Back for a visit

…clearly I’ve been busy… not much flightsim stuff of late.  A lot has happened in the past few months: I took a position with the BC Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance as Manager, Emergency Management.  It’s a challenging and fun place to work.  I’ve also moved to the James Bay area of Victoria, and my commute is a walk by CYWH every day.  It’s a temporary rental while I peruse the market for something more permanent.  I like being adjacent to Beacon Hill Park, and the geese use the open area in front of my place for a flyway every morning and night on their way to and from the park.

So as I balance my life I hope to get more time for flightsim stuff, I’m not doing a whole lot now.

Beware the jabberwocky!

Well, at least beware the “Domain Registry of Canada”.  This official sounding name is a “registered business style” of Registration Services Inc.  They send what look like real invoices to domain name holders asking for payment.  If one is careful and reads the text, it becomes clear that they are trying to get you to change your domain host.  But looked at quickly:

• they look like an official invoice
• the name Domain Registry of Canada sounds like a government organization (I showed my adult son who’d never seen one, and he asked, “Why is the government sending you these?)
• they have the domain information on them (which is public) so it looks like they know about your account
• they state a reply-requested date 4 months in advance of renewal.  Most domain hosts give 3 months notice.  This deceives in two ways: implying a reply is urgent, and ensuring this notice is received before legitimate ones

So if you get one, unless you already have registered a domain with them, let your local consumer protection agency know.  If you have registered with them in the past, re-register with another host: you’ll save a bundle, the rates are outrageous!  $40 per year for a single registration!  I phoned Domain Registry of Canada last year and requested they stop sending me these, but they’ve ignored my request, so this time I’ve filed a complaint with the Business Practices and Consumer Protection Authority of British Columbia.  Ah, that feels better!

Insight into ACES studio organization

Phil outlines the growth of the studio and how challenges are being addressed.  Fascinating reading for those into organizational development.  Some of the topics:

• Studio growth from 50-60 to 100+ people
• Expansion from just Flight Simulator to add Trains2 and ESP
• Product team organization and use of SCRUM
• Moving space
• Scoping back to do fewer things at a higher quality
• Phil’s role

Difficult conversations: turning challenge into opportunity

Attending ProjectWorld/Business Analysis World at Canada Place in Vancouver next week?  Drop by Room 16 at 1:45PM, Tuesday, November 6 to hear Mike Ray and I speak on Difficult Conversations.

Networking opportunities in Victoria and Vancouver

I’ve been having a lot of fun over the past few weeks engaging with the business community at networking events and presentations.  Here’s some of the recurring events that I’ve attended or been brought to my attention on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland.

Selected Networking Events

Check the website or contact for more information on membership requirements, cost, dates, and locations. 

Event/ Organization	Frequency	Location	Contact	Focus/Comments
BC Human Resources Management Asn (BCHRMA)	Monthly	Victoria	www.bchrma.org	Human Resources.
BCAMA (American Marketing Association, BC Chapter)	Several per month	Vancouver	http://www.bcama.com/	Sales & Marketing.  May have activities in Victoria as well.
BC Technology Industry Association (BC-TIA)	Frequent	Vancouver	http://www.bctia.org/	Business/technology.
Business Network International	Weekly	Victoria	http://www.bni.com/ http://www.bnicanada.ca/	Business. Many chapters in Victoria, required attendance and other criteria.
Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce	Frequent	Victoria	http://www.victoriachamber.ca/	Business.
Green Drinks	Twice monthly	Victoria	http://www.greendrinks.org/	Environmental.
IEEE Joint Communications Chapter	Monthly	Vancouver	http://www.comsoc.org/vancouver/	Technology.
Mid-Island Science Technology and Innovation Council	Irregular	Nanaimo	http://www.mistic.bc.ca/	Business/technology.
OD Café	Every two months	Victoria	Bert.Elliott@gov.bc.ca for info, and to confirm attendance in advance	Organizational Development.
Sales & Marketing Executives Victoria	Monthly	Victoria	http://www.smevictoria.com/	Sales & Marketing.
Sidney Breakfast Club	Monthly	Sidney	Contact Bill Cooke for details and to confirm attendance in advance: cooke@ieee.org	Business/Technology.
University of Victoria Events	Regular	Victoria	http://events.uvic.ca/calendar.php  Use filter to narrow down types of events of interest	Various.
Values-Based Business Network	Regularly	Victoria	http://www.vbnetwork.ca/	Socially-responsible business.
Vancouver Board of Trade	Frequent	Vancouver	http://www.boardoftrade.com	Business.
Vancouver Enterprise Forum	Monthly	Vancouver	http://www.vef.org/	Business/technology.
Vancouver Island Advanced Technology Centre (VIATeC)	Monthly	Victoria	http://www.viatec.ca	Business/technology.

