September 2011

Today was the last work day here for my young colleague and friend Hokan.  Hokan came to us as a high school student and stayed for what you might call his ‘gap year’.

In that time, Hokan has had some role in every product we’ve published, every web site we’ve put up, most of the sys admin work we’ve done, and many of our consulting projects.  To say that he is a bright, versatile, and talented young man is to laughably understate the case.

We know that he needs to move on to his next adventure and wish him well.  I, personally, will miss him enormously.  But he has left us with some great foundations — code, process, and infrastructure — to build on.

Thank you, Hokan!

At the end of last week, I afforded myself the treat of attending the second annual Wyoming Biotech Conference. This event is seriously off-topic for me, having nothing to do with my start-up software company’s current focus on building mobile apps for field data collection and problem reporting. But it’s a great thing to get out of the office and hear directly from people going after Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals, especially in fields far away from one’s own. And, to be honest, Wyoming operates a bit like a small company, with our academics and government employees wearing many hats, so even at an ‘off topic’ conference, one can do a lot of useful networking.

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