Drawing and painting butterflies with Kavita

Kavita, my office companion

I love it how my desk at the office sometimes becomes an artist's little nook.

As you know, Kavita is with us at the office all day long. She has literally grown up at our office. At first she was small enough to sleep on my desk, right next to my notebooks, pens and calculator. She now has a baby bed, a tent, a desk and all her toys here. The bathroom has her diapers, wipes, and baby power. We also have a dresser which has a spare change of clothes for her.

She and I get up any time between 8 and 9 AM and, taking our sweet time, get ready for work. We are usually out the door between 10 and 1030 AM and after a skip and hop later, arrive at the office.

We usually pass Auto Spare Parts, Electrical, and Building Materials shops en route to the office. There are a lot of hustlers on the Street. There are the sellers with the wheelbarrows or buckets on their heads or items in their hands. Some of them call out what they are selling "poison for roaches," "underwear," or "socks." There are women selling vegetables or ready-made food walking down the street or have sat down on a stool next to the security guard or shop staff who is eating some food with a tooth pick, picking out the best morsels from a large plastic container or pot. One can also sometimes spot a friendly game of checkers, two fellows sitting on make-shift stools or chairs, sitting opposite each other, surrounded by on-lookers. 

The most familiar faces are the children who live inside a dilapidated building right next to the Atlas Building Materials store. This is a run-down building which seems to host some church services now and then. There are also families living here. We have seen a brother and sister grow up in front of our very own eyes who are always smiling (or crying if they are hurt or fighting with someone, as kids do), rushing to greet Kavita. They are sometimes playing on the side walk, or eating rice from a bowl, or just hanging around. 

Finally, when we reach Harbel Supermarket, we cross the road to reach our office. 

It's usually Musu or a junior staff who opens the door for us. Kavita immediately hugs Musu. I glance around, to see from the corner of my eye who is at the tech lab, trying to create an intimidating boss face. I nod at Haresh and make sure he is not playing online chess on his computer. I arrive at my desk. My laptop is already here and plugged in. Musu brings me a cup of tea and my breakfast sandwich (prepared by my housekeeper, Christiana). 

I check e-mails, get to the business of the day, which mostly involves bossing everyone around and making sure everyone is doing their work.

Kavita eats her breakfast with Musu and then brushes her teeth. Afterwards, Musu engages her by playing some lego games or drawing and painting. After some time, I put on some cartoons for Kavita on the TV that is in my office. We just got a DVD player and I brought a lot of Dora the Explorer DVDs from Pakistan. 

Kavita's voice and little foot steps can be heard all day long. Very rarely she gets bored. I often photograph some of her cute moments.

I also try to make time to draw or paint with her or even play a game of hide and seek. 

Sometimes, our friend, Mitchell, drops off his daughter, Annie, to play with Kavita. 

It's a real joy to have Kavita with me all day long. 

Rainy Afternoons

We're enjoying the rainy afternoons at the office, sipping tea.

Everyone's back from site. Haresh has calmed down a bit after being hyperactive all morning and yelling, "Dhanda karna hai ya nahin!" (Translation: do you want to hustle or not?) And, I've also mellowed out a bit after yelling "Why did you just do that?" all morning. Kavita is also taking a nap - usually - at that time in her crib in the baby-fied corner of my spacious office. 

I subject the whole office to my favourite music like Ali & Toumani or the Best of Nayyara Noor or Tina Sani or my "Oh so romantic" playlist from my iTunes. 

Facebook Likes

Counting 'Likes' on your Facebook Page is like plucking petals from a flower one by one and saying, "He loves me, He loves me not."

So, please love us at New Africa Technology Company. 

Photo Shoot at NATC

NATC commissioned a photo shoot of its good looking and hardworking team against the backdrop of our modern and stylish office. The photos were taken on Wednesday, 15 August by Cachelle Ink.

Getting a professional to come in and capture one's office, staff, and the whole vibe is so worth it. We will be using these photos for many many purposes: our website (as we really need to update ours), our blog, our Facebook page, our company flyer and profile and all our proposals and bids.

The head shots really look fantastic. 

They are all on our Facebook page and you can see them here. Here are some of my favourite ones:

A more diplomatic version

I recently wrote a blog entry on frustrations of running an IT company in Liberia. It was entitled "From Euphoria to Despair to Positive Realism: Almost Three Years Into Running an IT Company in Liberia". 

