Happy New Year everyone.  Be safe and festive tonight. 

We are sticking to Kirkland this year for our celebration and look forward to seeing the fireworks at the Space Needle from the deck.  Let's hope there is no malfunction this year.

I'm looking forward to a great 2009!

I've got a stack of them so if you're interested in a Gist beta invite email me at robertcpease at gmail dot com or leave me a comment. 

I continue to help the Gist team out as they work through the private beta process and am very impressed with both the product and team. 

There is a new beta version released just before Santa arrived that includes full MS Outlook support, Twitter integration, and a whole host of other features that improve the information being served up about those you with whom you communicate.

Definitely check it out.

Merry Christmas everyone.  Wishing everyone Happy Holidays and time to focus on their families and loved ones.  Here's one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite Christmas flicks– A Christmas Story.

Well…kinda.  I got some traffic today from Google Finance and wondered why.  After a bit of investigative work, I came across this screen shot with my post on Mr. Madoff and his nefarious activities featured as part of the blog coverage of the S&P 500 (which I mention in the post).  No idea why or if this one will appear there as well but thought I'd share…

New album by the boys from Tennessee – Only By the Night.  Actually this has been out for a couple months.  Just downloaded it from Amazon.  Suggest you do the same.

As many of you already know, I have transitioned into a consulting role at Hubspan and will gradually be phasing out my involvement over the next several months.  I joined up over a year ago to rebuild go-to-market efforts and have done some great things during that time including increasing the level of market awareness, getting recognition by leading analysts, emphasizing the SaaS attributes of the integration technology,  and getting the ball rolling on several key strategic partnerships.

As with any company, the right people are defined by the lifecycle and strategy of that company so I am moving on.  My interests reside elsewhere and I have several cool things going on that I will share more about going forward.  In the meantime, I am doing a bit of consulting so let me know if you have any needs or just want to connect to discuss something you've read here – robertcpease at gmail dot com.

As there are increasingly more than a few folks between opportunities these days, I thought I would put forth some thoughts on how to evaluate a job opportunity with sort of a "due diligence" check list. 

Scoring high or low on the criteria below is not necessarily good or bad, but will help clarify the true nature of the opportunity in front of you.  Also, this definitely has a technology/early stage bias but can be abstracted to other industries and company stages.

• Defined market – Target buyer(s) defined, validated, and the way(s) to reach them known and proven?
• Defined product – Aligned with the strategic landscape and market needs?  Are different customers on different code bases?
• Defined pain or process with proper domain expertise – Known "problems solved" with sufficient resources on staff with credible domain expertise in the problem space?
• Defined sales path – Existence of a predictable, repeatable, and dependable process for finding, engaging, and closing customers?
• Stable team in proper geographic concentration for stage of business – High caliber, intellectually invested, long serving team?  If any of the above bullets are lacking, all execs should be in the same office.
• A track record of success – Reference previous post on turnaround vs. growth opportunities.
• Strong, referencable customer base – Strong business relationships in addition to service/support.  Is the company viewed as an adviser as well as a vendor?
• Mentorship/professional development – Emphasis on setting people up for success, respect for each team member and a strong meritocracy?
• Authority & ownership – Amount of leeway and decision making granted about spending, hiring, external communications, etc.
• Financial stability/committed funding – Cash in the bank, burn rate, milestone-based additional funding vs. committed, existing timeline for exit/sale?

This popped up in several places around the opening of a new visitor center for the US Capitol.  Like most government projects it is over budget, controversial, blah, blah, blah.  That bothers me, but this statement by Senate Majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada really gets me:

Harry – when your "staff" tells you not to do something, don't do it.  These smelly tourists pay your salary and, odds are, a few vote for you.  This is not the "change" that we are looking for and even more evidence that those elected to serve need to rotate in and out of the real world a bit more.

Somebody show this guy the door…

Today was a wonderful day full of food, family, friends, and great weather here in Seattle (a bit cold, but mostly sunny).  I exercised my creativity by spending most of the day in the kitchen cooking up a Thanksgiving feast for the family. 

Here's what I whipped up:

• Roasted duck – here's the recipe I mostly followed.  I don't really like to follow directions so used it as inspiration.
• Sauce – I can't quite call this a gravy but did come up with a red wine sauce made from the duck "parts" plus some herbs from the garden (thyme, rosemary, etc.)
• Mashed parsnips with truffle olive oil- I'm too cheap to buy truffle oil, but the infused stuff does a nice job
• Seared Brussels sprouts – render the fat out of some bacon, saute the sprouts in it, and add the bacon back – you'll love it!
• Butter sage roasted Cornish game hen – as the name implies, mix butter and sage and roast those birds in the oven
• Some great wine including a 2005 Pine Ridge Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon
• And turtle cheese cake for dessert – store bought, but darn good

I hope you all had an equal or superior feast today.  Time for bed and an early run to work some of the goodness out of my system.

For what you have, what you have been given, and for what others have done for you.  Focus on those things that are real and mean the most – those you love and love you, your health, your potential.  These are all great things.

Happy Thanksgiving!