Monthly Archives: April 2008

The Hedgehog Concept

Posted on April 29, 2008 | 4 Comments

For those of you already familiar with “Good to Great”, certainly the Hedgehog Concept is perhaps the easiest to remember.  In relation to all the other areas (Level 5 Leadership, First Who Then What, Confront the Brutal Facts) we have talked about so far, this idea is the most pivotal to becoming great.

Before diving in to the classic explanation of the Hedgehog Concept, let us diverge into very familiar territory.  Most people remember nursery rhymes and stories from their childhood.  If not, then most likely you have recently retold these stories to your children.  It really doesn’t matter how you know about them, but you do.  Each one of these stories has some kind of meaning even though the real meaning might have been lost years ago.

Some stories are timeless and continue to be strong.  One of these stories is “The Tortoise and the Hare” by Aesop.  The story is so short that I can include it here (from Wikipedia):

The story concerns a hare who one day ridiculed a slow-moving tortoise. In response, the tortoise challenged his swift mocker to a race. The hare soon left the tortoise far behind and, confident of winning, he decided to take a nap midway through the course. When he awoke, however, he found that his competitor, crawling slowly but steadily, had already won the race.

Written more than 2600 years ago the story is still going strong.  What does this have to do with the Hedgehog Concept?  Well, it seems very connected.  In Jim Collins book “Good to Great”, the animal characters are a fox and a hedgehog.  It is a new fable describing how companies look at their business.  A fox, like the hare, is in a hurry to prove something without thinking about the consequences.  The hedgehog, like the turtle, plods along doing what it does best not really worried about the fox.

The fox is easy distracted and is always thinking up new schemes.  The hedgehog sticks to what it knows best and can handle adversity in a consistently positive manner.

Just like the turtle and hare, most people would pick the fox to win over the hedgehog.  What is missed is that in the race of life, the duration is so long that only consistent work will win.  Fast running from point to point will not win simply because the runner has no idea where they are actually headed towards.

Steady wins the race.

Even better, because the hedgehog is so focused on specific tasks, he is expert in what he does and already knows where things are going.  Even if things change, he will not be off track much based on a more careful thinking than the fox.

In the business world this could be explained this way.  A fox leader is going to be looking for lots of growth and progress.  To the fox leader, it really doesn’t matter how it happens as long as it does.  This leads to some poor long term decisions based more on short term financial gain rather than fitting in with a simple long term way of looking at it.  For example, a fox leader could acquire companies that do business in fields that have no connection with the current business.  Worse than that, there might be zero passion to actually continue these businesses into what they were destined to become.  If a fox leader buys a company for growth, he or she is not thinking about the long term health of the bought company.  If so, it is only from the point of bringing more growth.

A hedgehog leader is more likely to be more picky when it comes to acquisition.  Most likely a hedgehog leader will determine first if it fits with what the company already does and will help the company accomplish what they do best even better.

There is a great deal of insight needed to be a hedgehog leader.  In other words, it is very hard to do.  The first action is to determine what the companies hedgehog concept is.  This takes time and is a process that can take on average four years to complete.  Jim Collins illustrates this with several company examples.

Once realized, the Hedgehog Concept for you company has powerful implications.  It gives focus and purpose and aligns everyone to a common sight of how things are and will be.

The book defines this as a simple crystalline concept that comes from a deep understanding of three questions.

  1. What can we be the best at in the world?
  2. What drives our economic engine?
  3. Where is our passion?

These questions are incredibly important to answer.  The book views it as an intersection of these three questions that leads to the definition of the Hedgehog Concept.

It does make sense.  These questions compel answers that are simple and strong.  If a company can never be the best, cannot understand how to make money, and has not passion to do it, then it will never succeed.  On the other hand, if the company knows what it is best at, knows the economics to make a profit, and is highly passionate about the business, then it is going to be a real powerhouse in the industry.

