and now for a change of pace

It has been a while friends, hasn't it?
Much has changed since I last wrote - I have taken a Senior Unified Communications Engineer position in San Francisco at a little company that is responsible for the great sound and video in yoru music, movies and television. They also branched out into conference phones a while back and announced a video system add on at Enterprise Connect 2018.

The last two months have been filled with a major deployment here at work while also trying to figure out how to exist in two places. You see, since my family and I have been established in the Tacoma area and with a daughter in high school, I don't want to move everyone down to the most expensive area of the left coast just yet. So I am splitting my time about 80% in the bay and then home for the rest. It is not easy, but it is becoming more familiar.

So about the work.....
   We are a major partner with BlueJeans so I jumped into the deep end of the pool right away to move all of our conference phones straight onto a new BlueJeans software and connect all of our Cisco VCS-based video infrastructure to BlueJeans and their Relay services that enable One Button To Join on almost any standards-based-endpoint.
   The Cisco infrastructure and endpoints are in need of some TLC as well so I've started learning and exploring their configurations. It's fun to do this part because sometimes there are creative things you discover but more often I learn so much by wondering why someone did something. Manual phone books in TMS for example - I will never understand how that is a good idea!
   The cowboy in me wants to fix all the things right away but I am measuring myself because My philosophy has been throughout this blog to document all the things and leave things so the next person can pick up where you left off.

Leaving things....
    With a long story made short, I did not leave everything as I wanted at my former place of work. There simply was not time and as the sole person knowing a technology, as much as I tried to share info I was never sure if that information was received.
    I think IT Organizations should place greater emphasis on some repository of information. It doesn't have to be pretty, but that helps. One place where all passwords are stored and one place where people should keep notes about the things they do. This isn't tickets or change control... let it be free-form open notepads if that works, but start somewhere.
    At my new place, we use combinations of Sharepoint for communication outside our group, Confluence and Box (and Box Notes) for internal things and even some SmartSheets. Then a common but hard to manage online password storage tool. These seem to work but I think part of that is a constant push to keep things off your computer and to share info. Frankly, the less I keep on my computer the better but that same practice makes it easier to share data with those that need it.


I will try to expand on these more and talk about my experience with BlueJeans (short take: it is nice) in the coming days. Now that I have my own little room I should have more time to myself, but I'm also going to start on a Cisco CyberOps course next month.

Reflecting on the year both personally and professionally

As the year comes to a close we frequently reflect back on what we have done. This is my first year of blogging so it's been the BEST ever!

A winter journey to Miami to connect with our headquarters made last winter more bearable. Then a little surgery followed up with a week of training in Dallas. It had been a long time since I had spent any time in Texas; it was more pleasant than I expected. So a few months later I followed up with additional training in Houston. In-between all of that my employer opened up a new building in Seattle that I had key involvements with. Oh, and the paychecks started coming from someone else (unfortunately) even though the job didn't really change.

As the year progressed I began an effort to be more active in social media as a technical professional whereas previously I was just a professional joker. When the 140 characters of Twitter no longer sufficed I expanded here. I attended many Microsoft Skype user groups and training, plus (as mentioned) even more Cisco Collaboration training, conferences and Cisco Champion program shenanigans.

I decided that working within the realms of my production corporate environment was not experimental enough, so a quick jaunt into the world of my own personal Microsoft Office 365 environment then later into Google's G Suite let me see what other environments could be like. This allowed chances to connect collaboration and telepresence products in new way and to fiddle with ones I have not otherwise been exposed to.

My family and I have adventured to Spokane Washington, where according to the hotel receptionist the most fun thing to do is drive to Montana! There was a day trip to Portland, Oregon but far more exciting was our 2017 Solar Eclipse impromptu excursion to Springfield (home of the Simpsons)! The typical 6 hour return drive only took us 14 hours! Camping out in a motorhome along the Canadian border got wedged in there too. More recently though, we experienced our first Oktoberfest in the mountain town of Leavenworth; where lederhosen were made for snapping and the hotel rates were astronomical. We might go back this weekend to see them light up the town.

I took up a new hobby, so considering it would be motorcycling it was only appropriate to do this come October. A solid 3 weeks of great weather and a fancy new 2017 Honda Rebel 500 has provided distraction as the season has turned colder. Or did it amplify my attention to the bitter wetness preventing me from riding? One shall see....

Thank you for sticking with me this year. I plan to make the next year more exciting and of course to share more!