Tuesday August 16, 2005
Tuesday August 16, 2005 Wow...another year gone by. It sure doesn't seem like a year
since I wrote my first birthday blog, but there it is. I'm sure
this has been written millions of times before, but I never claimed to
have an original thought: did you ever notice how the older you get the
shorter time seems? For my two teenagers the twelve days we just
spent in Beijing must have seemed like an eternity. To my wife
and me they passed in a blur.
My staff did it again, this time while we were in Beijing, throwing me not one but two birthday parties a few days early. Yes, even in Beijing you can get a nice chocolate cake and a decent bottle of champagne. Thanks once again to my fantastic team for making my job so much fun!
As for time flying, let alone me, this week will go by even faster, as I try futilely to recover from my jet lag only to turn around and fly back to Tokyo next week. Haven't abused my body this much in a while, if ever.
Happy birthday, indeed.
My staff did it again, this time while we were in Beijing, throwing me not one but two birthday parties a few days early. Yes, even in Beijing you can get a nice chocolate cake and a decent bottle of champagne. Thanks once again to my fantastic team for making my job so much fun!
As for time flying, let alone me, this week will go by even faster, as I try futilely to recover from my jet lag only to turn around and fly back to Tokyo next week. Haven't abused my body this much in a while, if ever.
Happy birthday, indeed.
Sunday August 14, 2005 Well,
here I am on the plane back to San Francisco after a long and very
successful – I hope – trip to Beijing. We toured, we ate, we
drank, and most importantly we met: with each other, with members of
the team, with sales, with customers.
What will I remember most about this trip? Certainly there was great sightseeing. Our luck held beyond belief: almost every sightseeing day was dry (or at least as dry as it gets in Beijing this time of year). The rainy days corresponded almost exactly to business days. That said, it was hot, humid and smoggy even on the nicest days. Our climb of the Great Wall of China was grueling. We probably all lost 10 pounds of water weight that day. But it was worth it. Overall, most of us toured the Great Wall, the Summer Palace, Lama Temple, the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven and a traditional “hutong” residence. We saw “Beijing Opera” – more like Vaudeville or Vegas than what Westerners would think of opera – and Chinese acrobatics. We had more Chinese banquets than we could count.
Oh, and we shopped. And shopped. And shopped. And still spent a lot less than we probably would have in a single day in London or Paris. We found a great tailor. We bought pearls and bracelets. A few knockoffs, but mostly local products from local artisans.
For me and my staff, though, this was first and foremost a business trip, and we did a lot of business. We met the local staff, had two all-hands meetings, worked to integrate the Java Desktop System group into my team, and did all the usual things you do at an offsite meeting: project reviews, financial reviews, strategy sessions. We learned about culture, about language, about the challenges of being remote from headquarters, about how to work better together. On Friday Sin-Yaw Wang, the new vice president of our R&D center in Beijing and I met the local press. We had lunch with a prominent member of the Chinese computer science community and a great customer visit to discuss OpenSolaris (no, sorry, I won't tell you who they were). Some members of my staff will be staying on in Beijing for a few more days to meet with additional customers. Unfortunately my family and I had to return home as my son Ben starts football practice on Monday.
And speaking of family, that's what I will remember most about this trip. Spending time with my family. Both my personal family and my extended family at work. I know this sounds corny, but bear with me. One of the things I observed to my team early in our meetings last week was how closely they work as a team, how well they get along, how little “sibling rivalry” there is – in short, how great a team they are. I noted that this was observed not just by me, but by every human resources business partner we've had over the past year or so.
What I'd always thought I'd heard was how much of a team my staff is, and I thought that was pretty good. But on Friday night it really crystallized for me. We were all at the home of Mike and Linda Hayden. Mike has just started a two year expat assignment in Beijing. Our new local human resources partner joined us, along with all of my staff, Sin-Yaw, and all of the family members who had come along with us or live in Beijing. What she said totally changed my thinking. She, too, had observed just in the couple of days she had seen us how well we worked together, how much of a team we were. But it went beyond just that, she said. We weren't just a team, we were a family. I'd never thought of it that way. I never consciously set out to make it that way. But she was right. We are a family. Solaris is our baby. We're justifiably proud of it. And just like a baby, it's growing in ways we couldn't possibly have imagined. That's the true power of family. And we learned about it by traveling six thousand miles or more so we could be together with our extended family in Beijing.
What will I remember most about this trip? Certainly there was great sightseeing. Our luck held beyond belief: almost every sightseeing day was dry (or at least as dry as it gets in Beijing this time of year). The rainy days corresponded almost exactly to business days. That said, it was hot, humid and smoggy even on the nicest days. Our climb of the Great Wall of China was grueling. We probably all lost 10 pounds of water weight that day. But it was worth it. Overall, most of us toured the Great Wall, the Summer Palace, Lama Temple, the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven and a traditional “hutong” residence. We saw “Beijing Opera” – more like Vaudeville or Vegas than what Westerners would think of opera – and Chinese acrobatics. We had more Chinese banquets than we could count.
Oh, and we shopped. And shopped. And shopped. And still spent a lot less than we probably would have in a single day in London or Paris. We found a great tailor. We bought pearls and bracelets. A few knockoffs, but mostly local products from local artisans.