The message, in other terms, is to KNOW what you are or will be the best at.  It does nothing to state a vision or a goal, you have to already KNOW what you are best at or will be.  This point was stressed and it also makes sense.  You cannot boast that you will be the best at something when in reality that will never happen.  It’s difficult to explain so I suggest you read the book on this topic.

The economics (profits) need to be understood based on profit per thing.  This one definition shifts how the business is run.  If the profits are based on per customer visit, for example, obviously you would want to investigate how to make the most money per visit.  Perhaps convenience and service could be help.  The point is that once you know your profit point, you can work on things to improve it.  Likewise, if it is deemed unprofitable based on this metric it should not be done.  Keep in mind that this metric will be hard to define at first.  Most obvious ones are also the wrong ones.

Passion is the energy that drives being great.  If you do not believe in your company and products or services then there is little hope that customers will either.  In other words, passion for growth and money is not the same thing as being passionate about the business.  Passion is what holds it all together.  Perhaps it is easy to see that a hedgehog has passion for his simple one thing versus a fox which has lots of energy but no consistent passion.  A hedgehog leader is like a strong consistent fire whereas the fox leader is more like a flash fire.  Short term the fox looks better.  Long term, the burning fire still burns with the passionate hedgehog.

The team that researched “Good to Great” found some surprises along the way.  First of all, having a strategy had no effect on being great or not.  Everyone has strategies.  Having strategies that fit the Hedgehog Concept questions is another matter.  Secondly, the great companies came from all different ranges of business.  In other words, it didn’t matter what kind of business you are in, it still applies and you can still get great results compared to ANY company.

Coming back to my own world, I will confess that I am more like a fox or hare.  This comes from years of conditioning since… well, I don’t know when.  Every once and awhile I sense things like a hedgehog/turtle and good things happen.  However, patience can be difficult.  It seems more exciting to be racing around chasing fires.  Perhaps the strongest reason to be a hedgehog is that it gives you consistency and the realization that you are the best at what you do.  In theory life would be more rewarding and also more simple.

Are you a fox or a hedgehog?  Read this excerpt from the book.

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Confront the Brutal Facts

Posted on April 28, 2008 | 1 Comment

Continuing on to Chapter 4 of “Good to Great”, we have “Confront the Brutal Facts“.  Each of these chapters reveal something crucial to becoming a great company.  In this case, it is the ability to face reality but at the same time not lose faith.

Most employees face the brutal facts everyday.  They deal with the world at a level that typically reveals to them the true state of affairs.  This is not always true since employees can be sheltered from real world events but for the most part the employees are more aware than the higher ups.  As the levels get closer to the top boss, more typically the information is filtered.  Something at the bottom that is reported as bad often gets changed into something good at the top.  A typical name for this is spin.

Likewise, something revealed at the top as being bad can be spun going down as well.  It can be perceived that employees don’t like hearing any bad news and therefore it must be revealed in a positive light.

In “Good to Great” this instead means:

In confronting the brutal facts, the good-to-great companies left themselves stronger and more resilient, not weaker and more dispirited. There is a sense of exhilaration that comes in facing head-on the hard truths and saying, “We will never give up. We will never capitulate. It might take a long time, but we will find a way to prevail.”

This chapter is hard to fully understand.  The Stockdale Paradox takes some getting used to.  The conclusion is that you first need to see reality for what it is.  There is no use in pretending.  Being optimistic is not going to make things better.  In fact, it is only going to make things worse.  Secondly, always believe that you will get through it.  See yourself rising above whatever lies in front of you.

So many companies falter when it comes to facing the brutal facts.  Years ago when I worked on OS/2 at IBM, it was clear that many things were being done inefficiently.  There were scores of people working on the project and yet it seemed like such a hassle to get releases out the door.  From an inside perspective, the amount of wasted effort was so high.  There were countless status meetings, mindless testing, dictating what would and what wouldn’t get fixed…. going on and on.

