Hard to believe it's been about a year since I was offered the vast opportunity to join the ranks of the prestigious organization Sycnhro32 - the Premier software for the foundry and metal casting industry. Incredible story. Through divine intervention or the alignment of the sun, moon and stars - here I am. It's like all the trials and tribulations and baptisms under fire throughout my career have finally culminated in the place that I belong.
I had been laid off, terminated, let-go, downsized, RIF'd, or whatever from Citation Lufkin Texas Foundries where I had been the Information Systems manager for twelve years using a "competitors" foundry software package based on the AS/400 platform and written in RPG. After nine months of unemployment, I finally secured a position with a local university in the purchasing department as the HUB coordinator - Historically Underutilized Business. Flipping through Modern Casting one evening, I saw the advertisement for Synchro32. Synchro32 is based in the UK and there was no way I would consider moving and I wasn't even looking for a job mind you. I looked up the website at www.synchro32.com and sent a simple email congratulating Synchro32 on competing with the other North American software companies - being a capitalist - I believe that competition is good. Lo and behold, I received an email back from Chris Collins! He had found my resume on the internet and suggested that we talk. We had a nice long conversation on the telephone one day. We agreed that we had mutual interests and although a position was not open at the time, Synchro32 was looking for the right person to head up the operations in North America! Mind you, this was in July of 2007. I didn't have any vacation available until October, so we agreed that I would come to the UK to interview in October of that year. Well, we all hit it off instantly and the rest, shall I say is history. The entire Synchro32 team has a passion for customer service, quality, timeliness, and above all dedication to getting the job done right no matter what it takes. I learned my customer service skills well during eight years of working with EDS-Electronic Data Systems under the master of customer service - Henri Ross Perot. I just can tell you how thrilled I am to wake up every morning and go to work with the team at Synchro32. It's by far the best job, if you can call it that, that I have ever had and can not imagine ever doing anything else. It seems as if my entire professional life has been honed in on the light at the end of the tunnel which is Sycnhro32. As Abraham Maslow would put it, I have reached the pinnacle of the pyramid of the Heirarchy of Needs in my professional life - that being the Self-Actualization.
http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/regsys/maslow.html
Friday, 31 October 2008
Across the Pond
I'll be making the hop across the pond soon to meet with the senior management of Synchro32 regarding our budget and business strategy for 2009 - and I also hope to meet visit some of the UK customers while I'm there. Synchro32 will also be holding our annual meeting and holiday gathering. Although everyone within the Synchro32 team talks to each other on a daily basis, it is actually quite rare that we all get together - since we literally span the globe. I have not had the opportunity to see Barbara, Barrie, or Lee since March of this year. I see Simon on a regular basis during his North American travels and saw Chris during the IMTS show in Chicago. Our annual holiday gathering this year will be at http://www.bodysgallen.com/.
While I'm there, Lee and I will be partaking in some rebel rousing war games at http://www.warfighters.co.uk/ and I can hardly wait. Believe it or not, this is the #1 thing that I've wanted to do in the UK.
I've traveled to the UK many times as my father grew up there and fought in the WWII as a Lancaster bombardier. I do have cousins that still live in the UK and perhaps the next time that I am over I will look them up. Warfighters you say and not castles, and other tourist attractions? I've already seen my fair share of castles and would really like to visit Windsor some day and also return to London. I got to see Stonehenge for about 10 minutes and would also really like to go back there sometime. London is an awesome city with so much to see and do. If you ever get the chance to visit London, be sure and visit the Tower of London and see the crown jewels. Madame Tussauds wax museum was very cool too. Taking the tube all over the city is in itself an experience.
Not to worry, I'll be working while I'm in the UK and will be minding the store for the North American and Australian customers. Through he absolute miracle of the internet, I can work anywhere that I can have a phone and high-speed internet access.
See you on down the road.
While I'm there, Lee and I will be partaking in some rebel rousing war games at http://www.warfighters.co.uk/ and I can hardly wait. Believe it or not, this is the #1 thing that I've wanted to do in the UK.
I've traveled to the UK many times as my father grew up there and fought in the WWII as a Lancaster bombardier. I do have cousins that still live in the UK and perhaps the next time that I am over I will look them up. Warfighters you say and not castles, and other tourist attractions? I've already seen my fair share of castles and would really like to visit Windsor some day and also return to London. I got to see Stonehenge for about 10 minutes and would also really like to go back there sometime. London is an awesome city with so much to see and do. If you ever get the chance to visit London, be sure and visit the Tower of London and see the crown jewels. Madame Tussauds wax museum was very cool too. Taking the tube all over the city is in itself an experience.
