Once More ... With Passion

So as I mentioned below.
Im back on the road quite a bit @ the mo.
And by the end a week I’m pretty strung out and on my arse, and can’t wait to get home.
So, I was ruminating on some the clutter I carry around with on my travels.

Some Examples:

My chunk of Aotearoa, greenstone that hangs around my neck – that bruv Bill gave me, before the gloaming took him. - Its to keep me safe on all my journeys over open water.
The 'Gren' Aberflyhalf Travelling Sheep – that my niece gave me to remind me of who I am, where I come from, and who loves me in this world. - He lives what ever away bag I’m using, and likes having his piccie taken in pretty locations
My girlfriends little ipod shuffle – in stunning hot pink, to make me keep going to the gym.

So why do I carry these little pices of my life ?
Each one holds special memories, and kicks off its own set of thought patterns, especially when I’m far away from home.

Lets take just one and show you a bit more detail.

The candy hot pink iPod shuffle

Gf and I went off on a 9 month adventure travelling all the way around this spinney blue thing of ours.
Part of the plan was to hook up with friends we know all over the planet, spend time with them and chill.
The final destination, before sealing the knot and taking the last flight to home **, was to visit the Taylor Massive in Virginia.
And we had a total ball – so much so, we’ve gone back on numerous occasions since.

During the gig there, we spent far less time than we thought, stocking up on new clothes and toys n stuff. But Gf bought this dinky shuffle, and Team Taylors set about filling it with the cool tunes we’d spent the week chilling out in the Garden to.
The idea was I’d copy the on to my iTunes instance, when we got home – hasn’t happened yet !!

So, every time I give it a turn, I think of a number of things.
How lucky I am to have a fantastic Gf who’s cool about some of my more stupid ideas – like lest F* off around the world for nearly a year !!.
How lucky I am to have ‘family’ like GnL, RnJ, & TT, who make you so so welcome when you appear on their doorstep, in a faintly strung out and bedraggled state.

And how F*in awesome the grooves on this ‘ting are !!

Cheers

jonron


**By this time, I will admit the shadow of ‘Hireath’ walked tall with me, and I was very keen to touch my homeland again.

Labels: Travel

So . . . . at the moment I'm working mainly in Turkey.

This means I usually get home (all being well) via Hamsterjam at around 11.30 pm on a friday night, after a hell of a long week. So my desire to pick up a computer to do anything other than check ive been paid, is vastly reduced over a weekend - so appologies !!





Anyway. Did any of you catch this - >-< -

What they faied to mention is that the 'welcome' home was 30,000 rampaging Turks taking over the Airport @ 2am.

So this beg a few questions, who told them, who mobilised them, where did they all park, and whats it got to do with me ?



Seems the rolling national news (TV and Radio) channels reported the PM storming out, and published his arrival time back @ Attaturk. The individual local party cells in downtown Istanbul mobilised their network and 'encouraged' people to welcome the PM home - I initally thought this was a rent a mob gathering, but there were placards, palistiniane flags blended onto turkish flags, this was well thought out and very contrived !!

They blocked the 6 lane highway for 2km heading into the airport and abandoned their cars and walked to arrivals.



And whats this got to do with me. Well I was trying to catch the very early flight to Hamsterjam, and initally got caught up in the blocked road, then the taxi driver provided me with the most thrilling ride of my carrer to date in Istanbul (and for those of you who have been in taxi's in Istanbul, you will knoe exactly what I meen). Reversing backwards (at speed) down the outside lane of a a major highway, fording the central reservation, going straight over a very large over roundabout, and dinging about 10 stationalry cars. I then had to walk the last 1/.2k into the terminal around the cheering mod - fantastic fun :-)



And my comment on the subject the Turkish PM stromed out of Davos on ?

Suffice to say, good on him, and I hope the UN brings war crimes charges . . .

Labels: Travel

Labels: Things I know

January is a strange month.
It sorta appears on the back of a six day hangover, and results in at least two days more....
Then we all go back to work, and immediately wonder - bugger where did that time go !!!

Then the bank account looks like the pixies have been using scythes to manage it, the main colour I can see its RED, followed by more RED, so the desperation for pay day quickly gathers momentum.

Added to this, ive been re-mortgaging, bought a new (note to those who know - Not a replacement) car, paid a hunk of debt of a credit card (thanks Tower!!), accidentally generated a wheel barrow load of bank interest (thanks again Tower !!), and spend a weekend helping an old friend move house.

So we reach month end, pop over into Feb, and ive still not updated this blog, fixed the wall fittings, ordered the new carpet, finished painting the stairs and started scanning my bnw negatives of my trip to Oz, Nz and Easter Island. On top of that ive committed to a 1/2 marathon @ the end of March, and want to grab a holiday in the sun for a week before a go mad with SAD...And thats before we start talking about the newish gig and my role - which is turnin out kinda funky @ the mo.

So it all adds up to go, go, go. Shezz I'm gonna need a break form reality @ this rate.......


chat more soon.

Labels: go go go

Strange week, this week.
Been trying to get to grips with the wonderful 'brave' new world of Enterprise 2.0 technology, while @ the same time trying to ascertain on how that will effect the project management of 'solution delivery'. Will it change @ all ? - I bloody well hope so .....
Theres a hell of a lot of snake oil around enterprise 2.0, and you can already see the ex-phocopier salesmen rubbing their hands @ any of the conferences you go to (new technology - same old message - same old 'sales strategies', same old remuneration model ) licence sales = new bmw, new house in spain, 4 golf vacations per year, and what about delivery to the customer.
Bahh!! that's an SEP !!

Anyways more on that later. Back to the PM stuff.

So, how do we revolutionise the project delivery approach to allow 'User to Add Value - the supposed crux of E2.0' without compromising the controlled 'and lets face it anal' delivery of a solution into a customer environment.
Mmmm quite a challenge !!, esp when you consider that 99.99% of all E2.0 software is vapour, and destine to remain so :0)

But, as this market develops and becomes one (sic!), then we (the professional delivers) are going to need a more rapid, dynamic and fluid method of capturing the customers requirement, add in the value that the client/end user is going to bring to the piece and deliver in a robust fashion to the customer (ticking all the -control- boxes along the way).
In the tome's of project management (as published by APM and PMI) you just wont get this. So we need a new champion to challenge the old guard.

Me, I'd like to propose Rob Thomsett (thomsettinternational.com), there's some darn good idea's here that have the makings of suiting the brave new world we are all gonna embrace. . . .

your thoughts ?

j

Labels: Project Management

And Were Back .............

I decided a while ago to not to continue with this blog thang.

Basically exposing yourself to allow the world to your inner thoughts has never been my bag, and discovering some of the very idiots you would chearfully see 'falling undera truck' were monitoring your posts,
sorta added some additional perspective ...

But I was trailing through the 'tinterweb the other day, and found a new post by an old friend which highlighted some issues and problems she's faced and that I would have never known about, except by the power of reading and this darn technology.
So I'm back, hang them all, and thank you very much Lindsay.

ta

jonron

Labels: return