For me and my staff, though, this was first and foremost a business trip, and we did a lot of business. We met the local staff, had two all-hands meetings, worked to integrate the Java Desktop System group into my team, and did all the usual things you do at an offsite meeting: project reviews, financial reviews, strategy sessions. We learned about culture, about language, about the challenges of being remote from headquarters, about how to work better together. On Friday Sin-Yaw Wang, the new vice president of our R&D center in Beijing and I met the local press. We had lunch with a prominent member of the Chinese computer science community and a great customer visit to discuss OpenSolaris (no, sorry, I won't tell you who they were). Some members of my staff will be staying on in Beijing for a few more days to meet with additional customers. Unfortunately my family and I had to return home as my son Ben starts football practice on Monday.
And speaking of family, that's what I will remember most about this trip. Spending time with my family. Both my personal family and my extended family at work. I know this sounds corny, but bear with me. One of the things I observed to my team early in our meetings last week was how closely they work as a team, how well they get along, how little “sibling rivalry” there is – in short, how great a team they are. I noted that this was observed not just by me, but by every human resources business partner we've had over the past year or so.
What I'd always thought I'd heard was how much of a team my staff is, and I thought that was pretty good. But on Friday night it really crystallized for me. We were all at the home of Mike and Linda Hayden. Mike has just started a two year expat assignment in Beijing. Our new local human resources partner joined us, along with all of my staff, Sin-Yaw, and all of the family members who had come along with us or live in Beijing. What she said totally changed my thinking. She, too, had observed just in the couple of days she had seen us how well we worked together, how much of a team we were. But it went beyond just that, she said. We weren't just a team, we were a family. I'd never thought of it that way. I never consciously set out to make it that way. But she was right. We are a family. Solaris is our baby. We're justifiably proud of it. And just like a baby, it's growing in ways we couldn't possibly have imagined. That's the true power of family. And we learned about it by traveling six thousand miles or more so we could be together with our extended family in Beijing.
Tuesday August 02, 2005 Today I'm off to Beijing, where Sun has a large and growing
engineering
center. My team there now includes more than 150 people, and this
will be my third trip to Beijing this year. What's different
about this trip is that I'm bringing my entire staff
with me. Why? Because to develop and grow a site six
thousand miles and sixteen time zones away from headquarters requires
significant investment and dedication to success. Giving my staff
the chance to meet the engineers and managers at the site, and vice
versa, is an important step in bringing Beijing virtually closer to
Menlo Park. We're very excited about the opportunities in
China. Our Beijing Engineering and Research Institute will play a
large part in helping us develop those opportunities
Stay tuned. I suspect you'll see some blogs from Beijing.
Stay tuned. I suspect you'll see some blogs from Beijing.
Tuesday May 31, 2005 With all this car talk on my blog, you might think I was a car nut. I don't think of myself that way, although as I've said before my son Ben is. So when my wife and daughter went away for the weekend, when I asked Ben what he wanted to do of course the answer was, "Dad, let's look at cars!"
We'd been talking about getting a cute little weekend car, you know, one of those just-for-fun things, for a while. Still, when Ben and I started looking around I wasn't expecting to actually buy one.
The first car we drove was a Honda S2000. Really cute, great value, phenomenal shifter. Okay, I started to think seriously that I might buy something.
Next was the new Mustang GT convertible. Returning the pony car to its roots. Fun to drive, but being so brand new and in demand, the dealers weren't dealing. So let's keep looking. Tomorrow we'll check out the Porsche Boxster and the Lotus Elise. Not that I expected to buy one of those, but what the heck. Costs nothing to try it. And Ben was really hot for the Elise.
Call the Lotus dealer across the bay. He's in a meeting. Leave him a message telling him we want to test drive an Elise. Oddly, he doesn't call us back, but we trek over there anyway. They have two on the floor. This looks promising. But a test drive?
"Oh, no, we couldn't possibly do that. This car is on allocation, and the buyers want the odometer to read as close to zero as possible."
Bring down the $10K dealer markup?
"With the demand for these cars? Oh, no, sir, no way. But let me show you the Krypton Green one in the garage."
You mean you have not two, but three of them?
No, actually they have four. More promising all the time. Take a look at the green one.
"Would you like to see it in the light?"
Sure, why not. Costs nothing to look. Out from the garage it comes. It's really bright.
"Go ahead, sit in it."
"I still need to drive it to buy it."
"Oh, no, we couldn't do that." Nevertheless, it's time to drag out the hoary old car dealer's line. You know: "What can I do to get you to buy this car today?"
Well, we can start by getting rid of that dealer markup.
"Okay, I'll bring it down by $2,000."
"Ummm..."
"$5,000."
"Ummm..."
"Okay, you seem like a sincere guy. You can have it for sticker if you buy it today."
"I still need to see if I can actually drive it. It is a bit extreme, you know."
"How about to the end of the block and back?"
So I did drive it to the end of the block and back, and now I drive it to work and back. At least, when it's not raining. No, I didn't go with that crazy green. It's a nice subdued metallic black. If you can call anything about this car subdued.
