New DivaBlog

Misplaced Ire

Yesterday I posted about REvolution Computing and my unexpected change in employment status.  My friend and former direct-report David M Smith, who remains at REvo and took a promotion in the same reorganization, caught the brunt of negative comments concerning REvo's actions on his blog announcing the company's new leadership.  David's blog about the R Language is one of the most popular on that subject today, and controversy there is rare, those comments really caught his attention.

I would like to say that David didn't make the decisions that led to last week's debacle, in fact he tried to convince the new management that they were being hasty and leaving important work unfinished in enacting their reorg plans.  I take comments on David's blog such as...

"I'm sure the open source community into which you gained so much insight will take careful note of the way you have treated all the people who got you this far. Summary dismissal without severance is a lousy way to say "thanks", no matter how you try to sugar coat it here.

I hope your future business doesn't depend on any of us because we have long memories."

...to be directed at those who joined REvo along with the funding, and not at hardworking and honorable people just trying to remain employed through difficult times.  David and many of those left behind at REvo expressed their concern and compassion directly to we who were asked to leave and it was clear to all of us that they were concerned by the actions taken and would have done differently.

So while I continue to believe that REvolution just got much less interesting, I would gladly work with David Smith again and continue to call him my friend.  In fact I'm having dinner with him Friday night.

Start the REvolution without me...

Some of you may have become aware of REvolution Computing, a commercial open source company organized around the R Language, when I joined in March of this year.  For the past few months we have been working on a B-Round of funding.  It was an interesting process and I was happy to be working in my first startup company after so many years in very large corporations. 

We built a small team to work on "Community Engineering", by which we meant developing assets both to benefit the R Language community as well as to entice and inform the "Alpha-Geek" community to learn and use R.  We set up an Advisory Board designed to advise REvolution management about decisions relating to REvo and Open Source, and we helped put REvolution R into the Karmic Koala release of Ubuntu.  It was really fun to work in a small, agile team and I felt like I was getting a great education in startups and we were rapidly moving the company forward...Why didn't I join a startup years ago?

The funding deal closed on Wednesday last week...

Late the next afternoon I received a call from the new COO notifying me that my services would no longer be required at REvolution., effective immediately and with no severance.  Apparently, the company is moving in a different direction.

I was surprised that the new CEO,  wasn't personally handling this unpleasant task...but I guess that might have been distasteful after the many assurances he gave me and my team last July at OSCON that we were "absolutely critical to the company's success" and that he would be "making no changes for at least three months after he assumed control".  Personal courage in difficult situations is rare.

What I find most interesting about today's REvolution announcements is the space they spent thanking the previous management team, given nearly all of us, including the Founders and the Board, were just fired.  47% of the company wiped out and nobody left with more than a year of experience...Shit happens...

And so we begin to pick up the pieces and move on.  I've spent much of the past few days consoling coworkers, personally breaking the news to the many kind friends who had agreed to help us increase interest in R and Revolution, and working out what I might be doing next.  I have some interesting possibilities already, although I'm still open to suggestions...so stay tuned.

Meanwhile I can honestly say that the new REvolution Computing will little resemble the company I was proud to join and represent.  I still think the R Language is really interesting, but I'm no longer sure REvo is the one to watch in this space anymore...For the sake of my friends among the remaining employees and shareholders I hope I'm wrong.

Facebook Needs Me!!!

I'm in Oxford, UK today for BarCampApacheOxford and this morning when I logged in to Facebook, I got the following appeal for participation "...so that it can be used by people all over the world..."  Great, I'm game.  What do I have to do?

Playing in the Band

I blogged last week that I had some musician friends hanging out with me in Amsterdam.  Some of you know that I play (well, I try to play) Irish Mandolin, and carry one around with me when I travel.  Because I knew my friends were meeting up with me, this time I brought my good mando.  I call it my good one because it's...well, its sublime to play.  82 years old and just getting better.  Here's a nice shot of the old girl, taken by Noel Bergman...

My friends and I spent some time playing music downstairs in the bar at the hotel where ApacheCon EU happened...and for me it was a rare and wonderful evening because it was one of the first times I learned a tune in real time while simultaneously playing it!  Probably had something to do with the Duvel...after the third one I couldn't feel my fingers anymore and somehow they knew just where to go to make the right notes happen.  What a feeling to access music through your fingers like you can through your voicebox...hard to describe how great it was.  Here's a picture Noel took of the three of us playing that night...you can kind of tell that I might have been drinking (notice the lean).

