Updates and where have I been

So many things have been on the go since May both personally and professionally. Here is a brief listing of what i have been up to, I hope to blog some more on these items in the next short while.

Professionally

• Attended the Gartner event in May, that lead to starting a "group" in Linkedin social networking site.  I am on facebook but for other reasons not to network, otherwise I use Linkedin as my networking site.  I created a CIO Manitoba (MB CIO) group and have local Information Technology leaders joining as we try and create a virtual peer group to share best practises, ask questions, etc.  This may lead to establishing a local Chapter of CIO association of Canada if local members are interested. If this applies to you please check out Linkedin and our group, all local leaders are welcome to join.

 

• Growth is a good thing, the problems are just different. For a second year in a row my employer is in growth mode and we are renovating and expanding our space at our head office and guess who is leading the project, yours truly.  It seems IT staff are the only ones who are used to working on "projects". We are currently at ~80 associates and we are adding space for 17 more making our head office almost 100 people. At a minimum that is moving everyone at least 1X, some folks more than once as they relocate as part of this growth. Way more work than I expected and moving existing staff including emptying their existing space for paint and carpet renovations is a HUGE task.

 

• I am happy to report that with the help from some associates at GHY International we have been able to get approval to start a full Recycling program to put our company on the right track for greening. We go through over 7 million printed pages a year and that is just head office, we have 8 other sites as well.

 

• Those that have knowing me for a while through blogs and other mediums including in person meetings, will know about the all in wonder work we did with IBM's System i series of computers, now called simply "i'.  We are at lease renewal and we looked at the next size for a new all in wonder box to push the limits of this concept but at special pricing north of 1 million we can't afford that. So we are redesigning the whole concept looking to use baby "i' power6 based units (qty 2) for i5 OS and AIX workloads respectively. To handle Linux and Windows workloads we are looking to add IBM Bladecenter H with a IBM/Netapp N Series SAN with VMware.  To add some technology zip we are looking at working with a JS22 blade and we are still running currently Nortel's SCS500 code set for a VOIP solution on a Linux LPAR under i5 OS.

 

Personally

• June is such a bad month at my house, both kids have birthdays, nieces and nephews graduating from Grade 12, short summer season starts, camping season starts, yard maintenance begins, and so on.

 

• I have been looking at time shares in beach locations, nothing makes me want to buy yet, looking for a multi destinational program with open weeks concept in many, many locations around the world. we may just try renting first.

 

• Due to our high annual spend we joined Direct Buy to save some cash, just joined so nothing to report yet.  Not to be confused with the North American retailer Best Buy, at least that's what i always call them, shame on me...

 

That's it for now, time to get ready for work tomorrow.

 

Thanks for listening