Sustainability

At a meeting of Organizational Development professionals the other day, Michael Keller kindly led us through a process called Freelisting, using the term “Sustainability” as the seed term.   Learning about the process was fascinating, and the session brought up varied issues for people.   I was reminded how strongly I feel that (a) sustainability is an important concept to many people, (b) the anger many people feel towards the damage we are inflicting on our planet is misdirected and (c) how the divergent forces have the potential to lead to a better life for everyone.  

Periodically a large meteor strikes the Earth, the last being the Chicxulub Impact of 65 million years ago.  This impact is estimated to have released two hundred thousand times as much energy as all the nuclear weapons on the earth simultaneously exploding, and air pollution on a scale thousands of times greater than what we are producing.  The majority of the Earth’s species were wiped out.  

And these events pale in comparison to the creation of Earth and its ultimate destruction as the Sun ages and expands.   

So if you believe there is a higher power, or Creator or God, I suspect he/she does not believe we are destroying the Earth; rather it is our playground, our school, our home.  We can no more destroy the earth than we can destroy a thought.  The Earth does not need us as stewards; it will continue with or without us, regardless of what we do.  The most we could do is alter it in ways that are trivial compared to the transformations it has seen in the past and will see in the future.   

The Earth provides a microcosm in which we can learn to manage our resources and maximize our quality of life.  We have the option of making life quite miserable for ourselves, or improving it dramatically.  But it’s not the earth we’re saving against some demonic external force.   It’s not short-sighted politicians, or greedy capitalists or intolerant environmentalists that are these demons.  

If anger comes up when you think about the environment, are you aware of who you are really angry with?  Who are you really saving?   

What are you personally doing to improve the quality of life on this planet that does not blame others, but focuses on personal responsibility and action?    

References 

Carnegie Endownment for International Peace
http://www.ceip.org/files/nonprolif/numbers/default.asp
Total world stockpile of nuclear weapons: 5,000 Megatons  

University of Wisconsin – Stout, Department of Physics.
http://physics.uwstout.edu/geo/asteroid_local.htm
Energy released by meteor that killed the dinosaurs:  5×10²⁴ J (or about the energy equivalent in 80 billion Hiroshima size (12.5 kiloton) bombs   

American Geophysical Union
http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/sharpton.html
More on the Chicxulub Impact  

John C. Lahr Consulting
http://jclahr.com/alaska/aeic/magnitude/energy.txt
Comparison of earthquake energy to nuclear explosion energy.J.C. Lahr, Revised 8/28/00   

Making Decisions

My stepdaughter sometimes comes to me with a question: should she choose this DVD to watch, or this other one?  Should she eat a chocolate chip cookie or ice cream?  Usually what I do is flip a coin after she chooses heads or tails.  When it lands, I ask her how she feels about the result: if she likes it, then go for that; if she doesn’t like how the coin has landed, then I encourage her to do the opposite.  A simple intuitive tool.