Brutal facts are the things you know are there but cannot face.  It’s the obvious stuff that somehow goes unnoticed and ignored.  It takes courage to face problems that are big.  Obviously part of that is knowing that you will come out okay regardless of what happens.

The brutal facts for most companies are largely the same.  Much like biology, companies can suffer a form of extinction.  As in biology, it often happens because the environment changes and the company cannot adapt fast enough to survive.  In the business world, the pace of evolution is much faster.  The limiting factors cannot be controlled.  However, one advantage over nature is that the crisis can actually be made aware of.  In other words, a company can face the problem and come up with a solution over time.  A creature does not usually have this luxury.  The bigger the animal, the more likely it will become extinct.  The same can be true for companies given the inertia and lack of focus.

Some companies manage to survive this crisis, but they never come back into the limelight.  There are a number of victims in the computing industry that match this profile.  There will also be many more to come.

There would certainly be people at places like Microsoft, Google, and Apple that face the brutal facts everyday.  Since the beginning of Microsoft, Bill Gates has always been worried about being overrun by another company in popularity.  This basic worry has driven him and his company to be always looking for the brutal facts and pushing towards meeting these kind of challenges.  Steve Jobs, as well, is not sitting idle.  He knows well enough that you cannot become complacent and that the market is not going to wait for you to catch up.

Likewise, Citrix has its own realm of brutal facts to face.  It’s tempting to conjecture what those facts are but I will leave that up to you.  There seems to be some reluctance to face these facts currently, at least publicly.

The key message with brutal facts is that you must have faith that you will persevere.  It does make sense when these two ideas are tied together.  It is kind of like an old fashioned movie.  The victim is tied to the rail road tracks and left.  The train can be seen at a great distance.  The victim is alone.  Usually this is where someone saves the day.  But what is the victim thinking?

A) What train?
B) My hero should be here soon.  I’ll just wait.
C) What can I do to get off the tracks?

The ignorant ones says A.  The optimist says B.  The realist says C.  My point is that the train is coming regardless and unless you plan to do something, you are going to die.  At least the realist has a chance.  At least the realist has the faith and conviction to face impending death.

Jim Collins also makes some other suggestions that should help move things along.  The point is to encourage the truth to come out.

  1. Ask questions instead of dictating answers
  2. Encourage debate and discussion instead of silence or coercion
  3. Conduct investigations into wrongs but without blame
  4. Create a safe way to raise red flags when things are about to go horrible wrong
  5. Motivating people and producing vision is not as important as facing brutal facts
  6. Charismatic leaders can hide brutal facts quite easily (think what it does to make people ignorant)

The sooner you face reality to sooner you can progress.  It also means that you get a healthier company that will live a much more productive and long life.

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First Who, Then What

Posted on April 24, 2008 | Leave a comment

1. WHO 2. WHAT

Continuing on the path of understanding what makes good into great, the next step is understanding the value of the idea “First who, then what“. This is the third chapter of “Good to Great”.

For most companies, “what to do” is often considered more important than “who to do it”. It is very common for large companies to treat employees like interchangeable gears. Back at IBM they even had a term for people that did software. On charts, we were often referred to as Programmer Units. I’ve never forgotten this attitude that all programmers were the same. This kind of thinking is prevalent amongst management structures that every worker is the same caliber.

Unfortunately for everyone’s sake, this is not the truth. Also unfortunately, the decision to focus on “what” before “who” tends to skew the results towards failing. According to Jim Collins and his research team, “who” is always more important than “what”.

The logic is this. If a manager is looking to build the right team, he or she is going to have to find the right people for that team. Much like professional sports, the individuals have to fit together and have to be in the right jobs. As Jim states, you need not only to get the right people on the bus, but you also have to get the wrong people off the bus. Once you have the right people, you need to make sure they are seated in the right locations. This goal is tied to the level 5 leadership model since the leader needs to trust the team and have strong faith that most things will take care of themselves with the right people involved.

