Simon Barratt

Smoking Mess

The core of the FMC GIT 2005 meeting is over, just a few regional focussed meetings going on.

This is the first time I really would of appreciated the No smoking laws, that have been passed in various parts of the world (There is talk of passing this law in Philadelphia, but nothing yet). Everywhere you went smelt of smoke, including my non smoking room.  I can only guess that the ventilation system could not cope with the pollution and ended up recycling it back in to the hotel.

We met/stayed in the Trump Taj Mahal (I claimed the plaze!), which apart from the above, is a pretty good location.  The train service from Philadelphia is cheap ($7.25 each way) and convenient.  And, once you get there, there are plenty of options to entertain yourself with.  The House of Blues complex was very impressive.  A variety of bars/restaurants, concert halls and clubs!

The meeting was a success and great opportunity to meet up with my colleagues from around the world.  I think there was better than usual attendance this year.  It was good to hear feedback from the business units on how important a role IT plays in their plans.  And, based on how our business runs, keeping the cost of our IT infrastructure down is of key importance.  Currently we consume about 2.x% of revenue.

I enjoyed having the opportunity to present on some of the current/emerging collaborative technologies and how they could help FMC.  Exploring how Wikis can improve project/departmental efficiencies, and blogging can be used to engage ourselves more with our customers.  Explaining how important a role embedded status/presence/geographic awareness will play, as we strive to streamline our internal processes.  And how, internal communications can be improved by adding RSS channels to facilitate the timely distribution of information from many of our key business applications.

This was also the first formal presentation, to such a large audience, discussing the status of our migration from Lotus to Microsoft technologies.  As you can imagine, there are many concerns from the businesses/plants about the impact of such a migration.  The key concern being the amount of custom applications we currently use and how they will factor in the 'new world'.  There is no simple answer to this, but a commitment to ensuring that nothing breaks and that each key application is planned and catered for is very high in my mind and priorities.

I have posted about 100 photos to the git2005 Flickr Photo Stream, and hopefully other camera laden attendees will do the same.  These help capture the lighter side of the meeting!!!!