Since it was more about my specific staff blues and lest I present a too negative a picture of what the actual situation is at the company, I wrote a more diplomatic version for the company blog. It is entitled "How Important is Spelling to Your Business" and you can find it here. 

From Euphoria to Despair to Positive Realism: Almost three years into running an IT company in Liberia

From Euphoria to Despair to Positive Realism: Almost three years into running an IT company in Liberia

Pure, unadulterated euphoria characterised the first phase of my career as an entrepreneur. I had decided to take over the business of my late boyfriend and was full of hope and commitment. The model I had inherited was structured around Liberian IT Technicians, trained by the founder of the company, and Liberian Administrative staff. After working for more than 5 years in a dysfunctional and skewed UN industry, it was liberating to work with Liberians on a more equal basis. They were not "beneficiaries" of badly-run aid projects nor "national staff" who earned 10 times a lower salary than me. In the IT company, they were persons whom I depended on to make the business work and I had finally entered a more real relationship with Liberians. We were going to make money together!

Almost three years into it, I feel some of my euphoria is melting away into dire frustration. I suppose a euphoria cannot be sustained anyway and the ideal emotional state to be in should be one of positive realism.

But meanwhile, a lot of my dissatisfaction has to do with the fact that I am now coming face to face with the limitations of my staff.

I inherited reasonably well trained staff in both IT and Admin and grown to really believe that training and a good nurturing environment will produce a stellar and loyal team. I was wrong.

A year into it, I lost 4 decent IT technicians since their egos had become bigger than mine. I think it was the first crack in my euphoric bubble but it did not really burst it. I found an experienced technician to head the team and since then, we have been handling the the clients to date.

So, where are we now?

Currently, we have 1 experienced and skilled technician heading our Tech Department supported by a junior technician who happens to be a young woman. We also have a trainee who is learning IT from scratch. Therefore, I have a 3-member team to manage my service contracts and ad hoc requests for support and repairs.

So, what is it that I am so frustrated with? Not only do I have a very small team and attempts to hire additional team members have been quite useless but I am up to my neck with technical and professional gaps of my staff.

Let me explain some of my pet peeves:

* Very weak communication skills

1) Extremely poor written and spoken language skills so much so my staff can't even spell! 

Here are some classics by our head of IT at NATC:

   "Printer and UPS will be chick by the end of week"

   " I when online to do some research on how to solve this problem"

   " So I ask Jerry to send a test print, the printer, printed well without any error massage. I was ask by    

     Jarry and Jacobu to chick the printer, because when I leave then the problem can start."

2) The tech team cannot explain in technical terms solutions they apply to problems. Call Logs (forms used to record what was done on site or in our workshop) sound like quack prescriptions for a diseased person and not a faulty piece of hardware. 

     "HP Colour Laserjet 5550dn still give 13.09.00 paper jam error. This was because of the cover that  

      are covering four cartridge roller, they are all weak."

I cringe to think we are getting away with these call logs.

3) When on site or away on an errand, they refuse to answer their phones because it was waaaay in their purse or it was not charged or they left it at their office. 

4) You never get the full story or feedback - there's always something left out or forgotten which needs to be dug out skillfully like an archaeologist. If I am trying to figure out why I received a complaint from a disgruntled client, I will get a flimsy explanation about a particular situation, and it's only after conducting a 1-hour extraction discussion, that I would get to the bottom of it. 

5) I have done the Saturday spelling classes. I have even had an experienced English teacher come in and conduct English classes. See the entry on the NATC blog. I have had lengthy 'workshop - meetings' to go over techniques on how to write concise logs and reports. What has it achieved? Not much I am afraid except for supreme frustration. I think I have just reached the limitations of my staff.

* Inability to accept criticism, improve, make progress and move on

The staff cannot handle criticism. What will happen if you point out a mistake? It will be met with anything ranging from the most fantastical excuse to wounded looks. I swear to God, it sometimes feels like one is a school teacher scolding a toddler. It is exasperating! 

What seems to work right now is a bit of hot and cold, a bit of good cop/bad cop routine to keep everyone in line. No, I'm not talking about running a military camp but running an IT company in Liberia. 