I can relate to this perspective from the early days of Citrix. We had very few people and were always constrained to hire very few engineers per year. The team we had was strong and even though we were very different people, we worked hard and worked exceptionally well together. We would often disagree but we would always come to a conclusion.

We had an interview process that was very picky. We didn’t want to hire the wrong people. We wanted obviously to bring in the right people and have they do the right things. It’s common sense really but you would be surprised how uncommon this thinking usually is. As part of the process we had the ability to veto people. It only took one dissenting vote to turn someone down. Of course, it was necessary to justify it and argue the point but it was the way things were done.

As a result, we hired some exceptional people. Most of these people made a large contribution to Citrix and some continue on to this day. Overall, we were hiring for Citrix’s future and this process payed off.

Back to “who then what”. If you decide to hire people this way, you will be allowing your company to grow in unexpected ways. A bus of the right people is able to tackle unknown markets much easier than the wrong people. In other words, the bus of talented people is able to navigate much easier through difficult times and wonderful opportunities. It is like you are hiring for any possible situation.

That is where “what” finally comes in. The best laid plans are often changed. Something which is good now might be terrible later. Conditions are always fluctuating. The universe is not constant. People can adapt much easier than a leader can plan for. You would need to be omnipresent to be fully aware of all the possible outcomes.

The point of this is that the right “who” can handle any “what”. Any “what” cannot be handled by any “who”. This is the fatal flaw for organizations that treat all “whos” the same. Replaceable units are a mixed bag really. The mixed bag is poorly suited to tackle the random whats that will be coming.

In related hiring ideas, don’t hire the genius unless he or she can work with the team. An island of intelligence is close to useless if there is no way to get there or back. Also, never hire someone that never admits to not knowing the answer to a question. It is healthy to admit not knowing things. It is extremely unhealthy to pretend for the sake of deception. If you have any doubts during the hiring process, don’t hire. Even in desperate conditions, hiring when you have doubts is going to be a waste of everyone’s time.

If there is a need for shifting people around or even firing, do not procrastinate. Everyone suffers when decisions are not made quickly.

Finally, throw your best people on the biggest opportunities instead of your biggest problems. Opportunities are always bigger potential growth areas and are also the most challenging to get going. Problems are important to solve but do not require your best people.

When I was involved with the interviewing process, I would typically ask very difficult questions. I didn’t expect to get a decent answer but I wanted to see how the interview candidate would approach the problem or idea. Some candidates would answer “find out from a book” which was always an instant turn off. Others would attempt to remember things from school. And the last group would answer using their minds.

I had a great deal of respect for the people that used their minds creatively. This fits in with the theory that it isn’t necessarily what you know but rather how you look at things that makes you the right kind of person. “Good to Great” classifies this as either innate abilities or character traits. Based on the research, these qualities had more strength than knowledge, skills, or background.

If you hire the right people, your company is on the path for great success. If you hire the wrong people, you bog your company down into the average. It seems like a very simple choice. I guess it depends on the environment that hires people. Obviously nobody wants to hire the wrong people, right?

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Brian sees Alice in the Looking Glass

Posted on April 23, 2008 | Leave a comment

Alice in Wonderland

Brian Madden takes a peek at Project Alice based out of AdProd Sydney.  Alice promises to integrate remote desktops with local applications in a similar way that remote applications currently integrate with local desktops.  It is also known as reverse seamless.

Brian had a look when visiting Sydney a few weeks ago.  It was unclear at the time if Alice was considered open for discussion.  Since then some form of agreement must have been formed.

As most people know, server based computing has weaknesses when it comes to certain kinds of applications.  Typically these apps are more intense with their demands.  Historically fast drawing programs or programs with extensive use of audio or video files have not run well on the server.  Alice is proposing that apps should be run where they are best suited and bring them together on one desktop which happens to be remote.

