Brockmann's been away, at his new job learning loads of new stuff about multimedia convergence clients.
Body: Yes, I have recently joined the exclusive former 3Comer club. It was a mutual and fair transaction that I have come to really appreciate. Treating people fairly comes back around, so treat people fairly and you'll be treated fairly too.
This happened because the organization changed and I was asked to take on new but different responsibilities that didn't leverage my strengths – innovation, passion, focus. I saw this in degrees of frustration. To my boss's credit, he saw my frustration discussion as a misalignment and set the wheels in motion for me to reset my career outside 3Com. Of course, my wife was pretty uptight about it, but I could see clearly that the market for talented technology marketers was very different in 2005 than in 2001.
So, I interviewed around and checked out a VoIP security startup in Dallas, a credit card printing machine company (suffering from niche – itis) and a large HVAC manufacturer. Each offered different pros and cons, but when an opportunity at SIPquest popped up, I couldn't resist.
Newly focused on Converged Multimedia Clients, the company has been re-energized with new products, new product ideas (now in customer market testing) and a new strategy for success. I had worked for Dave Hattey, SIPquest CEO before. In fact, he was the reason I came to 3Com, and moved my family to New England in the first place. So, working for him again is a huge plus. Also, since the company HQ is in Ottawa Canada, I am only a few miles from my parents where I can spend time in the mornings and evenings with them.
So, I get to exercise my small company strategy thinking, learn entirely new and quite cool technologies and expand my skills by taking on the marketing and sales responsibility for the company. What a hoot! I think you'll see my writings expand greatly to include fixed-mobile convergence (FMC), more on dual mode (WiFi-Cellular) and insights into the convergence fundamentals of the fastest growing segment of the communications industry – mobility and voip.