A more sophisicated decision-making tool that integrates the logic than many of us (like me) like so much, with intuition, is the Decision Matrix.  It works like this:

• on a squared piece of paper (or a spreadsheet), list the options in columns across the top
• on the rows below, and off to the left, list the different parameters and factors that might affect  your decision
• weight each of these factors with an aribrary relative number
• score each of the parameters for each of the options, then multiple each by the weight
• add the totals

Look at the example below, a new vehicle buying decision.  Factors are colour, price, fuel efficiency, etc. etc., which I’ve weighted.  Four options are considered: Honda, Chev, Smart Car, and motorbike.  I’ve weighted price as 20, colour not nearly as important at 5, etc.  Then for each of these considerations rated each vehicle.  So far this is a purely logical tool, right?  This is where the fun comes in.  After the first time you fill in the numbers, note how you feel about the result.  See where you are increasing weightings or adjust ratings to bias towards a certain choice.  That bias may reflect what you really want.  After this pass for example, I might be tempted to greatly increase the weighting for fuel efficiency.  So the Chev Malibu may not be my final choice.

You can download an Excel spreadsheet to help you with this.  The spreadsheet include a blank work area, the example above, and a pretty graph of the result you can show your mother.  The default print will show your numbers and the graph.

And another list of Business Plan sections

I listed in my last post the sections of my business plan, but I also have a more general checklist of sections I use with clients, large and small.

Tips

·        Be clear who your audience for the plan is: is it just yourself?  Will it also be for employees? Investors?

·        Concentrate on getting a first pass at the plan completed, it’s easy to spend too much time collecting data instead of getting it done.  You can refine later.

·        Be prepared to find creating a plan is much more difficult than writing some ideas down, it brings flaws and conflicts to the surface.  Spend the time to uncover the source of the conflicts, and resolve or reconcile them.

·        Have 2 or 3 people you trust review the plan.  If possible these reviewers should have expertise in the business area(s).

·        Keep the plan as simple and short as possible while answering all key questions. 

·        The greatest value of the plan is in the process of its creation, not the final product.

·        Make sure it works: following your dreams may mean operating a couple of business areas to ensure that the bills are paid, when you might prefer to stick to one that doesn’t provide enough income.  Some people start businesses while still employed to maintain cash-flow. 

Plan Sections

1.       Executive Summary.  (The Two-Pager) If the plan is intended for soliciting investment, a two-page Executive Summary can outline the Market opportunity, the business model, and the rewards.

2.       Introduction.  Explain who wrote the plan and why.  Who is the target audience?

3.       Objectives.  List your objectives.  For the sole or joint entrepreneur, this may include more than financial goals: sense of accomplishment, satisfaction from reaching goals, interaction with people.  Summarize the product and market in one or two sentences.  Describe your vision (what will the business be like in 3 years) and the action you will take to realize that vision.  (Together those two components are the mission.).  What are the values you want to instill in the venture?

4.       Opportunity.   Identify the opportunity or opportunities you’ve identified that will help you reach your objectives.  Answer some key questions: how is this unique? What is the competitive advantage?

5.       Business Area(s).  Describe in a paragraph each the service or product area(s) you envision.  Keep it short and clear.  Summarize the business model for each: how do you make profit?

6.       Assets.  For the entrepreneur, assets can include education, training, experience, attributes, and personal network.  There may be intellectual property (IP) or other technological know-how that is important, or physical assets: equipment, office furniture, etc.For larger ventures, this section may be replaced by an Intellectual Property/Proprietary Information section and personnel descriptions in the Key Personnel section.

7.       Strategy.  Summarize briefly your high-level vision of how you will realize your objectives: will it just be yourself and your team?  Are there important strategic partners?  Where will the majority of your time be spent?  Will the venture be self-funding, or need investment?  For a larger business, the Strategic Plan may be a separate document.