Brian does a really good summarizing this in his post so I will refer you to him.

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Posted in Advanced Products, Brian Madden

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Level 5 Leadership

Posted on April 22, 2008 | 3 Comments

Yesterday I wrote about “Good to Great” in general. Today I am going to focus on an idea called level 5 leadership. It is chapter 2 of the book and I remember being surprised by its revelations. At first it didn’t make sense that it would be true but by the end of the book it all fit together perfectly.

Level 5 leaders are fairly rare. There are plenty of level 4 leaders out there. The level 4 leaders match popular thinking of what a CEO should be. Level 5 is a step up and very difficult to achieve.

Being more specific, level 5 leaders are strong willed but modest. They are willing to take the blame but not the credit. They think of their companies first and themselves last. They are the ultimate broker for creating an environment that shoots into the stratosphere for performance.

It makes sense if you step back. If the leader is positioned to do what ever it takes to make the company successful and be willing to let his employees take the lead. The level 5 leader becomes more of an enabler than a king.

This presentation gives a good summary of what it takes to be a level 5 leader.

You will probably never hear of a leader who is at level 5. By definition, they are humble and do not need to be in the spotlight. The point is that level 5 leaders don’t need the flashy things in life and yet they can build a company that is truly great.

Level 4 leaders typically demand large salary packages. They have big plans that are solely their ideas. They take credit and give blame. They think about themselves before they think about the company. These are over simplifications and obviously the worst aspects. There are plenty of successful level 4 leaders that aren’t at all bad.

It is far more likely that a level 4 leader will not setup a workable plan for a successor. The reasons are fairly simple. The leader will feel threatened by the successor candidate. The leader also wants to guarantee that the company will not do better than it currently does. Bad things happening after the departure make the previous leader look good.

Part of the definition pits personal ego against company ego. A level 4 leader is thinking about personal ego mostly. A level 5 leader is bringing together a company ego. The company ego can be strong but only if the personal ego of the leader is less. The company ego defines itself through its employees. The CEO sets the tone for that energy. A great company will have a healthy ego built from individual contributions. A good company will be driven solely by the presence of its level 4 leader. Once the level 4 leader is gone, the company ego dissolves and the company will most likely falter.

The reason this was such a surprise was that it didn’t seem like level 5 leaders even existed. The media only focuses on the highly visible leaders (as can be expected). To find out that level 5 leaders are always more successful than level 4 should send a message to all businesses that there is a better way of leading companies.

The real question is why this idea has not caught on widely. Should level 5 be the goal? Is there a level 6? Is this theory sound? Lots of questions.

Does anyone know of a strong argument against what was said in “Good to Great” for level 5 leadership?

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Posted in Good to Great, Observations

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Good to Great

Posted on April 21, 2008 | 2 Comments

“Good to Great” is a book written by Jim Collins about the successful transition from being a good company to a great company. What makes this book unique is the extent of research done to find what made companies great. Built from a team effort over five years of work, “Good to Great” reveals the true nature of breakthrough companies. The book was published in 2001 and quickly became a favorite in the business world. New concepts entered the discussions of how to make things better.

The first time I read this book it was part of an assignment back in 2004 for Citrix. Back in that time, it was common to be assigned books to read for the sake of discussion within departments. I read the book and really enjoyed it. It helped to explain mysteries I had always wondered about. About this time, something very unusual happened. My boss told the department to switch to another book. Initially it sounded like there was a lot of excitement about “Good to Great” inside Citrix. Magically, the book was off the reading lists and was not talked about. I still don’t know what happened. There are guesses, but no facts.

The beauty of “Good to Great” is that it was not written to prove theories. It was written to find theories. The research team was stretched to find patterns from large volumes of data. It did not come easy. The cycle of construction and destruction of theories continued during the early development of the project. Only the strongest theories survived.

I am re-reading the book now. It is still fresh and interesting. There are slightly different insights this time. Perhaps it is because I’m reading it from an additional few years of experience.

