What a year that was!
Posted on January 11th, 2012 by Paul McArdle – 2 CommentsA few weeks off over the Christmas and New Year break has given me some time to reflect on the year that was, in 2011.
We started that year very wet, and with a few jitters as well (with floodwaters from the Brisbane river threatening our offices).
At the end of the day, our office escaped any inundation (whew!), though we lost quite a bit of productive time waiting for power to be reconnected, and sorting through everything that had been hurriedly packed for the evacuation (still not finished unpacking, to tell the truth).
The important point to note here, however, is that through it all we continued to (seamlessly) supply data feed to hundreds of people around Australia, and across a number of continents – testament to the numerous layers of redundancy built into our processes, and the resilience of our people.
Despite the hiccup early in 2011, Derrick and his Development Team managed to gather up considerable momentum in the release of numerous upgrades to our ez2view product for traders in Australia’s National Electricity Market (using our Agile development methodology):
One of the things we’ve not had time to do is significantly revamp the information online about this product – but there is something here.
In addition to this primary focus, we also managed to complete a number of other projects, including:
(a) the release of NEM-Review 6.3 (providing our clients a way to analyse the output of a broader range of wind farms, amongst other things);
(b) the release of an upgrade to our deSide® product, focused on further enhancing the reliability and timeliness of the data feed;
(c) the long-awaited update of the “Power Supply Schematic” and “Power Trading Schematic” Market Map wall charts (which were happily snapped up by a broad array of clients); and
(d) A couple of other new initiatives that it’s a little too early to speak about, yet.
To complete all this, we added a number of people to our Development Team, which is really starting to hum (thanks, guys!).
As a result of our efforts, we welcomed a significant number of new clients to our customer base, and were (as always) delighted to be able to renew scores of our existing clients. We thank you all for giving us the opportunity to serve!
Additionally, we were also able to initiate a number of other initiatives with 3rd parties where we found our interests in common – and we look forward to seeing these deliver benefits to clients (in making the market more understandable) in the weeks and months ahead.
It wasn’t all wine and roses this year, though:
(a) we’ve continue to sing “The Bootstrapper’s Blues” on occasions, and
(b) have been reminded that “right people on the bus” will always be a challenge, but one we need to continue getting right.
(c) some of our initiatives have not cleared the boundary rope (indeed, some did not get out of the starters gate) – though I don’t know how any other approach will work, other than iterating through little bets.
All-in-all, though, the year was a pretty good one (perhaps more half-full than half-empty).
So I turned off numerous electronic devices in December to take a break … and I return to find our semi-regular competition has taken a different turn!
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