I know I am only meant to be talking about my staff here, but I notice that the Liberian counterparts at our international clients also suffer from some grand illusion about themselves. At least my staff try to come up with a good excuse for having goofed up or trying to negotiate their way through a mess but our clients pull out the race card! Recently, we were labelled racists for pointing out that the contract between our organisations was being disregarded. And I know all of those air-headed, self-righteous buggers are corrupt to their noses and enjoying juicy commissions left and right. 

* Lack of attention to details, severe lack of logic, stories of terminating cables with teeth instead of tools, and serious errors in judgement

I am at this juncture where I am always second guessing the service that is rendered on site by our IT team. It is not a nice position to be in. Is it the right solution? Did we do it efficiently and effectively? Was the client satisfied? Were we able to communicate what we did? Why are our clients complaining all the time? Why did we have to go back 3-4 times to rectify a job after it was completed and handed over? 

Since I am not a trained IT engineer, you can imagine how frustrated, on-the-edge I am usually am. Three years down the line, I imagined I'd be in a much stronger and confident position. 

It seems my staff do not follow a plan but try to do everything at the same time. I have to yell over and over again: write things down, make a list of ongoing jobs, and do follow ups. 

I sometimes analyse the Call Logs my staff have written and, know that the problem was only half solved and they forgot an important, glaring step in the analysis.

What have I learned?

Well, the experience with the defection of 4 IT Technicians - all of them personally trained by Wesley, including open source which is rare to find in Liberia or anywhere for that matter - taught me a pricey and painful lesson. The head of the team's head had grown bigger than Ducor Hotel. I had lavished him with a surprise birthday party in his honour, even inviting a few of our clients and openly praising him in front of them. I increased his and his colleagues' salaries at least three times over. I would bring them gifts if I returned from a trip. Haresh gave him a $ 400.00 phone as a gift - that is even before Haresh joined NATC. It all went into his head and bloated his ego to a point where he disobeyed instructions and then walked out of the company, dragging everyone with him and sabotaged our business. 

I have since learned to have a very professional relationship with my staff including even the administration folks. I keep my distance and stop myself from going out of the way. 

I have decided to increase salaries only once a year. Even recently, I made a dire mistake of increasing the salary of the head of the IT team to a very handsome level but only to see him making one goof up after another, and in the process almost messing up one of our most important contracts. 

It is good to make rules very clear and enforce them! Haresh my business partner and who heads all the operations loves to give everyone fourth, fifth and sixth chances but that only creates a sub standard operating environment. 

Always be on one's toes and keep an eye on what kind of work is being produced on site and at the office. I usually get a good idea of it by checking the files and attendance records, the daily cash book, the call logs, and e-mails from clients. If you don't like what you see, do something about it!

Being nice does not get you anywhere. I am here to develop and nurture a world-class IT company in the most challenging of places. For me to achieve that, I need to really think long term and build a great team. I don't have time for people who are here to waste my time. I don't have the patience for incompetent fools. And, I am kind of tired of teaching my staff how to spell. 

Our supplies side of the business is doing well thanks to Haresh.  He is even back stopping the IT staff. He has even picked up a lot of IT himself. There is more than enough business to go around and it is good we are sourcing and supplying quality goods. It makes us good money.  But I have learned that I am still very bent on creating an excellent company that provides IT services.

Positive Realism

During my spare time, I day dream about creating a West African IT Empire. I see myself as a tycoon lady in the next ten years. In the next couple of years, I would like to establish an NATC branch in the next upcoming city in Liberia, maybe Buchanan. In the next five years, I'd like to have an office next door in Sierra Leone. 

How will I achieve these dreams? 

Great companies create a niche for themselves. Great companies manufacture and brand. Similarly, a great services company needs to invent a service that is unique and tailored to the environment it operates in. That is what I need to focus on. How do I create a unique, rapid-response and tailored IT service for my clients in West Africa? What kind of a business model do I need to work on? 

A good business model needs to rely on local resources, especially human ones. Sure, I can't give up on my Liberian staff. In fact, I need to hire a bigger team. But, with the kind of dire educational and professional vacuum we have in this country, I need to get outside help to help me build that team and to streamline procedures and introduce new technologies. 

I'm on the look out for good local and international staff. It has been a very challenging process and I am still nowhere with it. But I keep trying and let's hope I crack this challenging part of running an IT company in Liberia. 

Office Warming Pictures

We just posted some pictures of our Office Warming Pictures on our company Facebook page "Office Warming." 

