys of Enterprise 2 at the big P, ultimately my strength was technical, so I focussed my efforts on looking for software developer roles. After a close call with a job I really wanted, I was offered a developer role for a company developing online gambling solutions. This was quite a way out of my field of expertise, but I thought it would be a great opportunity to get into some of the nitty gritty of web development, so I took the job, handed in my notice at the big P, told my house mate that he was going to be homeless, and shipped off to the big smoke!

I have been working up here for 3 months now, and I am writting this blog on my last day at this company. It has been a real learning curve being here, as I have been using technologies that I had never even heard of let alone used, and I have enjoyed the challenge. However it has been a big culture shock from working at the big P. Essentially we are software consultants working to fine tune an existing product, which is cool, and I enjoy the interactions with the customers. However I found that there was no way of being creative in the ways that I am used to, and sadly whilst the company has got a wiki, there is a no buzz of an Enterprise 2.0 community, which stems from the fact that everyone is fully engaged dealing with customers.

It is really for this reason that I haven't been blogging for a while, I just haven't had the inspiration! However, out of the blue I was contacted about a position working for a small (6 person) private company, developing the interface of their online Rich Internet Application. Its sounded quite interesting, and to cut a long story short, I start there on Monday!!I am really excited to get going, because they are doing a complete redesign of their website, and upgrade of their application, and I am going right there in the thick of it, and will hopefully have a influence on the GUI, which is fantastic, as I have developed a real passion for usability. What is more I see a real opportunity to get back into the web2.0/ E2.0 scene, and try and use the experience I got in the big P, and see how it can be put to work in a small company setting!!

Sorry this has been a big post, and well done to anyone who has read this far - I look forward to blogging more often in the future!!!

WOW It really has been a while since I have blogged!!!

Rest assured its not because I have suddenly gone off blogging, far from it, but I have been a bit busy.

In October, I proposed to my lovely girlfriend, who after an unexpected amount of crying said yes! This was great, but it did pose me with an immediate problem - I was living in deepest darkest Kent, and she was living in London!
After a lot of thinking I decided that the best thing was for me to pack my things and go to the place where the streets were paved with gold!!

So started the job hunting!! I wrote two CVs, one technical, and one leaning on my experience consulting on Enterprise 2 technologies. I decided pretty quickly that whilst I loved Enterprise 2, and have had some of my best working experiences whilst touting the joys of Enterprise 2 at the big P, ultimately my strength was technical, so I focussed my efforts on looking for software developer roles. After a close call with a job I really wanted, I was offered a developer role for a company developing online gambling solutions. This was quite a way out of my field of expertise, but I thought it would be a great opportunity to get into some of the nitty gritty of web development, so I took the job, handed in my notice at the big P, told my house mate that he was going to be homeless, and shipped off to the big smoke!

I have been working up here for 3 months now, and I am writting this blog on my last day at this company. It has been a real learning curve being here, as I have been using technologies that I had never even heard of let alone used, and I have enjoyed the challenge. However it has been a big culture shock from working at the big P. Essentially we are software consultants working to fine tune an existing product, which is cool, and I enjoy the interactions with the customers. However I found that there was no way of being creative in the ways that I am used to, and sadly whilst the company has got a wiki, there is a no buzz of an Enterprise 2.0 community, which stems from the fact that everyone is fully engaged dealing with customers.

It is really for this reason that I haven't been blogging for a while, I just haven't had the inspiration! However, out of the blue I was contacted about a position working for a small (6 person) private company, developing the interface of their online Rich Internet Application. Its sounded quite interesting, and to cut a long story short, I start there on Monday!!I am really excited to get going, because they are doing a complete redesign of their website, and upgrade of their application, and I am going right there in the thick of it, and will hopefully have a influence on the GUI, which is fantastic, as I have developed a real passion for usability. What is more I see a real opportunity to get back into the web2.0/ E2.0 scene, and try and use the experience I got in the big P, and see how it can be put to work in a small company setting!!

Sorry this has been a big post, and well done to anyone who has read this far - I look forward to blogging more often in the future!!!

WOW It really has been a while since I have blogged!!!

Rest assured its not because I have suddenly gone off blogging, far from it, but I have been a bit busy.

In October, I proposed to my lovely girlfriend, who after an unexpected amount of crying said yes! This was great, but it did pose me with an immediate problem - I was living in deepest darkest Kent, and she was living in London!
After a lot of thinking I decided that the best thing was for me to pack my things and go to the place where the streets were paved with gold!!

So started the job hunting!! I wrote two CVs, one technical, and one leaning on my experience consulting on Enterprise 2 technologies. I decided pretty quickly that whilst I loved Enterprise 2, and have had some of my best working experiences whilst touting the joys of Enterprise 2 at the big P, ultimately my strength was technical, so I focussed my efforts on looking for software developer roles. After a close call with a job I really wanted, I was offered a developer role for a company developing online gambling solutions. This was quite a way out of my field of expertise, but I thought it would be a great opportunity to get into some of the nitty gritty of web development, so I took the job, handed in my notice at the big P, told my house mate that he was going to be homeless, and shipped off to the big smoke!

