Today, we attended the Sun Tech Days Conference at the Makati Shangrila. Aside from the great food and freebies, I enjoyed the whole experience. There were several things I learned during the second day of the 3-day conference. Here’s to recap what I learned and observed:

• Java 6 has some nice features including Scripting Language Support (JSR 223) and Web Service Integration. I agree that these 2 features are very common and should be part of the standard Java. I’m not sure about JDBC 4.0; with the success of JPA, JDBC might not be that useful anymore.
• Grails is cool, but not necessarily great. I think it still needs improvement to be able to compete in the enterprise, if at all possible. My main concern with template codes is “customizability”. But it’s still cool.
• Sun admitted their problems with Java 6, such as slow start-up and large codebase. I think this is a good sign for the future of Java.
• Netbeans has improved since I switched to Eclipse three years ago. It supports a ton of platforms/frameworks and has a lot of productivity tools. I believe Netbeans is probably worth revisiting.
• Half of the conference attendees are going to the Enterprise track, which means there is more demand for web applications development rather than desktop (Swing, SWT) or system administration.
• The “new” technologies that the speakers discussed were the same technologies two years ago. We have been already using these technologies (such as Ajaz, JPA, and ESB) in our projects. Either Sun didn’t do a good job in looking for resource persons, or Ideyatech is just updated with the latest technology! (The latter is most probably true… hehe) Anything else new?
• Open-source is confusing - everyone else wanted to be the best platform/framework, and developers are confused which one to use. Even Sun promotes several conflicting/competing technologies - Seam vs. Grails vs. JSF, JDBC vs. JPA, GlassFish vs. JWS. With the myriad of platforms available, which one works best?

I left Manila to see if there was a market for my SMS appliance product. I had to take a job so I can stay and have time to study the market. After working in Singapore for 2 1/2 years, I finally realized that it was the right time to go home. I still have this feeling of competing in the global scene and make my country proud so I looked for opportunities to come back. On the course of doing this, I met Allan, President and CEO of Ideyatech. When we first met, I just told him about my SMS appliance product, on how he can integrate it to Ideyatech’s existing applications.

After maybe 4 months, Allan told me that he needed someone who can help him with one of his big projects. I can’t remember how he came up asking me if I could help. After a few conversations about what needs to be done and how hard it is to look for senior guys in Manila, I expressed my intent of thinking about the offer. Since I was also considering of going back and do business, I thought about it. It took me maybe a month to decide.

I arrived with my bags packed in the Centennial Airport(NAIA Terminal 2) on May 21, 2008. Eager to meet my new team, I went to work the following day. It’s nice to be back, I told myself.

Let me share a photo of our team in our board room which I took. This is the team that will lead us to success and grow the company. Who knows we might be the next Google!

Time for some fun! Here is a pic taken during our bowl and dine activity.

Highest scorers were Philip and Beth garnering scores of 146 and 135, respectively.

Today, Jaycobb and I attended the Google Techtalk at AIM Conference Center. Like Jaycobb said, “it’s good to know that Google employees are human after all - and not androids”. Sure it was fun meeting Jay and Franklin, Google engineers from MountainView, but what catches my attention is that these 2 guys are Pinoys and they spent their “20% time” to fly here and share their Google experience - quite encouraging… this shows that Filipinos can really make it to world’s best. I hope they come back more often and share knowledge with us. I’m sure there are lots of local talents that are just waiting to be discovered - like us [ideyatech] and what we’re doing in the open-source area.

They talked about Google Gadgets, Summer of Codes, OpenSocial and Android, certainly lots of cool activities going on at Google. One insight I had from the talk is that “gadgets can be used to promote contents and to increase traffic”. Certainly worthwhile to do a couple of gadgets for our existing projects.

Here’s another picture taken during the chitchat after the seminar, from left: Franklin, Hans (syndeomedia), me and Jay.

BTW, thanks for Hans for pulling some strings to get us into the seminar.

ideyatech - where ideas and technologies meet.

It’s clear from our tagline where the name comes from - idea and technology. Idea is formally defined as “a thought or suggestion as to a possible course of action; an opinion or belief” while technology is “the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes”. When combined, these two words synergize to build a stronger meaning - “to revolutionize an industry through technology by executing brilliant ideas.”. It’s a dream many of us wanted to achieve, but only few dare to take the challenge… and we are one of them - ready to take the challenge.