Never did get around to test driving the Porsche. It may not be a Ferrari, but it sure is fun. Oh, yeah, and my wife likes it too :-)
We'd been talking about getting a cute little weekend car, you know, one of those just-for-fun things, for a while. Still, when Ben and I started looking around I wasn't expecting to actually buy one.
The first car we drove was a Honda S2000. Really cute, great value, phenomenal shifter. Okay, I started to think seriously that I might buy something.
Next was the new Mustang GT convertible. Returning the pony car to its roots. Fun to drive, but being so brand new and in demand, the dealers weren't dealing. So let's keep looking. Tomorrow we'll check out the Porsche Boxster and the Lotus Elise. Not that I expected to buy one of those, but what the heck. Costs nothing to try it. And Ben was really hot for the Elise.
Call the Lotus dealer across the bay. He's in a meeting. Leave him a message telling him we want to test drive an Elise. Oddly, he doesn't call us back, but we trek over there anyway. They have two on the floor. This looks promising. But a test drive?
"Oh, no, we couldn't possibly do that. This car is on allocation, and the buyers want the odometer to read as close to zero as possible."
Bring down the $10K dealer markup?
"With the demand for these cars? Oh, no, sir, no way. But let me show you the Krypton Green one in the garage."
You mean you have not two, but three of them?
No, actually they have four. More promising all the time. Take a look at the green one.
"Would you like to see it in the light?"
Sure, why not. Costs nothing to look. Out from the garage it comes. It's really bright.
"Go ahead, sit in it."
"I still need to drive it to buy it."
"Oh, no, we couldn't do that." Nevertheless, it's time to drag out the hoary old car dealer's line. You know: "What can I do to get you to buy this car today?"
Well, we can start by getting rid of that dealer markup.
"Okay, I'll bring it down by $2,000."
"Ummm..."
"$5,000."
"Ummm..."
"Okay, you seem like a sincere guy. You can have it for sticker if you buy it today."
"I still need to see if I can actually drive it. It is a bit extreme, you know."
"How about to the end of the block and back?"
So I did drive it to the end of the block and back, and now I drive it to work and back. At least, when it's not raining. No, I didn't go with that crazy green. It's a nice subdued metallic black. If you can call anything about this car subdued.
Never did get around to test driving the Porsche. It may not be a Ferrari, but it sure is fun. Oh, yeah, and my wife likes it too :-)
Monday August 16, 2004
Hey, today's my birthday, and my wonderful staff threw me a surprise party. So this is just a simple thank you to them.
I know you're all waiting with baited breath for more information on Open Source Solaris, as well as what's coming in Solaris 10 (not that my folks aren't giving you all that good stuff already in their blogs). As much as I'd like to give you more, it won't be here today. There's just too much to do, and today it revolves around family: tonight I go with my son to high school football orientation. Wow - son, high school, and football - there are three words I never thought about seeing together!
Oh, heck, I'll throw out one more thing: we're working feverishly to get that Solaris Power demo ready for Jonathan ;-) Stay tuned - there's definitely more to come.
I know you're all waiting with baited breath for more information on Open Source Solaris, as well as what's coming in Solaris 10 (not that my folks aren't giving you all that good stuff already in their blogs). As much as I'd like to give you more, it won't be here today. There's just too much to do, and today it revolves around family: tonight I go with my son to high school football orientation. Wow - son, high school, and football - there are three words I never thought about seeing together!
Oh, heck, I'll throw out one more thing: we're working feverishly to get that Solaris Power demo ready for Jonathan ;-) Stay tuned - there's definitely more to come.
Friday July 30, 2004
So here I am, a newly minted Vice President, trying to figure out what to do with this crazy thing called a blog. I mean, I've been developing and using software for 30 years now, but I'm by no means of the generation where blogs come naturally. So maybe you can tell me - what would you like to know about what we're doing at Sun, particularly in the operating systems space that I'm responsible for?
Perhaps starting out with a few words about me and my organization would help. I've been with Sun for 15 years, mostly in software engineering management and most of that in Sun's hardware division. I did a three year stint in marketing before joining the Solaris organization in November, 2001. Just this past June I was named Vice President of the Operating Platforms Group, responsible for operating systems at Sun - both Solaris and Linux. My team - and you know a lot of them - built all the cool stuff coming in Solaris 10. We're also the folks figuring out how to deliver open source Solaris, and I'm sure lots of you will want to know more about that. So, let me know what you think, and what you want to know. Don't be shy - drop me a line. And help me figure out this crazy thing.
Perhaps starting out with a few words about me and my organization would help. I've been with Sun for 15 years, mostly in software engineering management and most of that in Sun's hardware division. I did a three year stint in marketing before joining the Solaris organization in November, 2001. Just this past June I was named Vice President of the Operating Platforms Group, responsible for operating systems at Sun - both Solaris and Linux. My team - and you know a lot of them - built all the cool stuff coming in Solaris 10. We're also the folks figuring out how to deliver open source Solaris, and I'm sure lots of you will want to know more about that. So, let me know what you think, and what you want to know. Don't be shy - drop me a line. And help me figure out this crazy thing.