8.       Market.  Outline in more detail your target market: demographic, geographic, industry, and the market maturity.  Specify what you think the market size is and will be.  How has the market changed?  How do you anticipate it changing?

9.       Operational plan.  Describe your existing and planned infrastructure requirements.  Include office, communications, web, and any other physical facilities.Include a schedule for operational improvements, including capital expenditures.Describe your staffing/outsourcing plan, including subcontractors.

10.     Research Plan.  If technological research is a key factor in the venture, describe the research areas, how the research will be conducted and the desired outcomes.

11.    Marketing & Sales Plan.  How will you reach your market?  Word of mouth? Viral marketing?  The Web?  Advertising?  Direct sales through cold calls?  Existing business relationships?  What market research do you plan to do?

12.    Key Personnel and Service Providers.  Describe the qualifications of founders and key personnel.  Identify key external suppliers: raw materials, legal, accounting, etc.

13.    Risk Management.  List risks and the mitigation plan for each should the risk occur.  Include sales, financial, environmental, liability and intellectual property risks.

14.    Financial Plan.  Project your cash flow out over two-three years.  If you have financial planning expertise or resources, you may want to have a separate Profit and Loss (P&L) statement and Balance Sheet (Assets and Liabilities).  For small businesses with a short latency or no difference between the financial transaction and showing these entries on the books, the cash flow can serve as your P&L.Often it’s useful to do two projections, or even three (“Sensitivity Analysis”): Optimistic, Pessimistic and Most Likely.  State the assumptions that each projection is based on. Some folks even create a fourth from these, combining these three with different weightings.  A suggested weighting:

Expected = 0.3*Pessimistic + 0.6*Most Likely + 0.1*Optimistic

You may discover you need financing: in this case the Business Plan is how you will communicate the opportunity to investors.  Show clearly the return on investment and realistic timeline.

15.    Appendices.  Here you can provide details for later reference.  Appendices can include education, training, industry and product experience, international experience, client/employer list, work experience summary (=accomplishments), community service, more detailed financial information, support resources or anything else that isn’t critical to the body of the plan, but you want as handy reference.

Meanwhile, in the real-world

With the substantial completion of my little corners of Glacier Bay, I’m taking a break this week from FS for some business planning for the next couple of years.  I want to balance the FS development with my contract services, and that requires that I put follow my own advice and bring my business plan up to date.  So over last week and this, I’ve completed a draft, sent it to my trusted advisors for review, and integrated their sage comments into my plan.  Here’s the sections:

• Opportunity
• Objectives
• Business Areas
• Assets (education, training, experience, attributes, network)
• Strategy
• Marketing (Market definition, plan)
• Infrastructure
• Implementation Plan (which includes milestones, allocation of time to each business area, etc.)
• Risk Management (list of risks and mitigation for each)
• Financial Plan
• Appendices (details on education, training, industry and product experience, international experience, client/employer list, work experience summary (=accomplishments), community service)

Much of this material is fodder for specific client proposals: I can pick out the relevant info easily from the boilerplate. Although all the plans I create or facilitiate have essentially the same sections, no two are ever the same.  I think it important to tailor the plan to the opportunity.

YouTube is cool, but…

I’ve seen lots of great videos recently on YouTube.  But I’ve always been suspicious of sites that have sleazy banner ads.  I noted to day that YouTube is going one step further: when using the search function, 5/6 times rather than getting what I sought, I was presented with a cheesy flashing banner, “You’re the 1,000,000th visitor! You’ve won a Free* laptop!  Claim within 080 [insert countdown counter here] seconds!”

For fun I clicked the link, and indeed if you sign up for spam, plus 6 trial offers of various products, and get 2 households that you refer to also sign up for all that junk, they claim they’ll send you a laptop.

Now I’m ignorant of the law, but isn’t telling lies in advertising illegal?  (Yes, I was the 1,000,000th visitor many times today!)

I’m not impressed YouTube.