Here are some of my favourite ones (what sticks out among all of these pictures is my rice neck, caused by eating a lot of rice):

One of my favourite bits of the office is a lime green wall with a cool clock. That's where we parked our drinks. 

Three well-dressed and very professional waiters provided to us by Elite Rentals who also did our decorations.  I loved how their shirts matched our logo.

Haresh drives a point home!

Our star employee and head of our technical team - over time he has proven his dedication and loyalty. Let's give a big hand to Jonathan Barwon!

Love this photo because it shows an interesting scene. Guillaume Foutry, our marketing consultant, is explaining how he managed to get such good quality printing of the brochures we handed out during the event. The lady in the centre is the CEO of Cachelle Ink, the company which photographed our event. 

Again, it's a great scene and lots of stuff going on.

A wonderful group photo of some of our staff. 

Another great group photo!

Sweet picture of a happy couple! And by coincidence, their outfits matched!

Great picture with all three subjects thinking and doing something different.

Haresh and I argue over who will do the dishes while an important guest looks on amusedly!

I tried to give a toast but mostly forgot my well-rehearsed speech about creating and building a company culture, striving against the odds, believing in a dream, believing in local talent and so on: instead I just blurted out, I love being CEO and bossing people around! 

Cecelia raises her hand because I proudly pointed her out as the only female technician on our team. 

I gave Haresh a piece of the cake! Literally. 

Not on the official album but a funny picture nonetheless. Why has Haresh made such a face, as if I shoved a cactus up his a** and I am getting some sadistic pleasure? 

The official album description on Facebook goes like this: 

New Africa Technology Company (NATC) has been expanding its activities in Liberia and has become a one-stop solution for office IT issues. To support our growth,  we have moved to a bigger,  better and more modern office. To celebrate this important milestone,  we hosted “Office Warming” drinks at our new office on Wednesday,  28 March,  2012 for our esteemed clients,  business partners and friends. Delicious samosas from Taaj Restaurant (7th, Street, Sinkor) and juicy chicken nuggets from Monroe Chicken (Randall Street) were served. Home-made freshly squeezed pineapple and ginger juice was served along with some wine and Amaraula. Stylish decorations and very professional waiters were provided by Elite Rentals. Photographs were taken by Cachelle Ink.

Business Loan Approved: Giant Leap for the Company

Celebrate your happiness with a chocolate cigar. 

My company (New Africa Technology Company) has made a great leap forward today. We had our loan approved and I signed the offer this morning at the branch close to our office. It is a small loan: $ 20,000.00. I say small because we have taken a lot of credit from the local and overseas market and, have spent a lot of money on building our new office. Most of the loan will be used to pay the market but we have agreed among ourselves to use a portion of the funds to invest back into the business. We will probably import some hardware and software and we have some great ideas already. 

The payment terms cover a period of six months. The interest is 13.5% per annum and 4% flat (processing and documentation fees). The interest is quite high to say the least. 

The whole process from the initial discussions to application; from site visits from the bank to following up every single day and so on, has taken around a month which is not so bad at all. 

Haresh and I have been kicking ourselves for not asking for more but it is a start.  

It felt so good to sign the documentation this morning. I came back to my desk and immediately lit one of my vanilla mini cigars! Haresh also got inspired to have a celebratory smoke even though he has weak lungs. 

I feel like using phrases such as "Liberia is booming;" "There's a good borrowing climate in Liberia;" "Prospects for technology goods and services are quite high." They always sound so impressive and financial.

We are really very excited about the future growth of our company and the kind of heights we are envisioning for ourselves: IT tycoons of West Africa; getting into software development (developing our own OS and making billions out of it); building an R&D Centre; and much more, as far as the imagination stretches. 

I feel rich already!

I don't have a picture for this post but it does remind me of Charlie Brown distributing chocolate cigars when he gets a new baby sister, Sally. I've tried to google that moment and get a picture but simply can't find it. I guess my googling skills are badly wanting.

Meanwhile, I remembered that lo and behold, I actually have a chocolate cigar myself! It's a beautifully presented black praline cigar and I have one left. Here's a picture of my chocolate cigar and mini vanilla cigar taken with my Photo Booth on my Macbook, upside down.

Haresh and I will pose for a photo with our cigars some other day. I am sure there will many more moments of celebration which will call for chocolate cigars.