Not to worry, I'll be working while I'm in the UK and will be minding the store for the North American and Australian customers. Through he absolute miracle of the internet, I can work anywhere that I can have a phone and high-speed internet access.
See you on down the road.
Thursday, 30 October 2008
Doing Business Internationally
I'm supposed to be a smart guy. I've taken international business courses and even have a MBA. It is so true as to what they say about "book learning" vs. "the real world" - in that nothing is a substitution for real world experience. I was thinking about this today as I'm making notes for either an article or a book. The danged ole MBA didn't cover many of the topics that I face all the time in doing business and supporting the Synchro32 customers around the world. Truly Synchro32 is a world wide company - North America, South America, the UK, Europa, Eurasia, and Oceania. Until they open a foundry or metal caster in the artic or antarctic, I don't think we will have any customers in those locations. Imagine what kind of problems you'd have pouring molten metal in -100 weather. That would bring a whole new meaning to chills and talk about porosity and can you imagine the types of gates and risers you'd have to have!
Anyway, since Synchro32 opened up the North American office almost a year ago, I have had a number of challenges and learning experiences in supporting the world wide base of Synchro32. Some of the most common and easiest things become difficulties.
Lets start with simple international phone dialing. Every country in the world has their own system of phone numbers and how you dial them, what digits you have to drop, etc. When I first started out, I had never made an international phone call - so it was a true learning experience. Thankfully the internet was a good guide to this as I relied heavily on www.countrycallingcodes.com
Time. They say time is fleeting and that time is precious and time has a value (as in the old financial equation of TVM-Time Value of Money). Of course, the world is divided into 24 time zones that are all based on GMT/UCT as being plus or minus from Greenwich England at the Royal Observatory. Unfortunately, "man" has introduced the artificial concept of adjusting the time based on the time of the year with what we call DST or daylight savings time. Some countries observe it, some do not. In the United States, some states and even parts of states don't observe it. Time is very important to Synchro32 so that we can call and support our customer base at the correct time and aslo to followup on sales leads. It is imperative to know what time it is where you are calling. I have a number of tools that I use and even have desktop software that graphically shows me what time it is. Also, the USA decided to change things up this year and adust when DST ended and began - which "ruined" a special clock I had that has imbedded into it's silicone diods software that automatically changed the time for me. I use the www.worldtimesever all the time to find out what time it is across the globe. Think of all the money that could be saved and be put to better use if the world was on time. If you look at this link, http://tinyurl.com/yvo3e7, you will begin to understand the vast amount of limited resources that are spent in just handling time. Companies like Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, etc. spend millions and millions of dollars just changing the time.
Speaking of time, there are the holidays. Every country has their own unique secular and religious holidays. When planning customer visits or remote work, this has to be taken into consideration. Additionally, some locales even have different holidays from the country.
An additional consideration, on the time theme, is days of the week. The western world tends to work Monday - Friday, but the Middle East has the "weekend" on Thursday and Friday and Saturday and Sunday are "normal" working days. With Synchro32 rapidly expanding into the Middle East, customers need support on the Western weekends. They forgot to tell me this in MBA school!
Paper - pickup a standard sheet of paper. Well, if you are in America that is known as letter sized paper and is 8.5 x 11 inches. However, the majority of the rest of the world uses A4 sized paper. Even obtaining A4 paper in the USA is difficult to do and forget obtaining a certain type, weight, and color. When it comes to printing, A4 is NOT letter sized paper and the margins are different and if you try to print an A4 document on letter sized paper, you will not be impressed with the results. One would think that something as simple as paper would be standardized throughout the world. Think of the amount of capital that could be saved with this one simple standardization.
Notice in my entry regarding paper, I used the unit of measure of inches. Despite all the best attempts of public schools in my yongster years to instill the virtues of the metric system, the USA is for the most part still stuck on miles, inches, feet, gallons, pints, etc. The world would be a much better place if the USA would dump these systems of measurement and went with the world standard of the Metric system. When I was in grade school a few years ago, we were all told that we had to learn the Metric system as it would be the universal standard in the United States. Thirty-five years later, I'm still waiting on it. The cost of the failure to adobt the Metric system must be incredible - think of the errors that are made in converting between units on engineering drawings, pattern/plate sizes, etc. Talk about a problem with shift in a casting. Explain that one to your customer when the dimensions were converted incorrectly!
Of course, there are the cultural norms, termonology, etc. and I won't even venture there.