Playing with Dell chat

A non-techy friend asked me to check into computer prices, so I built a system on dell.ca, then thought I’d get an answer to a simple question by trying the Dell chat feature.  After no wait, here’s the dialog that ensued.  Insert 10 seconds to 1 minute or more for each Dell response.

Jon>Does the E521 have a network connection for a high speed modem?

Dell>Welcome to Dell Canada Sales Chat. My name is Joe. I’ll be your personal sales advisor today. I’m reviewing your question and typically respond in 20 secs or less so please don’t go away.

Dell>network card is already available

Jon>included in the system price then?

Dell>what is the base price of the system you have chosen to configure

Jon>$668

Dell>would you using dial up for Internet or high speed

Jon>high speed likely.  I note the option for 56k modem is clear

Dell>We would encourage you to use my SALES REP EXT <number> on the SHIPPING ADDRESS page while placing an order ONLINE so that we could get you the order confirmation and the Tracking number right away and expedite the order

Dell>how do you want to pay for this purchase

Jon>not ready to order at this time, thank you.  Just wanted to confirm that the system could connect to a high speed modem.

Jon>If so, that’s all the info I need today.  Thanks for your help.

Dell>you can save my sales rep number if you are ordering in future you can mention so that i will be your authorized dell representative

Jon>alrighty, I cut and pasted it for future refernce, thanks

Dell>Welcome to Dell Canada Sales Chat. My name is Joe. I’ll be your personal sales advisor today. I’m reviewing your question and typically respond in 20 secs or less so please don’t go away

Dell>Sorry that was not for you

Jon>oh, Joe, what will be the shipping cost for that system?

… and I waited a minute or two without a response before deciding to click on the FAQ button in the browser window that spawned the seperate chat window.  The response: This will terminate your chat.  Click OK.  No option but to terminate.

What’s even more fun is that the chat dialog shows the time of each response, but using a special warping function that made it look like I was getting a fast response (dell responses were clocked at 5 seconds or so, when the reality was 10 seconds to a minute or more), while attributing the long time for the Dell response to me!  Most interesting.

I haven’t included the reps name or ID in the above dialog, because this isn’t about one rep, it’s likely about a system that overloads the reps and drives them to close the sale with a frantic zeal that ignores all else.

So the next step?  Find another vendor that pays attention, or give Dell a call.  I won’t be needing that sales reps number though ….

What else do I do?

I frequently get asked, “Do you work on flight simulation full-time?”  Indeed the FS world is a vortex that can absorb as much time as I want (especially with FSX here!), but it’s not a full-time gig for me.  In the real world (aka “the RW”), I provide consulting and coaching services to companies and individuals.  It’s an outgrowth of my executive and management experience, primarily in high-technology; which itself evolved from my Electrical Engineering/Computer Engineering background.  I have a corporate website which has lots more info on what I offer.  Recently I’ve begun to market my services beyond Victoria and to Vancouver and Seattle.

I  have a personal site too with some miscellaneous stuff.  Oddly that’s where I host my flightsim page.  I also maintain the webpage for the local activities of the ManKind Project service organization.  For them, I organize men’s groups, administer some email lists and provide other support.

As well I carve pumpkins, drive kids to the pool, wash the occasional dish and am on the Finance Committee for our housing complex.

Kudos to Webshots

A while ago we were having trouble with Webshots.com: some images downloaded correctly, many stalled.  Customer service was prompt, and we interacted a bit, including lots of technical questions and information they asked us.  In the end they determined it was a bug in how the app interacted with IE. Worked fine with FireFox which gave us a workaround.

So although they didn’t resolve the issue, they convinced me that they were serious about diagnosis and solving the issue in the future. 

Do we like technology, or the content?