There is an excellent web site for all the things Jim Collins has been involved in. Jim Collins.com contains large volumes of content to help you understand his books and expand your grasp with writings, and audio. There is even a television program hosted by American Public TV.

How many of you are familiar with this book? Based on the information, where would you place Citrix in the different categories?

To find great companies, the research team search for companies that performed with average returns for fifteen years followed by a transition and then fifteen years of exceeding the market by at least three times. I’m paraphrasing the book but that is the idea of how they found the great companies. Once they gathered together a select number of companies, they then gathered some less successful companies for the sake of comparison. The best match-ups were with companies with similar backgrounds and performance until one hit the transition.

The overall goal was to identify what caused the transition. Along the way, the team identified a number of characteristics that seemed to be common amongst all great companies. These qualities are:

  • Level 5 Leadership
  • First Who… Then What
  • Confront the brutal facts
  • Hedgehog concept
  • Culture of discipline
  • Technology accelerators

This is a partial list. I see this book as key advice for any company that wants to break away from just being average. It really isn’t about looking to your competitors to judge where you should be. It is more about looking inside and deciding that things can be done better regardless of what everyone else is doing.

The pieces described by the book will help to build the model of what will make the most difference to your company. Some of these items seem obvious but only after having read them. Things just sort of align in the mind as you read.

There is too much to cover in one post so I will continue in another one.

I’ll leave you with an audio clip from Jim Collins about facing brutal facts.

Brutal Facts

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Posted in Good to Great, Observations

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XenDesktop Release on May 20 2008

Posted on April 20, 2008 | Leave a comment

Citrix has officially announced that XenDesktop will be made available during Citrix Synergy on May 20, 2008.  This project has been in the works for more than two years now.  It saw a major shift when Citrix acquired Xen Source.  Before that the project was more diversified in regards to virtualization.  The focus on Xen is not a bad thing given that there is better integration work going on.

The XenDesktop hub is probably the best place to visit if you want more information.  Another option is to read the XenDesktop FAQ.  If you are wondering what kind of features it will have, look at XenDesktop Features.

There is only a month to go before launch.  The internal excitement about this release is growing and the Citrix Synergy event should see this energy at a high level.

The development cycle for PortICA is coming to an end.  Soon all the team members will be working on other projects in Sydney.

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The Direction of Flash Memory

Posted on April 19, 2008 | 1 Comment

There has been a certain curiosity about where flash memory is going.  It is typically hard to locate good material on subjects like this.  There was luck on this tonight.  Jim Cooke from Micron gave a presentation at WinHEC in 2007 about “Flash Memory Technology Direction“.  For those of you that love technical detail, you’ll most likely love this one.

As part of the presentation, it focuses on the coming trends with the drives.  Something which has been coming for a while is solid state drives.  I first heard about these devices in 1999 but they were based on a kind of DRAM approach.  Today, flash is maturing and becoming cheap enough in big enough capacity to replace some standard hard disk drives.

SSDs are data storage device devices that uses nonvolatile memory(Flash) and volatile memory (SDRAM) to store data. While technically not “disks,” these devices are referred to this way because they are typically used used as as replacements for HDDs.

There are a number of reasons for doing the switch.  The presentation summarizes this well.  The most obvious ones are lower power, faster speed, more rugged, smaller size and weight.  There have been a number of sources lately saying that this trend is real.  The most likely devices to benefit from this are portable devices such as laptops.

Longer term all systems will be based on solid state drives.  Just like the floppy succumbed to USB flash drives, so will the HDD lose to the SSD (Solid State Drive).  In the near term cost and availability will probably limit acceptance for bigger drives as SSD.

It’s an interesting transition because a similar move happened with electronics in the late 1960s.  At the time, everything was being switched to “Solid state” as a means to reduce size and complexity with the radio tubes.  In general, it is always better to have a device that has no moving or easily breakable parts.