Anyway, since Synchro32 opened up the North American office almost a year ago, I have had a number of challenges and learning experiences in supporting the world wide base of Synchro32. Some of the most common and easiest things become difficulties.
Lets start with simple international phone dialing. Every country in the world has their own system of phone numbers and how you dial them, what digits you have to drop, etc. When I first started out, I had never made an international phone call - so it was a true learning experience. Thankfully the internet was a good guide to this as I relied heavily on www.countrycallingcodes.com
Time. They say time is fleeting and that time is precious and time has a value (as in the old financial equation of TVM-Time Value of Money). Of course, the world is divided into 24 time zones that are all based on GMT/UCT as being plus or minus from Greenwich England at the Royal Observatory. Unfortunately, "man" has introduced the artificial concept of adjusting the time based on the time of the year with what we call DST or daylight savings time. Some countries observe it, some do not. In the United States, some states and even parts of states don't observe it. Time is very important to Synchro32 so that we can call and support our customer base at the correct time and aslo to followup on sales leads. It is imperative to know what time it is where you are calling. I have a number of tools that I use and even have desktop software that graphically shows me what time it is. Also, the USA decided to change things up this year and adust when DST ended and began - which "ruined" a special clock I had that has imbedded into it's silicone diods software that automatically changed the time for me. I use the www.worldtimesever all the time to find out what time it is across the globe. Think of all the money that could be saved and be put to better use if the world was on time. If you look at this link, http://tinyurl.com/yvo3e7, you will begin to understand the vast amount of limited resources that are spent in just handling time. Companies like Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, etc. spend millions and millions of dollars just changing the time.
Speaking of time, there are the holidays. Every country has their own unique secular and religious holidays. When planning customer visits or remote work, this has to be taken into consideration. Additionally, some locales even have different holidays from the country.
An additional consideration, on the time theme, is days of the week. The western world tends to work Monday - Friday, but the Middle East has the "weekend" on Thursday and Friday and Saturday and Sunday are "normal" working days. With Synchro32 rapidly expanding into the Middle East, customers need support on the Western weekends. They forgot to tell me this in MBA school!
Paper - pickup a standard sheet of paper. Well, if you are in America that is known as letter sized paper and is 8.5 x 11 inches. However, the majority of the rest of the world uses A4 sized paper. Even obtaining A4 paper in the USA is difficult to do and forget obtaining a certain type, weight, and color. When it comes to printing, A4 is NOT letter sized paper and the margins are different and if you try to print an A4 document on letter sized paper, you will not be impressed with the results. One would think that something as simple as paper would be standardized throughout the world. Think of the amount of capital that could be saved with this one simple standardization.
Notice in my entry regarding paper, I used the unit of measure of inches. Despite all the best attempts of public schools in my yongster years to instill the virtues of the metric system, the USA is for the most part still stuck on miles, inches, feet, gallons, pints, etc. The world would be a much better place if the USA would dump these systems of measurement and went with the world standard of the Metric system. When I was in grade school a few years ago, we were all told that we had to learn the Metric system as it would be the universal standard in the United States. Thirty-five years later, I'm still waiting on it. The cost of the failure to adobt the Metric system must be incredible - think of the errors that are made in converting between units on engineering drawings, pattern/plate sizes, etc. Talk about a problem with shift in a casting. Explain that one to your customer when the dimensions were converted incorrectly!
Of course, there are the cultural norms, termonology, etc. and I won't even venture there.
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
El Despolblado
El Despolblado - Spanish for unpopulated, empty place. The land of no people.
Desolate Majesty: Preserving beauty without borders.
There is a place that I escape to on my holidays and vacations - a place that is far off the beaten path and you can not get to unless you are going there on purpose. A place of few people, virtually no mobile phone / cell phone signals, no televisions, virtually no radio stations - unless you have satellite radio. A place that I can't be reached at.
Where is this place? If you look at a map of Texas, you will see in the western part of the state a "Big Bend". This is the Rio Grande (River) - typically it is written as only Rio Grande as Rio means river and Grande implies large or big. It's the dividing line between Mexico and the United States. It's a unique place as few people live her and the ecosystem is composed of three distinct spheres - the river, the mountains, and the desert. This is the Chihuahuan desert at it's finest.
How big is this place? Well, Big Bend National park is more than 800,000 acres - or almost 80 miles by 80 miles. That's a lot of area to explore.
