Time at ICCM this year feels different than in years past. No doubt having a wife and four children in tow (my first time as a family at ICCM) influences that. No doubt having one child who is actively participating in the conversations this year also influences that. But there's something else, something I can't quite place my finger on.
Perhaps it is that this year is the first of four years I haven't been looking for a job while at ICCM. The prior three times were all during periods of transition: once I was underemployed and twice I was in-between phases of my career at my current employer. This year is different since I have just started a new assignment at that employer (less than two weeks ago), so I'm definitely committed elsewhere for a while.
Perhaps it is that this year is the first year that I'm giving back. These people don't want to hear about the huge datacenters my teams manage or the problems we face implementing the millions of dollars in server hardware each year. And you'd think that since this was my fourth time attending I'd be more in tune with what they need and what they want. My arrogant gaff the first night during the introductions painfully reminded me of all this.
The ten or fifteen folks who attended my Managing in the Whitespace of your Organization session yesterday seemed somewhat confused at first. It is, in fact, a strange topic to go over. ("White space" in an organization is that uncharted space in an organization chart that exists between the various functional teams. It is here where miscommunication takes place, poor hand-off exists and inefficiencies are created.) Ordinarily I pay a lot of attention to going slowly in a presentation but this time I was off like a shot. Thirty minutes into a 75-minute time slot, I was done. What was up with that? I've never done that before—I've always either ended with a few minutes for questions or gone right up to the end.
Well, I soon figured out why I slipped this time. There were a ton of questions. Thirty-five minutes of questions, discussions and probing conversations. I even got a chance to talk about some of the strategies I've employed in healing broken technical teams over the years. And after the questions were over (including two real extraordinary ones from Bob Hodge), folks came up front to talk for a few more minutes. The next session had to shoo us out. (This probably means that my presentation was actually lousy and the questions were needed to fill out the details. I'll think more about that soon.)
More later, as this continues to grow.