I have been working up here for 3 months now, and I am writting this blog on my last day at this company. It has been a real learning curve being here, as I have been using technologies that I had never even heard of let alone used, and I have enjoyed the challenge. However it has been a big culture shock from working at the big P. Essentially we are software consultants working to fine tune an existing product, which is cool, and I enjoy the interactions with the customers. However I found that there was no way of being creative in the ways that I am used to, and sadly whilst the company has got a wiki, there is a no buzz of an Enterprise 2.0 community, which stems from the fact that everyone is fully engaged dealing with customers.

It is really for this reason that I haven't been blogging for a while, I just haven't had the inspiration! However, out of the blue I was contacted about a position working for a small (6 person) private company, developing the interface of their online Rich Internet Application. Its sounded quite interesting, and to cut a long story short, I start there on Monday!!I am really excited to get going, because they are doing a complete redesign of their website, and upgrade of their application, and I am going right there in the thick of it, and will hopefully have a influence on the GUI, which is fantastic, as I have developed a real passion for usability. What is more I see a real opportunity to get back into the web2.0/ E2.0 scene, and try and use the experience I got in the big P, and see how it can be put to work in a small company setting!!

Sorry this has been a big post, and well done to anyone who has read this far - I look forward to blogging more often in the future!!!

I love the idea of life streams - its great to be able to easily leave a trail behind you of cool stuff you have done/found.
I have been thinking lately about WorkStreams....
I used to be a lab scientist - and one of the things I used to hate the most about that job was having to maintain a Lab Notebook - it was a real drag having to take time out of my day to write (using a pen!!!) about what I had done. This is not to say that it wasn't neccessary, for patent and freedom to operate purposes it was essential, and it was really useful to have a record to look back on when I wanted to check something.
Nowerdays I am a software developer, and so the need to do this has subsided, I have all my code checked into Subversion , and that is all I need. However I really miss having that record of stuff that I have done/thought about etc.
For tagging cool web resources we have a tagging service, for recording my thoughts and ideas I have a personal twitter like service, and for recording the miscellaneous stuff that cant be put in our tagging service I have OneNote. However I really wish there was an aggregated stream of all this digital information that I could scan like my old lab notebook. A work stream could realise this, and not only that, if it was integrated into our Enterprise 2. suite, it would be effort free to create, but gives me that extra bit of return on taking the effort of tagging, and posting all this stuff in the first place, win-win.

I love the idea of life streams - its great to be able to easily leave a trail behind you of cool stuff you have done/found.
I have been thinking lately about WorkStreams....
I used to be a lab scientist - and one of the things I used to hate the most about that job was having to maintain a Lab Notebook - it was a real drag having to take time out of my day to write (using a pen!!!) about what I had done. This is not to say that it wasn't neccessary, for patent and freedom to operate purposes it was essential, and it was really useful to have a record to look back on when I wanted to check something.
Nowerdays I am a software developer, and so the need to do this has subsided, I have all my code checked into Subversion , and that is all I need. However I really miss having that record of stuff that I have done/thought about etc.
For tagging cool web resources we have a tagging service, for recording my thoughts and ideas I have a personal twitter like service, and for recording the miscellaneous stuff that cant be put in our tagging service I have OneNote. However I really wish there was an aggregated stream of all this digital information that I could scan like my old lab notebook. A work stream could realise this, and not only that, if it was integrated into our Enterprise 2. suite, it would be effort free to create, but gives me that extra bit of return on taking the effort of tagging, and posting all this stuff in the first place, win-win.

I love the idea of life streams - its great to be able to easily leave a trail behind you of cool stuff you have done/found.
I have been thinking lately about WorkStreams....
I used to be a lab scientist - and one of the things I used to hate the most about that job was having to maintain a Lab Notebook - it was a real drag having to take time out of my day to write (using a pen!!!) about what I had done. This is not to say that it wasn't neccessary, for patent and freedom to operate purposes it was essential, and it was really useful to have a record to look back on when I wanted to check something.
Nowerdays I am a software developer, and so the need to do this has subsided, I have all my code checked into Subversion , and that is all I need. However I really miss having that record of stuff that I have done/thought about etc.
For tagging cool web resources we have a tagging service, for recording my thoughts and ideas I have a personal twitter like service, and for recording the miscellaneous stuff that cant be put in our tagging service I have OneNote. However I really wish there was an aggregated stream of all this digital information that I could scan like my old lab notebook. A work stream could realise this, and not only that, if it was integrated into our Enterprise 2. suite, it would be effort free to create, but gives me that extra bit of return on taking the effort of tagging, and posting all this stuff in the first place, win-win.