The bizarre trends of our monthly light bills

The LEC bill came in yesterday and it was $ 458.00 - $ 157.00 cheaper than last month's bill. Here's what it looks like:

After having steadily increased every month, it is a relief to see that the bill is not climbing any more and who knows these ridiculous numbers may even start to retreat and we can have the pleasure of paying what we are consuming. 

See below the bizarre trends of our LEC bills since 2009:

2009

November 2009 - $ 139.40 ^

December 2009 - $ 397.21

2010

January 2010 - $ 240.54 *

February 2010 - $ 177.15

March 2010 - $ 271.89

April 2010 - $ 237.17

May 2010 - $ 206.79

June 2010 - $ 222.95

July 2010 - $ 246.65

August 2010 - $ 174.49

September 2010 - $ 187.21

October 2010 - can't find the bill

November 2010 - $311.96

December 2010 - $523.66

2011

January 2011 - $ 424.41

February 2011 - $ 484.39

March 2011 - $ 578.84

April 2011 - $ 614.18

May 2011 - $ 458.80

Can anyone make sense of it? It keeps jumping up and down. We have not increased consumption and it has more or less remained consistent. And more over, during some of these months, LEC might have been out for 2 days at a time due to some transformer breaking down or a thunder storm. Or we kept getting robbed and were cut off from the LEC for days at a time. 

Writing letters to the LEC is quite a useless exercise - a complete waste of paper and ink. Visiting the LEC is also a waste of time and money if you want to ask them why your light bill is higher than last month.  They do have a hotline to call up in case there is an outage and you'd like to confirm whether indeed the light is out in your area or to get an estimate when it would be back.  The LEC hotline number used to be always on our quick dial but the service has improved over time and we have learned to 'guesstimate' on what's going on. 

There was the time when the light was out and we drove all the way to the LEC offices in Bushrod Island to request them to just put our apartment back on - we reached an 'understanding' and sure enough after one hour a special crew was dispatched to connect our place to the street light. That did the trick and we could sleep in peace instead of being devoured by mosquitos and exhausted by the humidity. This was before the back up generator. 

Recently out of frustration because of the $ 500 + light bills, we asked an LEC field technician to take our meter to the lab to see if there was something wrong with it. He took good unofficial money from us but whatever hocus pocus he performed on it did not help. 

We have tried all that we could - bribery, sending our staff everyday, visiting the offices ourselves, turning off appliances and lights when not needed, writing letters, investigating what's going on by asking neighbours and friends and so on. 

All in all, clearly, it's a badly-run organisation and our monthly bills do not reflect actual consumption. Apparently, it's a problem all around. The truth is that we are actually paying the same as running a generator. Our back up generator would probably wear out and we'd have to be spending money on maintaining it. Plus, it's too noisy as it right outside our office. The other option could be purchase electricity from someone who is running such a service. It would be slightly more expensive. 

What's more, the LEC is a giant generator itself. This isn't hydro-electric or nuclear power we are talking about. I do not see nuclear power coming any time soon to Liberia but it is reasonable to think that eventually Liberia will go back to hydro-electric power like in the past. That should bring down tariff's. Until then, we have to take the bullet.

Let's hope the bill next month is even lower and we can fall back into an average bill between $ 200 - $ 300/month. 

^ The air conditioner got damaged during the first month of the connection because of a power surge. 

* This is the month during which we got disconnected because we were late in paying the bill and had to spend about $ 150.00 to get ourselves re-connected. 

Randall Street Blues!

"....the LEC is expensive, is apparently easy to steal, has poor customer service, and takes forever to get a connection. "

This morning, our poor new neighbours had their LEC cables stolen. We only found out about this skullduggery because our Janitor/Security, Mr. Joseph Dennis, had gone upstairs to check on the water levels in our water tank and saw that the wires had been cut. 

Our neighbours only got the LEC connection only about a week ago before these sadistic buggers stole the cable. Moreover, the landlord has just recently built a new perimeter wall at the back of the building and installed razor wire across it. We ourselves have installed free-hanging bulbs at the back of our apartment so the back yard is brightly lit at night! These petty thieves keep outwitting us! 

This brings back the nightmarish episode of December last year when our office/apartment's LEC cables were stolen about 3 times in one week! 

See here http://potatogreens.blogspot.com/2010/12/heist-4.html.

