I can’t believe that I’m at this fine company, working with such wonderful people, for four months, and only now writing my first blog! Bad Bob!! That behavior will have to change right away.
Let’s begin with some first impressions…
Everyone across the board – in every department – made me feel quite welcome. As it’s always tough to start a new job, particularly in a senior role, this helped to ease my transition and was much appreciated. If anything, rather than worrying about whether people wanted me aboard, I concentrating on how quickly I might contribute to the company’s growing success.
At DotNetNuke I discovered people who are very passionate about the company and the product. Logo’d tattoos, awards, screen savers, blogs, posters, etc. are everywhere. And mind you, no one cares about the unusual (according to my wife) company name! (Actually, Canadian and US Immigration officials do find the company name a bit concerning.) More importantly, the engineers at DotNetNuke Corp. are energetic, smart, and committed. They are not out to merely make the products work, but see them deliver a wide array of customer value and satisfaction. This is a really healthy attitude!
Some of you reading my post might think that I’m just referring to paying customers, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Throughout Engineering, there is recognition of the value that the open source community adds. In fact, if anything, there is a desire to reinvigorate community involvement – something I’m very keen on doing. (More on that topic in a different post.)
We have our work cut out for us. DotNetNuke v6.0 was a major step forward in the product’s evolution and v6.1 brought another wave in the form of mobility and client performance improvements. What comes next won’t be too shabby either! Furthermore, we are making a variety of internal process improvements to further improve quality, team execution, and innovation all of which should result in lots of customer value. And yes, the community will benefit as well as participate.
As earlier mentioned, I’m late to the blog party. Stay tuned for more musings on Engineering operations, technologies, products, etc.
And thanks for making feel so welcome at DotNetNuke – I’m super glad to be here!