Roman's miles

My startup crew: Cast off! Full speed!!!

2009-07-31T16:16:58-04:00

So after 5.5 years the SAP ship of the corporate software development has just put me ashore - today was my last day at the frigate. Monday I'm starting a new journey and this time on a new yacht of the startup development. I'm very excited as the voyage is going to be interesting and adventurous but, hey - I've been dreaming about it for a long time! No more complains on a wrong course, no mirages of approaching icebergs and frustrations from busy oficers, no policies and rules made by the general naval staff. This time it's up to me as I'll be standing at the helm.

Profisee is the new yacht. These are the guys who created Stratature which after being acquired in 2007 by Microsoft laid a foundation of the current MDM offering from Redmond. The company has today three practices - Financial Analytics, Operational Analytics and MDM, which I'll be leading. Thought the company is young it already has a few sound clients and runs its operations in North America and UK.

I met Ian Ahern, the founder of Stratature and Profisee, about a year ago and we chatted for a couple of hours about our inspirations, vision, and plans. As a strong believer in the Data Management as a source of opportunities in general and MDM in particular I admitted that the current trend on the market around MDM resembled a gold rush where every vendor tried, all of a sudden, to paint himself as an MDM expert to gain its share of the field. I was thinking then about opening my own practice around SAP MDM but after some time Ian offered me to join his expedition and lead the MDM team in the venture.

Monday I start! I'm very excited (already said so) and a bit concerned but at the same time very confident that our schooner will reach the land and we'll dig out few tons of gold with the crew:-) My family is slightly nervous: after 5 years of a placid navigation in a first-class cabin of the SAP liner they don't know what it means to be on a small ship and afraid of a (unavoidable and imminent) pitching. Recently Paul Graham wrote:

What keeps people from starting startups is the fear of having so much responsibility. And this is not an irrational fear: it really is hard to bear. Anything that takes some of that weight off you will greatly increase your chances of surviving.

If anything about my weight it only may grow so it's my time to check the guts and take the risks. The new journey starts Monday. Wish us fair wind!

Update: The formal announcement is here

Is crossing the chasm of total freaking hoplessness binary?

2009-07-26T22:19:03-04:00

Although trying not to repost others' blogs couldn't resist this time. My own transition from SAP to the new home may not seem like crossing a chasm but certainly won't be a walk in a park. I mean when my family will regain the sence of security and my team will get based on its own success confidence in the future.

Seth Godin and Neil Davidson had echoing posts today about a transition from a not-yet to a quite-yes states. Neil claims that for each of us there is an area where we aren't borned on the right side of the chasm and Seth explains the transitional nature of the cross. Agreeing with both I wonder how to keep ourselves protected from the hurricanes of pessimism and keep riding (and necessarily falling) no matter what unless one day we can answer positively the "have I crossed it?" question. I think that barely recognizing the nature of the trajectory lays a serious foundation to the crossing plan.

I'm back!

2009-07-20T23:29:06-04:00

Wow, it's been some time since I posted last time here. I've got more gasoline in my tank and I'm back to blogging. So the three most important things that happened during this gap are:

I've graduated from my business school. Now I'm an MBA with financial concentration. I may write in more details about the experience and served expectations later. The short version is now I can read Economist bumer-to-bumer and enjoy it:-)
After working for hafl a year with Harley-Davidon I've got my moto license and set up for a biker amateur. The very spirit of the HD team made me think I'd like riding.
I'm leaving SAP. After 5.5 years of working for one of the greatest sofware corporation my advanturer's soul and gods of risk-takers drawn me back to the startup world. The Mossad vs. French Legion dilemma is swinging to the former again where I was building my career before joining SAP. I'm very excited about it and will reveal more details soon.

I've decided to make the blog personal now and probably will open another one solely for the professional discussions. I'm greatful for my readers (or rather keepers of the blog link) and hope you'll stay tuned in the future.

Taking a sabbatical from bloggin...

2007-10-08T15:54:39-04:00

I think it would be fair to just claim it. Our newly born son, the MBA, my new job, a new house take together all my time. I've decided to formally take a blogging sabbatical until I get more room to write on a regular basis.

By the way, we've given birth to our fourth - Michael (מיכאל, in English pronounced Mai-kel, in Hebrew - Mi-kha-El) was born on the 25th of September, 3.425Kg, 53cm. He's become instantaneously the focal center of the family during days and of my wife during nights. Hadn't I taken the sabbatical I would've told you how the delivery was (much simpler than in Israel and Russia) but now it's too late:-)

Write to you in the future,
-Roman

IT Regional Architect Conference. Feedback from Atlanta.

2007-09-14T16:23:47-04:00

As I announced in the past I've attended the conference in Atlanta. It was the first event of a series in US and the organizers plan to have it annually in the same format. Below is my impression.

First off, it was a great success! To my knowledge it's the only conference which is vendor or technology agnostic. Not only it is cross-platform and cross-technology it's focused on the architecture issues and built for architects. Not developers or sysadmins but enterprise, infrastructure, and software architects.

Secondly, for a local conference (by the way, participation cost is just $500 which is absolutely exceptional for such events) there were about 250 participants that again demonstrates success of the first event. It was quite an efficient networking event to rub shoulders with local folks.

Thirdly, the keynotes speakers were real stars and they rocked! Angela, Mike, Scott, and Rick all presented a very valuable topics and were great speakers. A very sound composition of the speaker - another complement to the organizers.