No, this isn’t about McLuhan’s theories.  It seems culturally we are enamored with new technologies.  But there are some contradictory examples: television, movie theatres and cell phones.  Most TVs are still displaying video using specifications created in the 1940s, and enhanced and kludged over time constrained by the original specs.  Ever notice how mushy your reds are?  How much the screen flickers?  How lousy the resolution is?  All designed to work based on low-speed vacuum tubes.  It wasn’t until the 1990s that DVDs at least dealt with the colour bleeding.  And only in this decade is HDTV starting to become mainstream.  But higher definition, better quality transmission was possible 40 years ago.

Same with movies: I saw a movie in the theatre the other night: 24 frames a second, jiggly picture registration.  Looks awful when there is a lot of movement.  In some theatres I’ve found focus is a problem.  I don’t know when that standard was created, but probably the 1920s.  Higher quality movies were available in the 1960s (remember Cinerama? although it’s frame rate was only marginally higher: 26).  Imax (up to 60 fps) and Omnimax theatres offer higher resolution and frame rates, so look much better, but are still somewhat fringe.

And finally cell phones: the average call I get right now has vastly inferior voice quality to the cell phone I had in 1990, even without reception problems.  Why do consumers tolerate such poor quality?  And in North America, in my experience, reception is dramatically worse than in other countries.  In Hong Kong, cell phone reception is clear in most elevators, let alone on the street.

So maybe it’s like the plastic non-functioning cell phones I saw on many people in Costa Rica some years ago.  Having SOMETHING is what matters.  As long as it serves a basic purpose and looks cool, then the quality is secondary.  So our essential needs are being met: we can still laugh at the cheesy sticoms, get into the movie plot, and hear enough of the mobile conversation to get by.

Sometimes software is too bizarre to be anything but funny…

Check this out: for my corporate website my wife suggested a different font, and colour scheme.  She’s good at that stuff, and the new colour theme (light blue) looks way better.  The font is a different matter: Franklin Gothic Medium, a standard Windows font, I believe.  In Photoshop Elements on my machine however, the only variant available is italic, not regular, which I want.  Ick.  On her computer, in Photoshop Elements, regular IS available.  On all other applications on my machine the font is available in regular, italic, bold and italic bold.  To be sure I copied the font from her machine to mine, and rebooted.  No go, it’s just not available in Photoshop.  I’m sure there’s some logical explanation, but it struck me as so absurd as to be quite funny . . . in the meantime I’ll stick to my bold Verdana for the sub-headings, and hope for a bolt of inspiration.

Having my cake and eating it too . . .

I’ve been quite busy over the last couple of weeks clarifying and focusing the services I offer, outside of the flightsim world.  I’ve picked up a bit of contracting and coaching work recently and enjoyed it a lot.  Earlier this year I’d hesitated to go the full entrepreneur/consulting route as I recognized my need to follow projects through to the end, and be part of a team, might not be met.  But I’m realizing that contracting allows me to continue to work on flightsim development and nicely scratch that itch.

So I’ve redone my corporate website to better reflect what I offer.  It’s a simple site; I see its purpose as follow-up documentation rather than directly attracting clients through the Internet.  I also may add some other little pics, rather than having my smiling, beaming face on every page.  But it serves as a placeholder for now.

Goodbye iTunes

The email from iTunes I quoted yesterday ended with, "If you require more in-depth assistance, please call Apple technical support at 800-APL-CARE (800-275-2273)." So as promised yesterday, I screwed my courage to the sticking place, and phoned AppleCare. After some time they told me that they had no ability to support iTunes and to email the mswin@apple.com. LOL. Of course that's where I was directed to Apple Care.

Between Apple's misleading ads, their intrusive installations (QuickTime hijacked my file assignments without telling me), and their lack of product support, I do see a company focused on short-term gain without consideration of the long-term effect.

Bottom-line is that I'm using Apple data I've purchased (a video) on Apple software (iTunes + QuickTime) and it doesn't work. I have no recourse, unless I want to take them to court. And I'm not a big fan of adversarial resolution.

