The Basement Like a blog, only interesting.

Architactile Cometh

My life has changed a lot in the last few months. Most folks that know me through the internet have no idea what I do professionally. Lots of folks think I'm somehow involved in marketing, public relations, social media consulting, etc. (I'm not.) This is partly by my own design. Both when I started blogging in 2005, and when I started playing on Twitter in 2008 I was at least partially motivated by professional dissatisfaction or boredom. Social Media was an outlet for me to explore and exercise the critical thinking skills that were atrophying at work. I've been careful to not intertwine my professional and online life too much - it just seemed simpler.

So what do I do professionally?  Well, I have a BS degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Oklahoma State University although my career is more accurately described as information technology. Thirteen years ago I became the Director of Technology for a small company called ODEN Insurance Services in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I had done some contract programming for ODEN a few years before that. ODEN had about 10 employees when I joined as a full-timer. In retrospect, what we did was pretty remarkable - we changed the way the property & casualty insurance industry works in the United States - at least in some small way.  Our organization researched insurance compliance law, summarized it into a standardized taxonomy and made it readily accessible to insurance professionals. This content was deliver 100% electronically - never on paper (which was revolutionary 13 years ago in the insurance industry.)  We then took this information and built a rules based document composition system that automated the process of creating termination notices to the insured. If you've ever had you car or home owners insurance policy cancelled, there's a better chance that it came from software that I managed than not.  While this may not seem like much, ODEN changed the way the insurance industry thought about cancellation and non-renewal of policies - and trust me, that's huge.

Over the years I was promoted to Vice President of Technology and eventually was given the opportunity to become an equity partner. The job was great for a good many years and the owners of the company, the Oden family, were tremendously generous to me and our entire staff. But the company reached a point where it was unlikely to ever grow significantly larger, unlikely to reach the proverbial "next level".  This is a limitation of many family owner businesses. I found myself with "golden handcuffs" - with an equity position in company and an easy job that had likely reached its pinnacle. This was great for my family but for a guy who likes challenge and change and was less than halfway through his working years this began to wear on me.

Then 3 years ago, our small company of 30 employees was bought by what is now the global behemoth Thomson Reuters. This was a terrific way for the Oden family to exit after nearly 20 years of building the company.  I stayed on after the acquisition. It was an exciting time and I imagined that great things that were possible.  Although, at the time I realized that the likely eventual outcome would be the elimination of the positions of me and my technology staff, I was hopeful that things might be different. I knew that if our products were to get to the "next level" it would be through a company like Thomson Reuters. I also knew that if things didn't work out that I'd finally be done, free to do... something else... anything else.

For the first year and a half or so after the acquisition I worked hard to try to find a niche for our products within our new parent company. Unfortunately after going through 3 Vice Presidents (one holding the position twice) in less than 2.5 years it was made pretty clear to me that there was to be no real future for me or my staff at Thomson Reuters. The week before Thanksgiving 2009, my boss called to inform me that my staff and I were being let go in a "reduction of force" and that our job functions would be transferred to the home office in Eagan, Minnesota. My last day with Thomson Reuters was last Friday, February 26, 2010.  This ended my 13 year association with Oden products.

Thirteen, it turns out, is my lucky number. A 13th of the month marks the births of three of my four children, as well as the anniversary of my marriage to my amazing wife of 6 years. It's only fitting that my run at Oden ends after 13 years so that I may start the next stage of my career.

Oden taught me that I love the excitement of growing a company and that a company needs strategic focus and growth to be vibrant. Thomson Reuters taught me that big companies can be insanely profitable even if they are slow and stupid... and that I really, really don't like slow and stupid. When thinking about what's next for me, I came to the realization that I don't really like working for people, but I love to work with people. I love building new products and processes and I love solving problems - I love creating efficiency. I really despise sameness on a daily basis, and I really like change and challenge.

So after some serious soul searching I've decided (with the support of my wife and family, and perhaps more importantly Bill & Shelli Handy) that the time has come for me to create my own company. I've partnered with an old friend named Taylor King who is an architect and partner at TriArch, an architecture firm in Tulsa.  Taylor and I collaborated on some iPhone apps in late 2008 (published in the iTunes Store under the name Armchair Design) and we're ready to take it to the next level. We're currently working on a product concept for the iPad that we hope will change the way the business of architecture is practiced... at least in some small way. We think that touch computing has huge potential in point solution business applications and we want to explore that idea for architects.

There's lots and lots to do before I can share too many details but stay tuned...things are about to get interesting.

So what's the name of our new venture? Architactile. What else.