It is difficult to imagine that the magnetic hard disk technology is going away eventually.  From a non-sentimental point of view, it sure would be nice to be done with hard disk crashes based on long term use or accidents.  Over the last five years I have seen around four drives die.  It is never a pleasant experience, even when I do have backups.

It is time to classify flash as a truly disruptive technology that is about to take the market by storm in a whole new area.  Just think what it would do with suspend and resume.  If done correctly, it could be almost instantly performed.

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Posted in Observations, Trends

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BriForum 2008 Justification to Your Boss

Posted on April 19, 2008 | 1 Comment

Brian Madden sure makes it easy to attend BriForum 2008 in Chicago.  Not only does he build a great conference but he also gives you the template letter to use for your boss.

Dear [Insert Your Boss' Name Here]:

I would like to attend BriForum 2008 in Chicago, June 16-18, 2008. I’m certain that attending this independent, highly technical conference will help me increase my own value to our organization. Here’s what they are offering:

  • BriForum is the only independent, deeply technical, application delivery conference of it’s kind: the sessions are 100% technical, they contain no commercial propaganda, and include plenty of hands-on labs.
  • Over 50 technical breakout sessions will cover the latest in Application Delivery and Application Virtualization, including technologies like server-based computing (Citrix, Terminal Server, etc.), application streaming (MS Softricity, Altiris SVS, etc.), and application virtualization (VDI, thin clients, etc.).
  • With so many sessions to choose from, it will be impossible to attend every single one. Therefore, all of the sessions are video-recorded, and the videos and mp3s will be made available on the BriForum website for attendees to view–forever.
  • Twenty-five of the world’s leading Application Delivery experts will not only present the technical sessions, but they will be on-site for all three days, allowing ample time for us to pick their brains.
  • A chance to network with 500 expert Application Delivery users and thought leaders from around the world.
  • BriForum is hosted by the Brian Madden Company, led by Brian Madden, a world renowned independent technology analyst, author, trainer, speaker, and consultant. For more information on Brian or the Brian Madden Company, visit http://www.brianmadden.com.
  • BriForum 2008 Chicago is sixth BriForum event, and it is getting stronger every year. To read more about previous BriForum events, visit http://www.briforum.com.
  • Registration fees cover the following: entry into the event; breakfast all three days; lunch all three days; Monday evening networking party, including dinner and drinks; free WiFi throughout the entire event facility; lifetime access to all presentation materials, including videos and mp3s of each session.

This event is only held twice each year; once in the United States and once in Europe. From the previous years’ forum feedback, it looks like most learned a great deal and would attend again. I think it would be well worth the investment. Feel free to check out more details about BriForum yourself at http://www.briforum.com. Thank for your consideration.

Sincerely,
[your name here]

All the needs to happen is to replace a few words at top and bottom, enter the email address of your boss and press send.  How very kind!

Seriously, BriForum is coming up in June in Chicago and from what I know about the industry and having seen the end of one of Brian’s classes in Brisbane, it should be an ideal event to attend.

Perhaps the best angle comes from being independent.  It is not a sales/marketing pitch but rather a technology pitch.  The truly serious technologist in the Citrix space should seriously consider going.

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My First Computer

Posted on April 19, 2008 | Leave a comment

I have debated about including this post in the main Citrix blog for a few months now.  Finally I have concluded that it is worth mentioning.  Back in January, I wrote about my first computer.  I bought a Commodore 64 in 1983 and it was part of the process that led me to becoming a Computer Engineer at school and later a Software Engineer at IBM and Citrix.

Some of you might have similar backgrounds.  I know a few of you definitely do.

I think it is kind of like how guys were so excited about their first cars.  It’s more about the memories than the actual items in today’s world.

The post is hosted on my personal blog that I split off some time later last year.  It is one of the few that crossover between the two worlds.

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Posted in Fun Memories

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