Hyderabad – Day 2

These days are seeming very long. Day 2 started with a 1:1 with the GM of the RXD organization in India, Nagender. It just so happens that I’d met Nagender on a flight about 3 years ago from Seattle to Amsterdam. He was on his way to Hyderabad and I was on my way to Switzerland to give a talk about the about to be released Master Data Management strategy, including the acquisition of Stratature and Master Data Services. I remembered the meeting well. We sat next to each other and talked for some time. Nagender didn’t remember any of it. Hmmmm…

Next I had an all hands meeting with the team here. I really enjoyed it. They’re a good bunch of people who are passionate about what they do and quite talented. I also learned a little more about Indian culture, geography and cricket. For example, an over is a set of six bowls. The bowler tries to hit the wickets and the batsman attempts to hit the ball. It’s a lot like baseball, but not really. Hit the ball to the edge of the green and get four runs. Hit it out, and get six runs. I’ve never actually watched a cricket game. If you asked folks around here, tomorrow night, I’m about to watch the most important game in six years!

We sat around in a circle of chairs, I introduced myself and then the team all introduced themself to me individually. It was a new experience for me since, to date, I’ve always managed teams that I hired myself. They are a good natured bunch of folks and took my Kansas style ribbings pretty graciously.

Went to lunch with a couple of the leaders of the team here and then had a deep dive into one of the products in my portfolio which, for those who care, is an operational data store for managing the qualified and cleansed data pulled from various sources across the company. These deep dives are interesting and detailed and I’m grateful the teams are willing to do them to help me ramp up on the products in an accelerated fashion. By the time we got to the end, I could feel my brain shutting down. I was feeling the jet lag and staying up late last night didn’t help much.

I came back to the hotel with big plans for the night to meet up with some of the team for dinner and cricket. I shouldn’t have laid down though. I barely made it up long enough to tell Mohammedarif that I was done for the night and to write this. I’m going to crash now and hope a long night’s rest will let me enjoy a longer day tomorrow. Tomorrow is the all important Pakistan vs. India cricket world cup game. While I think the team will forgive me for bowing out of tonights festivities, I think it would forever be a blot on my name if I missed the game tomorrow night. It’s a 50 over per side game. Have no idea how long that will take, but I’m looking forward to cheering on India.

Good night