My last Monday in the office this year. A good time for me to mull over the last year of my career and look ahead a little. Tomorrow, I head off on my last business trip of the year, traveling out to our headquarters in California for a couple of days of year end meetings. There’s something that is very anti-holiday about business travel this close to Christmas. It’s been an interesting year, more from a business experience perspective than a technical one. We sold our company, integrated/are still integrating with the buyers, and are moving ahead with the new company’s strategies. This is not a experience without some level of discomfort. Most of the technical experience that I’ve gotten has to do with project design and architecture, and I spent a lot of time learning XML oriented technology.

I’m very much looking forward to 2001 from a career perspective, despite the current climate for Internet companies. The industry is being punished for people with questionable business ideas who overhyped the value of those businesses, with the help of the venture capital and investment communities. The inevitable chain reaction through the companies that feed off the failed dot-coms has lead to the demise and devaluation of the service companies that make up the next rung of the food chain. The only thing I have to say/can say to everyone is to not throw the baby out with the bath water, to not follow the hype back in the other direction. There’s a middle ground there inhabited by companies with good ideas and value propositions for their customers. There are whole realms where the networked world is going to impact things in our lives in far reaching ways that we haven’t seen yet.