So I'll vote with my wallet. What they've created in me is a strong desire to direct folks away from any Apple products. At the same time I see Microsoft opening up in many ways to become more human. Let's see how this pans out over the next few years.

Meantime, Ciao iTunes. Time to find a new source of music!

EDIT:  I found this site which lists other sources. I think one of the reasons it took me so long to find an alternative was the belief that iTunes is probably more comprehensive.  When I get some time, I'll look at these.  Certainly the one site I checked out as a disappointment: it appears you have to sign up before looking at the song selection. There's a sure way to drive potential customers away!

The reality is that if you click "About" at the bottom of the screen it's possible to browse the selections.  Why make that obscure?

Back into the fire

I liked that video I noted a few days ago so much I decided I wanted to buy it.  So I bravely went back into the nightmare that is iTunes.  I had a very difficult time getting it to work (it would abort after being invoked), but after Googling some solutions (the Apple site provides too many hits, and is not very useful), I got it up and running.  I downloaded the video, but it had no audio.  I checked other videos I had on disk, and some had audio and some didn't, so it seemed like it might be something peculiar to the format.

Throwing caution to the wind, I emailed the secret email address (mswin@apple.com) that is buried so deeply in the iTunes support site.  They responded quite quickly with a useful suggestion.  But when that didn't work and I emailed back, I once again got the electronic third finger, "The iTunes Store team answers questions via email about billing, customer accounts, downloading items, and the selections available on the iTunes Store," followed by the usual unhelpful links.

So tomorrow I will try the AppleCare 800 number again.  Last time the fellow was very sympathetic, if unable to help.  We shall what happens this time.

And I recognize that I'm creating a large part of this problem myself: there is competition out there for song/video downloads and I'm not taking the time to look at folks that may actually support their product.

The Rules

I like to be reminded that there is not usually a “right” way of doing things: I get to choose!  In this case a very experienced employment counsellor who I respect had advised when approaching recruiters that the best way is to phone them up, tell them you’ll be in town next week, and ask which day would be best for an interview.  I can see that shows assertiveness and a pro-active attitude.  Then I picked up the Guide to Canadian Recruiters who advise that recruiters are very busy, and that candidates should never insist on an interview.

So how do I prefer to approach it?  I like to respect people’s time and not make the assumption that they want an interview, but be pro-active in followup and ensuring that the connection is made.  When approaching potential employers, if I get return calls or emails or acknowledgement in some form, that tells me a lot about how the company does business.  If I don’t hear back after repeated attempts, I get the message: it’s likely they are not good communicators.  And that could mean they are not good employers, or just that there’s a bit of a gap in the corporate culture that needs filling.

Busy week

Most of this week has been taken up with job-hunting and volunteer work (co-op membership committee and some MKP work).  I realized on the job-hunting front I was constraining the type of position too much: I like to create motivated teams who exceed goals.  I’d put that in a operations/project manager box, but it can be done just as easily in a customer support or HR or relocation environment.  I’m content with that.

In flightsimland Holger and I worked through some shoreline issues, and Don Grovestine has been providing some good feedback in that area.  I’ve added a few more buildings, including the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre arena which is quite prominent from the air with its bright white roof, and some parks and golf courses.  My sister and her husband and I climbed Mount Work on Wednesday, and it was fun later to duplicate the view in the sim.  We only had views to the West, but in the sim I can see that from this 443m peak the view to the east would have been spectacular.

The CBW9 Madrona Bay helipad does not work well with AI because of surrounding terrain.

I also reinstalled Ultimate Traffic this week after a one year absence and that’s added a lot of life.  It’s still possible to bring this machine to its knees with 100% traffic at LAX (450 aircraft in the area) and real-world weather with all sliders maxed. Down to 11FPS or so.

I’m playing with Jim Keir’s version 2 of LWM viewer as well, which could not run on my old video card.  Very cool, although I’ve yet to get deeply into it.