There are two special things about Big Bend National park. (1) absolute silence - you can have a campsite and hear absolutely totally nothing - the sound of nothing and (2) the stars come out at night as there are virtually no man made lights there. It's probably the largest darkest spot in all of the continental USA (lower 48 states). You can actually see the Milky Way.
There are actually two additional large areas in this West Texas Trans Pecos Big Bend Region that are even less populated. It is possible to camp in this areas and not see anyone else for the entire length of your stay. Black Gap Wildlife Management area adjacent to Big Bend National park on the East side which is composed of another 103,000 acres. Then, there is the largest state park in Texas which is Big Bend Ranch at another 300,000 plus acres and is located on the west side of Big Bend National Park.
In later posts, I will explore these areas in depth.
For now, let me leave you with some pictures of a backpacking trip that I did back in the Spring of 2008. This was a "drop everything" trip. A park ranger friend emailed me and said "drop everything" lets go backpacking. He was transferring to another park with his family and this was to be his last official trip there. So, I dropped everything... http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=lm5prmd.c66ge4w5&x=0&y=tdx3dz&localeid=en_US
Links
Big Bend National Park - www.nps.gov/bibe
Big Bend Ranch State Park - www.tpwd.state.tx.us/spdest/findadest/parks/big_bend_ranch/
Black Gap WMA - http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/hunt/wma/find_a_wma/list/?id=2
Big Bend Chat discussion board - www.bigbendchat.com
Desolate Majesty: Preserving beauty without borders.
There is a place that I escape to on my holidays and vacations - a place that is far off the beaten path and you can not get to unless you are going there on purpose. A place of few people, virtually no mobile phone / cell phone signals, no televisions, virtually no radio stations - unless you have satellite radio. A place that I can't be reached at.
Where is this place? If you look at a map of Texas, you will see in the western part of the state a "Big Bend". This is the Rio Grande (River) - typically it is written as only Rio Grande as Rio means river and Grande implies large or big. It's the dividing line between Mexico and the United States. It's a unique place as few people live her and the ecosystem is composed of three distinct spheres - the river, the mountains, and the desert. This is the Chihuahuan desert at it's finest.
How big is this place? Well, Big Bend National park is more than 800,000 acres - or almost 80 miles by 80 miles. That's a lot of area to explore.
There are two special things about Big Bend National park. (1) absolute silence - you can have a campsite and hear absolutely totally nothing - the sound of nothing and (2) the stars come out at night as there are virtually no man made lights there. It's probably the largest darkest spot in all of the continental USA (lower 48 states). You can actually see the Milky Way.
There are actually two additional large areas in this West Texas Trans Pecos Big Bend Region that are even less populated. It is possible to camp in this areas and not see anyone else for the entire length of your stay. Black Gap Wildlife Management area adjacent to Big Bend National park on the East side which is composed of another 103,000 acres. Then, there is the largest state park in Texas which is Big Bend Ranch at another 300,000 plus acres and is located on the west side of Big Bend National Park.
In later posts, I will explore these areas in depth.
For now, let me leave you with some pictures of a backpacking trip that I did back in the Spring of 2008. This was a "drop everything" trip. A park ranger friend emailed me and said "drop everything" lets go backpacking. He was transferring to another park with his family and this was to be his last official trip there. So, I dropped everything... http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=lm5prmd.c66ge4w5&x=0&y=tdx3dz&localeid=en_US
Links
Big Bend National Park - www.nps.gov/bibe
Big Bend Ranch State Park - www.tpwd.state.tx.us/spdest/findadest/parks/big_bend_ranch/
Black Gap WMA - http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/hunt/wma/find_a_wma/list/?id=2
Big Bend Chat discussion board - www.bigbendchat.com
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
Hurricane IKE
Hurricane IKE came running through Texas several weeks ago. I have some dear friends that suffered devastating damage along the Gulf Coast. One friend had a beach house at Crystal Beach - it's gone, nothing left. It's like mother nature took an eraser to the land. I had spent many good times at the beach house and also camping along the beach there in my pop-up camper. Another friend owns a bar in the historic strand district of Galveston - his bar had eight feet of water in it. Another close friend, the downstairs of her bungalow suffered extensive water damage. Here are some pictures of better times along the coast camping out http://tinyurl.com/3odndp
And here are some pictures of East Texas after Hurricane IKE. http://tinyurl.com/3mn5rl
And here are some pictures of East Texas after Hurricane IKE. http://tinyurl.com/3mn5rl
Economics
I'm a big proponent of economics. In fact, I taught undergraduate college micro and macro Economics at Stephen F. Austin State University as an adjunct for several years.
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