A friend of mine has just provided me a powerpoint presentation with a clear explanation on the problem for which politicians in Belgium keep on failing to find a solution. It is in Dutch...

 brussel-halle-vilvoorde.pps (728.00 kb)

I recently got another door slammed into my face…

I am certain that most of the readers will agree with me when I state that in our modern times I find it a challenge to create a business and an even bigger challenge to maintain one at a desired level. The markets are saturated, new ideas are rare and what we see is always a remake of an existing concept in a slightly different way. In the IT business things tend to evolve so rapidly… but again, most of the time we see existing concepts reappear providing more streamlined and efficient ways of use, in the form of a new version.

For a business to be successful today a good business plan must be in place with a clear vision, direction and strategy… and unfortunately a big portion of luck!

Having said that, I kept out one very tiny parameter to success, a parameter which value is so unpredictable that its success is again depended on pure luck. I am referring to the ability to trust other people, especially when a business is in a starting phase where not a lot of margin is available for error. For the past two years of my life I have committed much effort, time and energy to a specific cause that finally seemed to start paying off, in the form of a business proposition I received. The specifics of the business proposition are not important, what is important, though, is the fact that this proposition would never be presented if I did not earn the trust of the proposer, through the necessary commitment.

The proposition involved providing resources for a project at a fixed rate.

Immediately after receiving the proposition I contacted every qualifying candidate I knew to query availability at that time. I placed advertisements on job sites, organized job application meetings, made comparisons between at least fifteen profiles and finally narrowed my selection down to three people. To make a long story short, I met again with the remainder three people and decided which candidate was the most appropriate for the job. Everything seemed to go well; my client was also very much satisfied that I was able to provide feedback on such a short notice.

After I picked the appropriate candidate I faced two minor disadvantages, one of which would eventually lead to the deal going south. First of all, from my client’s perspective, the candidate was maybe a bit more social than expected, or let’s say, a little bit more open minded than expected. I felt that his character could lead to tensions because of his over-socializing and I-have-an-answer-for-everything attitude. Although that doesn’t bother me personally (as long as the job gets done) my client would not tolerate this on the long term. It would have become a challenge to find a balance, but I felt I was up to it. The second disadvantage was that the candidate was currently employed at another company. During our first meeting we made a gentleman’s agreement that he would resign from his current employer as from the moment I would confirm to him that he was hired by our company. During our sequel meeting I asked him: “how can I be certain that you will not do the same thing to our company, the way you are planning to do it to your current employer?”. He answered: “for me is honesty the most important thing. This is something I miss at my current employer”. I recognized the risk but I was convinced that the risk was worth it.

Because of these disadvantages I decided to move ahead very fast. The same evening after our sequel meeting I prepared the contracts and we signed them some time later on the same evening. It happened to be a Friday and I didn’t like the idea of letting it “hang” over the weekend. It was also much better for the candidate this way. He knew immediately were he stood Monday morning and he was able to take appropriate action in the form of a resignation at his current employer. Because he was only employed at that time under the terms of a temporary contract he was free to go seven days after he submitted his resignation.

On Wednesday I received an email from my candidate stating he did not had the intention to start working as agreed and that he preferred to continue working for his current employer. He stated that he had had several conversations with his employer and that his problems would be addressed and requirements would be met.

Of course I had made the necessary commitments to my client in the meantime. Hell, we had even created the necessary email accounts, login credentials, batch configuration for building access etc etc! I was devastated… I wished him all the best and immediately contacted the other candidates who (fortunately) were not yet informed that somebody else got the job, in an attempt to at least provide the service to my client that I committed to! Unfortunately, I couldn’t get it done any more on such a short notice. The technical profile of the remainder candidates was not satisfactory, except of that of a thirty year old guy. He told me on the phone that he had to discuss it with his mother and girlfriend prior committing (!!). I gave him a day to think about it, but I concluded that an unemployed person who still needs to discuss such an opportunity with nobody less than his mother, at the age of thirty, would probably not turn out to be what I was expecting. Can you believe that?

I lost the project...

I had a chance, recognized the risk but still grabbed it with both hands, counting on that one “tiny parameter for success”. I should have known better! People do rarely respect another person’s effort in a matter. I see this as a personal failure of mine and I will certainly be more careful in the feature. I feel like I have lost my client’s trust. I am disappointed in people in general at this point. How can somebody go through life in such a way? How can somebody expect to be respected, not for his technical skills but as a person in general?

I took legal action against him in the form of a damage claim. Here is a link to his blog so you can read his side of the story. His story is “Money grubbing World”. I placed an anonymous comment yesterday asking him whether he considered the damage he had caused to the company because of his immature behavior/actions and, sadly, I can see today that he “suddenly” refuses to post anonymous comments….

Do you think that taking legal action was too much? Please comment freely (and anonymously if you like )

Lately I have been troubled a lot by the idea of Open Source. I find the idea very attractive and I want more than anything else to share my experience in coding. I guess this is derived from the frustration of past years when I used to work for I private company where I had nobody to share my ideas with, on a technical level. Trying to share some ideas was like speaking Chinese to a Greek guy! Whenever I found the courage to engage in such a discussion in order to promote an idea in regards to automation (and saving money), I remember, I had to translate the technical aspects into something more common.  For example, a database was a cabinet filled with drawers (tables)… up to this point I was able to find a common ground (vocabulary) over the years and I succeeded in being understood by non-technical, elder, people. But, what about the semantics and the processes? What about the questions in regards to “why must we use this”, “why do they work in such way together” etc, etc. Never mind… then it became hopeless…

Today I am released of such difficulties. Being a freelance solution developer and project manager brings me in contact with people that have more in common with me. I still feel the need to share my experiences though.

Driven by this need I have searched several times on the net for a proper way to kick-off an open source project, without having to work for a long time before having a workable/distributable product. What I did wrong during my searches was, indeed, to assume there was a necessity to have a workable product in order to enter the world of open source software. I finally understood that an open source project is nothing more than a subject you start working on that evolves to a certain point were other people get involved, and starts to follow its own path further on. The difficult part comes when you reach that junction were other people are to be involved, because then you are in a desperate need of “something” that will help you coordinate further growth. You need a collaboration platform I suppose… good communication and a solid goal seam to play a key role into maintaining and supporting the product.

I guess everything starts from the passion one has about a certain topic and his willingness to dive further into analysis, investigation and the realization of that topic. It then becomes a project, a personal project, and after a long time you realize that other people can also be helped by the outcome of your project. Then comes the question “do I want to sell, or do I want to share”? “Will it be for the money or for the satisfaction”?

Well… I think I want to share… for the past several years I have been working on a number of solutions and they have indeed evolved to a certain point that they became practically unmanageable for one person. They all originated from a certain need, one was a request from a friend, another one seemed good for me to use for knowledge expansion and gaining of experience etc, etc. In the weeks to come, I will take some time to think about what I really want to do.

If somebody can point me to a good resource where I can learn how to support an open source project, then, please contact me. By the way, check and see what a passionate man can do. Visit Dries Buytaert’s open source content management system Drupal. I will add Dries’s blog reference to my blogroll; I really admire his achievements, courage and passion. Look at this open source blogging application! Created by Mads Kristensen and Al Nyveldt.