Nobody asked me, but … (#52)
May 27th, 2009 Al KalterA lack of sunshine in the Sunshine State, a wedding in the Andes, a championship in Foxboro … Today’s post will touch on a variety of unrelated topics. Come along for the ride, if you like.
A lack of sunshine in the Sunshine State, a wedding in the Andes, a championship in Foxboro … Today’s post will touch on a variety of unrelated topics. Come along for the ride, if you like.
OK, I’ll admit it. I just don’t get the fascination with Facebook and Twitter. If that officially makes me an old fart, so be it. But I just can’t figure out why people want to know that someone else has a headache today, or that they are in the midst of some mundane activity that is so non-essential that there is time to tell anyone interested exactly what it is that they are doing. Have we become that narcissistic that we believe people care about that stuff? Does it make a headache any less painful to share news of it with acquaintances in cyberspace, so that someone else can reply, “Poor baby. How about an electronic hug (or an electronic aspirin)?” Like I said, I just don’t get it.
APPX is downsizing. No, that is not a reaction to Steve’s post identifying the various characters that inhabit these premises. Instead, it’s a way of saying that a program that he introduced in January is rather effectively reducing the size of our staff. Cumulatively, by over 100 pounds already!
APPX Software, Inc., of course, is a company. Specifically, APPX Software, Inc. is a corporation incorporated in the State of Florida. But, simply saying that APPX Software, Inc. is a company doesn’t really tell you much. A company is actually defined by the people who work for the company or otherwise contribute to the success of the company. In our case, we have a talented, dedicated group of individuals who develop and support our products. These individuals are, collectively, the “company”. When you think of APPX Software, you are probably visualizing an entity comprised of the collective talent and personality of all of these various individuals. So, to answer the question of “who” is APPX Software, Inc. the answer is as follows:
Some of you may wonder why Conjectrix, Inc. is listed in the R&D group. Several years ago, Korry Douglas and his wife, Susan, formed Conjectrix, Inc. as a consulting business and Korry resigned to devote his time to his own company. APPX Software, Inc. outsources a portion of its R&D with Conjectrix, Inc. So, even though Korry is no longer an employee of APPX Software, Inc., he is still actively involved in R&D at APPX Software, Inc. as a consultant of Conjectrix, Inc. and continues to make a significant contribution to the R&D effort at APPX Software, Inc.
It was one year ago today that the APPX Blog was inaugurated, so it’s a good time to look back, examine the goals for its creation, and address the question of whether those goals have been realized.
The word I want to use is “snuck.” It’s certainly in common usage, but I believe our old English teachers would be aghast at its replacing “sneaked” in written, if not spoken, communication. After all, language evolves (e.g., “he said…” becomes “he goes…” and then “he’s like…”). And it sounds better to say: Daylight Savings Time snuck up on me this year. About time I got to the subject of this blog, right?
I have to turn my attention back to the sports world today. There are too many good stories out there to pass up this opportunity to spew my opinions into the mix. If you’re not a sports fan, you might want to come back for “Nobody asked me, but … (#48)” when it appears in the near future.
Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow yesterday, as he apparently often does. According to legend, of course, this augurs six more weeks of winter, and much of the country did not react positively to this forecast. But in the last two places I’ve called home, a prediction of winter lasting through the middle of March would be seen as good news indeed.
Well, we’ve had a new president for a week now, and still … the economy is in the toilet, Bin Laden is on the loose in Afghanistan (presumably), and there is no playoff system in major college football. Haven’t we been patient enough?
It would have been a reasonable New Year’s Resolution … one of many I could have made … to be a little more dependable in writing these blogs. Since the beginning, as any readers who might still remain out there may have noticed, the frequency of these things has, shall we say, waned. From three blogs a week, to two, then to one, then to less than one … I’m ashamed. Of course, the truth is that this is supposed to be a company blog site, and I don’t think anyone else at APPX Software has done much better, y’know?