Nearly two weeks ago, several different things came together that helped lead me in a new and exciting direction in my professional life. I've stepped down as the chief architect at ShareSquared and will be starting my own company.
Over the past few years, it seems that I've been slowly but surely working with smaller and smaller companies so that I can learn the ins/outs of running a business (Boeing -> Microsoft -> ShareSquared). My three year run as the Lead Architect at ShareSquared has provided me with good insight and confidence. Starting with a technical team of 1 person (me) back in March of 2007, I was able to help the company expand its technical staff up to 8 people.
Having been a part of a company building experience and with the encouragement of family and friends, the time seemed right to invest my efforts into something that I could call my own.
Although there are still some formal legalities to get out of the way, the plan is pretty simple ... start a goat renting business.
Oh wait… I don't have any goats and it seems that I'm already too late (here's a YouTube video of a local commercial). And for the record, I've seen their work first hand... what a neat way to cut down vegetation.
Seriously, though, I will continue to work with that little thing called SharePoint. It's been fun and will continue to be so with the imminent arrival of SharePoint 2010. I look forward to working with various friends as the company grows.
With a new direction, comes plans and a commitment to reinvigorate my blog and the site. Over the coming weeks, expect a complete makeover. The whole website is a carry over/migration from a WSS 2003 site that I threw up one weekend back in spring of 2004. It's time to change over to new structures and a new look while parsing out some of the old code offerings that haven't been touched in quite some time.
I'm even going to join this new micro-blogging thing called Twitter. Yup, weirder things have happened ... but who knew you'd be able to know me as @mauriceprather.
Looking forward to the next adventure!
-Maurice