10 Years of The Apache Software Foundation

This year at both ApacheCons we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the incorporation of the ASF.  In Amsterdam we had cake and singing, and a panel of "Apache Pioneers" talking about how the ASF was formed.

This panel was great fun, and we'll be doing an even better version of it in Oakland.  Nice to stop and take a minute to reflect on how serendipitous the whole thing was.

By the way, both of the above pictures were taken last week in Amsterdam by my good friend Noel Bergman.

Just now I'm in London, doing some errands before I head up to Oxford for the first BarCampApache that isn't tied to an ApacheCon.  If you're in Oxford this weekend, hope to see you there.

Friends on the Road

This post is about how comforting it is to have friends along with you on the road.  This is a picture I snapped last Sunday of my friends Jason and Chava playing at Café de Beligique.  Jason and I figured out that we've known each other 2/3 of his life (a little more than half of mine).  This past week he and Chava stayed with me for a few days to save hotel room costs while they were in Amsterdam.  I was a bit worried about what it would be like to share a room with two other folks, but it was *lovely* to have them along.  We visited some old friends one night in Utrecht.  Another night we just hung out and played music in the hotel bar downstairs.  Normally I don't have so much fun on the road, but this trip was a rare exception.  Thanks, kids!

Designing Better Conferences

Having just completed ApacheCon EU 2009, the conference planners immediately spend 2 days figuring out the next conference...

For some time I for one have thought that ApacheCon needs to morph away from "Big Conference, Lots of $$$" mode.  Its not that past ApacheCons haven't been great, but the world economy coupled with the diversity that has grown up at Apache make it very difficult to construct a compelling conference program.  If we pick talks with an eye to representing Apache, then we end up covering a great number of topics but none of them deeply.  If on the other hand we pick several talks on a few topics we flavor the conference by only focusing on the hottest topics...Either way its hard for attendees to justify paying big bucks.  What to do?

Speaking personally, I'm much more interested in content and formats that are fresh.  As we're reading these carefully worded abstracts, I keep thinking about how hard it is to even remember what my intention was when I get around to finally speaking 6 months after an abstract is accepted in traditional "Call For Papers" kinds of conferences...

So, I've been involved in helping ApacheCon think about BarCamps and other "unconference" models.  This past week we had several Meetups and a BarCamp actually at ApacheCon EU.  Next weekend I'll be attending another BarCampApache in Oxford, England.  We're learning a huge amount about what works for Apache and what doesn't.  If you're in Oxford next weekend...I'll be happy to see you there!

Ada was a Lady

Augusta Ada Lovelace was arguably the first tech writer, and almost certainly the first computer geek groupie. Some folks arranged an international Ada Lovelace Day Blogfest today to call attention to Women in Technology, and I agreed (some time ago) to participate.  Probably I would have spaced it, but a handy nag just came up in Facebook (...see? FB is good for something besides re-finding your 7th grade boyfriend afterall...).

Okay, here's a blurb about a woman in technology who I very much admire:

This is a picture of Allison Randal (taken by the wonderful James Duncan Davidson...the original is hosted here on Flickr). 

I think Allison is the bomb...seriously.  She's served as the President of the Perl Foundation.  She's long been one of the program chairs for OSCON.  She's a code contributor to CPAN, the Parrot project and I suspect some other projects as well...*and* she still manages to be quite beautiful and poised through all her geekiness.  She's fun to hang out with (although now that she lives in South Africa I'm not seeing her so much around the playground).  Have to say I admire that whole "I'm moving to South Africa" thing too...I remember being that brave at some point in my life.

So, there you have it.  My Ada-Day heroine is Allison.  Who is yours?

You Say You Want A Revolution?

Today we were finally able to announce my change in employment.  For the past month I've been working for a new company called REvolution Computing!  REvolution produces a very performant version of the language R, which is gaining a lot of attention with some of the alpha geeks I know and love.  They also produce packages using R that do some amazing things.  I'll be helping them to get the word out and helping them expand the community of folks using R.  I'm especially looking to highlight novel uses of Predictive Analytics

REvolution is based in New Haven, Connecticut, but I'm working out of San Francisco (except of course for when I'm on a plane somewhere or other).

Adam and his Mom

Just had to take a minute to post this pic of two folks I met in line who are so excited to be here in the Reality Distortion Field for a little while. Adam and his Mom got Platinum passes to MacWorld from the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Seldom have I met a fan so excited...and suddenly I remember what it was like to bleed 6 colors.