Lastly, I advise you to go to the next event in Atlanta or other cities and wish IASA to rise the bar next time bringing new speakers and more participants.

Technorati tags: IASA, software architect, MDM

Utilizing your day. Rising the bar.

2007-09-01T11:54:27-04:00

Do you constantly complain about the lack of time? Does your schedule slipper during a day as time goes and you miss some important stuff planned for the PM? It happens often to me and the missing part in my life is often running and workouts.
The always working recipe for me was getting to bed later, trying to V more complete tasks on the TODO list. Often, though, you can't make much at late hours and mind- or muscle-intensive exercise become unachievable at late hours even if you have a few before the day guillotine cuts your productive "today" from "tomorrow".

Ilia, my friend, taught me to swap the day edges for shoving planning and to make the most important (time-sensitive, risky-to-slippery, easy-to-defer, forgettable, etc.) very early. He wakes up at 5am, has first his swimming and workouts, and then starts the day. Very hard for me to do but I'm all envy.

Today my classmate, Kevin, told me he wakes up daily at 4.15am(!), has his run and workout, and starts (continues?) his working day at about 6am. Not that this fact would help me to wake up tomorrow but I'm sure such stories are exciting, motivating, and aspirational. Kevin answered my question "why do you do it?" with a very simple statement - "because I'm an person of achievements and love to get things done". Surely a motivating statement. And he's been doing it for already 6 years...

Technorati tags: wakeup, GTD

PMBA. Reader's questions

2007-08-24T04:05:59-04:00

A reader sent to me a few questions about PMBA. I'll answer here to (hopefully) benefit future readers. An overall disclaimer is the answers reflect my own conclusions and opinion as of today. Of course it's questionable and may change in the future.

Do you know of anyone who have graduated from this program getting significant pay raise at their current company or a new company with a new job? I think that the only way to get a significant rise is to change the job one's doing. Apparently if it's just the next step on the same career ladder in the same profession the first raise won't be significant. If, on the other hand, one's changing the profession then even losing the formal grade may bring the raise in a long-term perspective. I personally ain't changing the industry I'm in and don't expect immediate raise (hope my boss doesn't read it:-) I believe in a long-run the MBA will make me more attractive candidate for executive roles than I am today and will help me perform better with my current job.
Will this enable you to rise through the corporate ranks quickly? Here I believe it all depends on the industry and the employer. In IT an MBA doesn't matter much. It may be a NO-filter for exec roles but if one adds MBA to the VC it barely affects her position. For sure not in SAP, for sure not for the current position. I'm clueless about other companies or industries although from conversations in the class I feel my perseption is quite common.
Will this PMBA help if you want to start your own business? That's an interesting question. I'm sure it will but at the same time it's not a must - many great entrepreneurs have reached great success with no formal degree. I'm saying an MBA exposes you to the areas you didn't know and makes you consider options you weren't aware of. Lots of my classmates are planning to take the entrepreneurship concentration.
Are any good companies contacting the career center to interview graduates of this program? I think all of the contacting companies are great. Whether you want to work there or not is another question:-) There is the career service in the school and we can contact personal career advisers and coaches. I haven't done it yet (just finished the second semester) but once I do I'll write about it.

To add I'd advise to read my thoughts before I joined the MBA and definitely attend open days in GSU and other schools you consider. I'm very positive also that before you go to school you must know why you do it, what your target is, and what you will do the first day after you graduate. Having answers will help you to find right school and justify your decision to pursue it or reject.

Technorati: MBA, GSU, PMBA

Come to a "IT Architect Regional Conference 2007"

2007-08-13T21:06:49-04:00

International Association of Software Architects hosts a series of IT Architect Regional Conferences at Atlanta, GA, San Diego, CA, and Washington, D.C on Sept 13-14, Oct 15-16, and Oct 8-9 correspondingly. The organizers' idea is instead of having one expensive national event leading to substantial travel expenses to host the conference three times in the country attracting much more visitors. Scott Amber gives the key notes on the conferences which makes it automatically as of a serious caliber.

You can click on the charter of your geographical preferences above and check the agenda. Many great speakers from the industry (software houses, consultants, and customers) present at the event and you'll find it difficult to pick up a topic of your interest from four concurrent tracks.

I'm presenting MDM at Atlanta and the capital - MDM "MDM - where business meets IT". I'm planning to talk about the problems MDM comes to resolve, why it's vital for today's business to address them, and what make an enterprise want to buy a ready solution instead of developing an in-house one. I'm planning to split marchitecture and tarchitecture as 1:5 (at least) so the geeks in the audience should not get too bored with ROI, TCO, and other exciting stuff.

Come to listen lead industry architects, learn something new, and rub shoulders with you colleagues. It's gonna be fun.

Technorati tags: IASA, software architect, MDM

Meeting at TechEd's

2007-08-11T00:18:05-04:00

Although I've published my near travel plans now can't miss an opportunity to put a cool banner on the blog.

See you in Vegas and Munich.

Technorati tags: SAP, Teched

Travel plans

2007-08-09T01:34:18-04:00

My (confirmed) travel plans for my friends and readers trying to catch me:

8/8 - Palo Alto
8/9 - Phoenix
8/14-15 - New York
8/22-24 Walldorf
8/25-29 Tel Aviv
September - vacation from travels due to expected Go-Live of our baby
10/1-4 - Las Vegas
10/8-9 Washington DC
10/17-20 - Munich
And probably some other unexpected trips so catch me!

Techonrati tags: travel