systematic viewpoints

I came back from a week at a client in San Francisco this week. The last time I was there was just about two years ago, and that was the trip that provided the spark for me to begin blogging. I’m struck by how much has changed for me in that time.

Nine months ago I was laid off from my previous job in a huge RIF. I’d been at that company for 9 years, and was with the company before that for almost 15 years. I wasn’t accustomed to involuntary termination. Being at the gate of ‘a certain age’ I was concerned about maintaining positive career momentum.

I landed after three months - in retrospect, a very short time. I left the in-house world to join a management consulting firm. Since then I’ve completed two strategy engagements and I’m about to begin a third.  I have to say that I’m as pleased as can be.

I used to run the enterprise portal environments that I now create strategy for, and I like it this way. In the corporate world there was little time for strategy - we were almost completely tactical. I wanted to get out of development and production cycles and demands. Mostly, I wanted get in front of the portals and drive the business solutions they enable. My current job is exactly that.

I now work with folks who are visionary, passionate and remarkably down to earth. My clients and my boss seem to value what I bring to them. I’m a hell of a lucky man.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 5th, 2007 at 9:53 pm and is filed under Career. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.