Since we applied our solution of burying the cables in a trench, the wires have not been stolen again. 

Overall, our experience with the LEC is mixed. On one hand, it is nice not to depend on generators as an electricity source. Generators are noisy, have to be constantly serviced and fuel is expensive. It is almost $ 5/gallon at the moment. Also, getting electricity through a public entity, gives one a sense of normalcy in a country coming out of a civil war. Lastly, we are usually on for most of the time and outages are getting less and less frequent. And how can I forget, the bill always comes on time, on the dot!

On the other hand, the LEC is expensive, is apparently easy to steal, has poor customer service, and takes forever to get a connection. 

Apparently - it is not so dangerous at all!
Ask us - the residents of Randall Street!

Our bill, for instance, has steadily increased from about $ 200/month to $ 600/month without any increase in consumption! All efforts to ask the LEC to investigate the issue have resulted in nothing and we are frustrated as ever. Apparently, many other consumers on Randall Street are complaining of the same thing. An LEC field technician suggested our meter was damaged and needed to be repaired. The meter went to the lab and re-installed. However, when the bill came at the end of the month, it was higher than even before, following the same devastating trend since December last year.  Also, apparently, we do not get 220 Volts but a few Volts less than that - at least that is what an air conditioner supplier told us when he tried to convince us his faulty AC was OK and our electricity supply was at fault. 

All in all, it is difficult to have complete and reliable information in a place like Liberia. Your guess is as good as mine regarding whether LEC tarriff's have indeed increased or not, whether or not we are getting 220 Volts or not and so on.

Public entities are struggling to re-establish themselves and provide service. They are trying to keep the public informed but need to do a better job. 

Meantime, let's hope the neighbours get their light restored before nightfall tonight! I've asked the landlord to deduct these expenses from their next rent but I doubt he will agree!

Just the other day I was cursing the landlord for a badly-leaking roof that covers the main courtyard of the building and promptly tripped and fell on my nose. 

Here are a few articles about the LEC: 

i) http://allafrica.com/stories/201006241009.html

24 June 2010

"The Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC) has disclosed that Liberia's electricity generation capacity will more than double within the next year from 10-megawatts to 23-megawatts" 

ii) http://www.theinquirer.com.lr/story.php?record_id=2618&sub=14

"Liberia has selected Canada's Manitoba Hydro International(MHI) Ltd. for a five-year management contract to help rebuild and improve electricity services in Monrovia and to connect at least 30,000 new customers in the city. "

iii) http://www.libelcorp.com/history.htm

You can visit the LEC website however only the History page has any information. 

Running a business can be stressful. Sometimes it really gets to me - especially when things don't go my way.

Running a business can be stressful. Sometimes it really gets to me - especially when things don't go my way. 

I am really impatient so that probably drives up my stress levels. 

I can lose my temper in a second. 

I am really moody so that does not help either. Of course, if things go my way, that helps my mood. Regular supply of Earl Grey tea and chocolates and DVDs also helps. 

Running a business requires one to be skilled at human resources, management, administration, finance, marketing, bluffing, negotiating, and socialising. So suffice to say, I have had a big learning curve this year. Except for being a naturally bossy person, I had to learn the rest. 


If you want to do business, you have to be optimistic. I have to still work on that but yes, you have to think positively about your prospects, the economy, the potential, the potential in people, the potential in yourself and so on. 

I still have not fine tuned my 'Keeping my friends close and enemies even closer' technique, either. I keep doing the opposite. 

I sometimes forget to see the bigger picture. And what's the bigger picture anyway? That I have had the most fun in my LIFE running a business. It is challenging, difficult, frustrating, rewarding and so freaking COOL. I get to use all parts of my head. And, don't forget the heart. Unless your heart is not in it, it's no fun. 

What's more, if you strictly chase the money without thinking about actually building a company, a culture, a team, you will not have the pleasure and sense of achievement of having built something. So, you need a vision. 

So yes, I do get incredibly frustrated and FED UP but it is part of the fun. At the end of the day, I get to deal with all kinds of situations and circumstances which teach me about markets, prices, customer expectations, making a deal, people, dynamics and myself. 

I have a great company, a brilliant vision, a cool bunch of techies and staff, world-class clients (WORLD CLASS), and some world-class projects already under my belt. 

So here's me looking a bit more content with myself and my world which I can't wait to take: