Heuristic thinking
My new employer is Heuristic Solutions, and I am starting as the Software Solutions Lead today.
(I blurred the phone numbers and email address to avoid spam, but if you want to know what they are, just contact me).
Heuristic Solutions made me an offer that was just too good to turn down. We are a very small consulting firm, but also a product company. Heuristic Solutions is the company behind Learning Builder, a leading online credentialing management platform. However, I won't be on the product team. Instead, I'm coming on to help grow the consulting practice. In my view, a consultant company that also builds and sells a product (or a product company that also has a consulting practice, depending on how you look at it) is in a very strong position. I won't go into it too much, but imagine the talent that you can develop and attract when you can offer experience in a variety of technologies and industries, and then apply that experienced talent to your own product. And, more practically, think about the diversification of revenue sources.
Anyway, the opportunity to lead the consulting practice for a company positioned like Heuristic is positioned is just something that I couldn't say no to. I'll still be working remotely (though probably travelling a bit more than I was with Zimbra). Just like when I started with Telligent, I'm a little scared! I have some pretty ambitious goals for myself and for Heuristic, and I've left one of the best jobs of my career to take on a whole bunch of new responsibilities and risks.
However, it's a challenge that I think I'm ready for. I'll be a coworker with the inimitable Seth Petry-Johnson (though he's on the product side), and after extensive talks with founder Christopher Butcher, I'm very happy about the Heuristic philosophy and the direction that he wants to take Heuristic.
(I'm even fond of the company name: Heuristic Solutions. In software, there is no silver bullet that solves everything; there is a instead a series of heuristics that usually represent the optimal course of action. These heuristics almost never become "laws", and always remain open to augmentation.)
