Monday, December 12, 2005

One down, more to go....

No.... it's not another "Heathrow should be demolished" diatribe. Rather, it's a celebration and time to rejoice.

IBM UK's very own Andy Piper is joining the conversation and you can read his musings here. Andy is particularly well connected within IBM's global community of internal bloggers and I'm sure his positive style and inclusive attitude will encourage many more of them to join this side too (it's not an either/or, after all)

A deep WebSphere Message Broker expert (among other things), he has been one of our key thinkers in the ESB space and I look forward to his contributions in this area. He has also promised to treat us to selected highlights of his past output. And if that wasn't enough to get you over to his blog (----->http://thelostoutpost.blogspot.com/<-----), he also links to some other IBMers who I was previously unaware of. So, what are you waiting for?!

4 comments:

Andy Piper said...

Why thank you, Richard. You are, as always, a gentleman. As for the other bloggers you were previously unaware of, well, I'm always glad to share my network :-)

Richard Brown said...

All we need now is a picture of a cute kitten and the sickly sweetness of this mutual appreciation society will be unsurpassable in our lifetimes :-)

Anonymous said...

I am continually humbled by the presence of colleagues like Andy and Rich (and many others). They are incredibly passionate and knowledgable about the technology and products we work with. Moreover, they turn this passion into the out-of-hours effort needed to create external blogs. These are substantial entities - not just the odd comment and link - but embodiments of years of experience and opinion that are really appreciated by those that read them.

I have an external blog - in fact I *only* have an external blog. My blog entries are rarely anything to do with my day-to-day work, which by the way I do feel very passionately about. Instead, my entries are about my impending house purchase, musings about moths, the latest result of my football team, my like for Stella Artois, and other such inane topics.

I guess I like to keep my work life and my blog life separate. When competitors have a go at our offerings or strategies, I cringe and sigh a breath of relief at the same time. I know I am not going to be drawn into some religious debate about what an ESB looks like, or whether Web Services is the sole basis for SOA.

Thankfully, Rich is there to fight that battle for me. And it appears, Andy will be there soon too. That's a good feeling, because I can sleep safe in the knowledge that my blog will be nothing more than a scary window on what goes on in my mind - outside of work.

Andy Piper said...

I think what you're trying to say, Lee, is that you have a life outside work and Rich and I don't. I have to admit, it's a constant struggle for me. Currently it is swinging well towards the side of being obsessed with the job and the technology even when "off-duty". I'm sure I need to do some work to put my work-life balance back into check.