To Dev or not to Dev

I seem to be spending a considerable amount of time lately apologising. I am extremely passionate about 3 things in my life: my fiance, my career and my community work. Because my work and community involvement has been drawn together a lot closer since I joined ITI in the beginning of the month, I have been able to get more actively involved in the various aspects of the community world, while being able to mentor others in the field of development, which to me is an exciting and never ending catalyst for change.

Being thrown into the deep with ITI has been a huge learning curve. I am doing well with the training aspect as far as my evaluations are concerned, however adjusting to my colleagues and the processes of the company has become both a physically and mentally draining exercise. I have butted heads with one or two of my colleagues in a short space of time, which is outside the norm for me, and this has started building some insecurity around the way forward for myself. I by no means want to give up on the path I have chosen, but I need to readjust my viewpoints and understanding of people, especially in my new working environment, quickly and quietly.

I do however have some new challenges to take on in the next 2 weeks, including planning of the community lounge for Tech-Ed 2008, held in Durban this year and hoping to draw 2000+ visitors, along with various other fairly big and hopefully exciting community projects, which with the strong support from the Microsoft, ITI and MVP team should get off the ground in the next few months.

This all has however put me in a space I am not used to, where my normal simple and direct understanding of issues has caused me to lose sight of a personal growth process I have been undergoing. A process in which I am attempting to humble myself as a person. I am learning things about myself that will hopefully guide me going forward, and allow me to continue to grow, and hopefully also allow me to become a dependable and respected individual to my colleagues in business and the community.

I arrived in JHB yesterday morning at 7:45. I was strangely not surprised at the roadblock outside the airport and the traffic running from the Airport to the ITI offices, but did however realise I don't miss a moment of it. Effectively I walk to work, as my office is 2 blocks down from my house. I had a few rushed but very productive meetings with Microsoft as well as internal ITI meetings that will be continuing today, addressing various issues.

One of the people on my meeting list was Ruari Plint, MVP Product Manager for Microsoft. I was pleasantly surprised and pleased with the results of the meeting, and found Ruari to be a walking encyclopedia on communities and motorbikes, both intense passions of his. Our initial 1 hour meeting quickly grew into a 2 1/2 hour brain dump on communities and community structures, as well as a long walk down memory lane. Ruari, along with Simon, was the founders of SA Developer.Net a few years back.

Willy-Peter Shaub also introduced me to Ryan CrawCour, the BizTalk Community Lead. We had a fairly quick chat however Ryan did offer to come to KZN and do some talks on KZN, so look out for some dates that will be coming up shortly. Afterwards Willy-Peter, Ruari and myself went to the Baron's in Bryanston for dinner, with a bit of business mixed in. The InterOperability day was big on the agenda, and Ruari had us in stitches with his car stories. I really want to thank Willy-Peter for planning the evening, and for still coming after finishing his deep dive at 18:30, with no sleep the night before.

I must admit being surrounded by them is truly a humbling experience, and I always leave with a feeling of excitement, along with intense knowledge transfer. Today I have a light agenda, flying back to KZN tonight. My parents will be arriving in KZN tonight as well and we have a long weekend planned.