Surreal Notions

Thanks to Philip, I started a new project at Autodesk today.  Hurrah!

As I’m sure you’re aware, Autodesk is the company behind numerous CAD and 3D rendering applications.  They started with AutoCAD a couple decades ago and have since expanded into specialized CAD programs, BIM programs (like Revit), and general 3D rendering (they acquired 3D Studio MAX and Maya in the last few years).  In fact, AutoCAD is a de-facto standard in most engineering fields.  ProEngineer, TurobCAD, and other competitors basically follow the Autodesk lead when it comes to CAD.  So at least I’m in the right place to make a difference

We’re still in the very early stages of the project and I can’t really talk about it much anyway.  However, it’s a great group of people, so I should at least have fun and learn a few interesting things.

I’ve officially started working with Sojern.  We’re still ironing out a few of the contract details, but things should be finalized shortly.  This should be an interesting experience, to say the least.

And people say I’m ambitious.  Sojern has set out with a defined goal of creating $1 billion of shareholder value over the next 3-4 years.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great group of people with lots of talent.  They’ve got the resources and management with enough business acumen and sales experience to probably pull it off.  However, that’s one hell of a goal to start out with!

If nothing else, Sojern should be an interesting ride.  I’m not convinced the business is ready (maybe in six months) for my skill-set yet; however, I’ll do everything I can in the meantime.  Hopefully, I’m wrong and they will need to develop all of the components currently being discussed in parallel.  I suspect quite a few components and concepts will fall into v3, v4, and v5 discussions, because this project strikes me as substantially larger than most people involved want to admit.  I have been accused of biting too much off at the same time, but I’ve never seen an entire office do it at the same time.  I hope I’m wrong, but it’s hard to not notice some of the signs.

Despite all of this, the monstrous goals, the gargantuan challenges, the short time-line, I still think Sojern will probably succeed.  It is just a matter of time.  Given the collection of experience already in the room and the several million dollars in angel investment already acquired, I doubt it’ll take very long for success to find Sojern.

“Struggle is good.”  Or so my high school English teacher quipped on a regular basis.  I suppose part of me, a big part perhaps, agrees.  It’s a bitter sweet thing when Intuit closed the Omaha office.  On the one hand, there is much I left unfinished.  On the other hand, it forced me to find something different, which might be better in the long run.

I enjoyed my brief time at Intuit; however, with rising prospects elsewhere leaving opens up innumerable opportunities I would have either overlooked or bypassed while at Intuit.  There is something to be said for constantly throwing oneself into the raptures of change and chaos.  It might be crazy… or it might be brilliant.  Haven’t decided which just yet

Maybe I’ll still have a chance to work on some of those lingering projects as a contractor in a few months.  And, if nothing else, I learned a few things, made some improvements in a few products, and met some really great people.  Any experience with all of that must have been worth it.

On the plus side, a majority of the people from the office are joining a new startup called Sojern.  I’m not a big fan of the misspelling of sojourn (to have a safe and successful trip or journey); however, the business plan is interesting.  I’m negotiating a part-time contract with Sojern along with a couple other possible clients.

Of course, I have every confidence that the entire group will land on their respective feet without any trouble.  The whole office was comprised of experienced professionals with more than a bit of entrepreneurial spirit.

I will be starting a short-term contract with Northern Natural Gas next week to help clean up an internal application and lay down some UI groundwork for a longer term consolidation effort.  Effectively a survivor of the Enron debacle (or maybe they were just purchased by one of the fragmented companies that came out of Enron), NNG supplies natural gas from Texas to Lake Superior.

I’ll be working at their headquarters in Omaha, which should be interesting.  I’ve heard good things about the work environment, but suspect the internal IT projects are underfunded with poorly implemented incentives around the business unit… which is pretty status quo for IT in my experience.  Either way, this will keep me busy through at least the first week or two of September, which is good.  With a little luck I’ll have the consulting business up to speed by the time this contract runs out.