I was thinking of calling this entry "Last Post", but that seemed needlessly downbeat.
Monday will be my last day on Sun's payroll, and I will be moving on to other things - initially setting up my own freelance consultancy, and then I'll see whether that leads back into full-time corporate employment, or whether the independent life is so fantastic that I stick with it.
It's going to be a challenging time, I'm sure, especially in the current economic climate, but I'm also sure that there will be plenty of new experiences, and interesting problems to solve.
Life at Sun since 2000 has never been dull, and the last 4 years in particular have been among the most enjoyable of my working life. I was re-visiting my LinkedIn profile the other day, and read what I had written there in the Summary:
"My goals are to increase the influence I am able to apply at CxO and Policy-maker level, and to achieve the perfect work/life balance"
Well, I suspect that becoming self-employed is about to do all kinds of interesting things to my work-life balance, but I have definitely made progress towards the other goal. That sank in when I was looking through some of the snapshots on my phone; over the last couple of years I have attended presentations from the Prime Ministers of Portugal and France, met the Government CIOs of the UK and Austria, dealt with ministers and senior civil servants from Finland, Germany, Norway, UK, US and the European Commission, worked with the OECD, and given lectures at universities in Washington DC, London and Sapporo.
It's been great fun, and has given me the opportunity to travel to interesting places and work with wonderful people. I can honestly say that the novelty, excitement and sheer sense of privilege have never worn thin. Here's hoping it has equipped me well for whatever comes next.
As for this blog - well, some time next week I will stop being able to add new posts, though the existing ones will remain. Thank you to everyone who has read, commented and got in touch; there are people who I have met in person because we met first via the blog, and every one of them has been a gem. There are others who I haven't met yet, but hope to when we get the chance.
This will be post no. 1021 on the blog, which averages out at very roughly one per working day since my first blogging steps back in March 2005. That would be a hard habit to kick, so you may be either relieved or exasperated to hear that I don't intend to stop...
If you want to follow the racingsnake, you can do so at my Future Identity blog, here. I hope to see you there!
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I'll set my RSS aggregator to grab a feed of your new blog, squire.
Meantime, if you're in GMP tomorrow to hand in passes etc, give me a call; I'd be happy to get you a pint or two and have a chat.
Posted by Dave Walker on January 04, 2009 at 05:31 PM GMT+00:00 #
Robin,
It was an absolute pleasure to work with you and I'd do so again at a moments notice.
All the best for the future and I hope we get chance to see each other in the New Year.
Have a great 2009.
Wayne
Posted by Wayne Horkan on January 04, 2009 at 05:34 PM GMT+00:00 #
All the best, Robin. The independent life ain't so bad - and you've chosen a good time to start!
Posted by John Sandell on January 05, 2009 at 02:23 PM GMT+00:00 #