AmyO's Blog

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Today

It was a week when commitment mattered. I spent 5 days in California with a group of Sun directors - working through a 3-year business simulation to prove out our open source business model. It didn't compute in years 1 and 2. To add to my stress, I spent yesterday afternoon sunning myself at Fenway as the Red Sox dug themselves into a 0-5 hole. Geez - patience is not necessarily one of my virtues.

My Sun simulation team was great - we leveraged each other's skills and leaned on the team as we dug our heels in and stuck to our guns on open sourcing all our software. By simulation year 3, we emerged victorious in the market with the most customers and the largest community. And because we had used our [albeit fake] dollars to invest in our products, channel, community, and brand, we were positioned to keep winning in the market for years and years to come. I believe.

Life is tougher at Fenway Park - no simulation here. Manny was ejected during his first at-bat (note to self - if you're not in the game, you can have no positive impact), and Milton Bradley (why do I think of Monopoly every time he comes to bat?) hit a homer that drove in 3 to put the Rangers ahead by five. I stewed and steamed and sunned, and thankfully by the end of the eighth we were ahead 6-5. I believe.

It takes a team to win - that was clear this week. Sure Manny needed Big Papi, Dustin, and Jacoby. I needed Iain, Denis, Eric, Colin, and Octavian to keep our simulated company together. And Sun needs a bunch of other great people that I had the privilege to spend time with this week: Pammy (your Sox hat is in the mail), Jeff, Bob, Lynn, Graham, Cheri, Mark, Russ, Tony, Bev (17 years catching up!), Irene, Suchitra, Andy, Keith, Lorraine, Pavel, Ivonne, Terry, Eric, Connie (fun bus ride), Dan, Emma, Mike, Fritz, Meg, Dan (we're neighbors!), Karen, Georgios, Sivaram (thanks for the advice!), Teresa, Suzanne, Roger, Andy, and so many more. Thanks for the great learnings and all the fun!

Comments:

That green hat looks familiar! ;)

Posted by Paul on April 21, 2008 at 08:22 PM EDT #

Ah, the dualing RedSox/Yankee hats at staff... That was fun, especially given how last season ended up...

Posted by AmyO on April 21, 2008 at 10:18 PM EDT #