Roman's miles

Taking a sabbatical from bloggin...

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.

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.

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

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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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"

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

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

    

Phoenix - Stingray Sushi - Green

Stingray Sushi (as gives a hint the name) is a Japanese restaurant in Sctorrsdale, an area close to the Phoenix airport.

Appearance/Design - stylish and spacious; convenient places for a group and cozy tables for a couple or a gourmet solo; quality silver; pleasant light;

Waitress/Staff - affable, sincere; prompt, not intrusive; pleasant and friendly;

Food - a bone for a sushi connoisseur (I'm not) - nigiri, maki, sashimi, temaki, etc:-); rich fish page; various Asian beer; Tasted the special of today - fresh halibut with oil - delicious!

Bottom line - highly recommended. Green light!

Technorati tags: phoenix, restaurant, cuisine

New category: Restaurants

Traveling a lot I found myself asking my friends the same question in every new place I visit- where do you recommend to eat? Though there are tons of review sites the problem is to find the ones you can trust (as I wrote in "ranking the ranks"). I have a handful of my travelers on whose recommendations that I can blindly and absolutely relay (Alon, Amit - thanks for your always faultless advice). I thought  my  voice may help others to make  their choice so I'm starting the new blog category for sharing my  gourmet experience.

I'll make it simple. There will be three ranks for a restaurants: red, yellow, and green.

Red - there was a mistake to go there to eat. Please don't repeat it - a strong NO!

Yellow - good, maybe even above expectations but next time I'm in the city I'll try something else.

Green - absolute GO! If I'm again in the area I must go there.

P.S. If you spot a place in my travel plans where you have a kitchen for me to try drop an email and I'll taste it. Depending on the review color you'll be blessed or damned in the next blog:-)

Technorati tags: travel, restaurant, cuisine

Travel plans

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

MBA - third way done

Swamped by the new role (later on that),  summer guests (niece from Russia and the two daughters' friends from Israel), a few projects at the new house, my pregnant wife, which requires more and more assistance, and the summer semester, didn't pay attention as the latter has finished! My MBA is already two semesters in the done part what counts for one third of the program!

That semester was crazy, tough, and, to an extent, a bit ineffective. As in a regular semester we had three courses - Managerial Accounting, Law and Ethics in Business, and Leadership and Organizational Behavior. But as opposite to the regular pace we had classes every week instead of every other week. My flights, tons of preparation materials, home individual and group projects didn't make me the most diligent student this time and I ran through just to make it happen. Must confess - it was not easy but yesterday we submitted the last group project - we're done now with this Summer marathon of crazyness.

Now I'm enjoying the Fall break - new semester starts in 8 days - we have Finance, IT, and Marketing. Again hundreds of pages for reading, many home and group projects but this time at least with the normal pace - every other week:-) I feel it may be the most interesting semester so far - diverse topics to learn and to share my knowledge.

Technorati tags: PMBA, GSU, MBA