Now, what’s with the ‘y’? Well, ideya is the Filipino translation of idea. A part from being bold and revolutionary, we wanted to be known as a Filipino company - founded, managed and executed the Filipino way. We are here to be a living proof that the Filipinos can compete globally and surpass technologies from more advanced countries. We believe that this notion of technical superiority is a product of non-action to take the challenge… and that’s what we are - a Filipino managed company ready to take the challenge and revolutionize the world.

While I can describe ideyatech as a company by what we do, what we specialize and who among the Fortune 500 are our clients, it doesn’t give justice to the people who committed themselves and worked hard everyday to satisfy our clients and bring us to where we are now.

Instead, I’d like to describe ourselves on what we believe in and what we practice - our core values. Now, let me describe it one by one…

L eadership. We are the best in what we do. I always tell my team that “You have to believe that you can change the world!”. I know it sounds ambitious, but ambition is what drives people; it gives motivation for people to excel and become a leader in what we do. Moreover, we promote individual leadership; we know for a fact that every individual has their strengths and we provide the support needed to enhance them by making them acknowledge and focus their strengths. This way, we are able to get the best results from every team member.

Another thing I have to add is that we value collaboration and communication skills. Individual leadership needs to be supported by good communication in order to achieve teamwork and synergy.

E xecute. We deliver. We believe with the saying “A simple idea with execution is better than a brilliant idea with no execution”. While I like to get along with people who talks about ideas, I’d rather stick with the ones who executes them. Great ideas burn into ashes when they are poorly executed.

A key criteria to execution is to know your priorities. Our basic principle is to prioritize time, quality and budget; then negotiate the scope. In this era of Google and YouTube, nothing is more important than time and quality. Also, we prefer to simplify things, stick to the absolute essentials and make sure it works. Finally, everyone needs to be decisive and make timely decisions… because you know what!? - It’s not the end of the world.

A gility. We love change. Face it - “The only thing constant in this world is change. ” Even the best project manager cannot make a perfect project plan. There will be deviations and variations from plan during execution… but what makes a plan successful is its ability to adapt to change (and what makes us better individuals is to accept change). A few implementations points to be agile:

• Release early, get feedback and improve…
• Work in iterations; prepare mockups.
• Reduce the cost of change.

P assion. We believe and love what we do. One thing I always ask applicants - “What is your passion? “, “What do you like to do? “. If it takes them more than 7 seconds to respond, chances are - they don’t know the answer and is making it up. We believe that people who has passion in their work has greater chance to succeed. Between someone who is very knowledgeable, and someone who is very passionate - we usually go with passion. Knowledge can be learned with passion but passion can’t be learned with knowledge.

While I can talk for an hour more about this topic, I’d rather simply things - if your work doesn’t excite you, something is wrong and you’ll probably need soul-searching.

To end, this is how we perform great LEAP s…

In case you didn’t notice, our core values form the word LEAP when taking the first character of each of the values.

When looking for a developer, would you consider the certifications he/she earned? Does the title MCSD, SCJP, SCEA matter? I’d like to say “no” because I’ve seen great programmers who are not certified and doesn’t value certifications. Moreover, I don’t want to discredit good programmers who doesn’t have this piece of paper.

But then again, why did I have to bother getting SCEA and PMP myself? Well, what really drives me is the “proof” that I am capable of passing the tests. These tests are developed, reviewed and improved by industry experts to measure individual skills and knowledge. I took the challenge because I believe I deserve that title.

While real world experience is good, you’ll only learn things that you do and you’ll never get the change to learn other things until you encounter it. When I took my certification, it is not like I just have to go to the testing center and pass it. It took me sometime to study, analyze and even memorize to prepare for a certification. This may not be something valuable at work, but it proves that I can understand the concepts well. More importantly, it shows that I’m disciplined and diligent to learn new things.

So does certification matter?

Yes. When choosing between 2 developers with same experience, I’d prefer someone who is certified. I’m also encouraging people to take their certifications.

It’s been quite a personal struggle for me to choose between freedom against security. Freedom pushes me hard to be creative and explore the unknown but the risk is high. If none of the creativity works, failure is immediate. On the other hand, security reduces risk of failure as financial income is consistent. I’ve tried going back to corporate world for the past 3 months with a good paycheck… but cannot find the satisfaction in the things I do.

This experience adds maturity as I begin to understand that satisfaction is not measured by amount of $$$ earned rather by personal achievements and accomplishments. This is the first time that I have to give-up my financial security in exchange to following my passion.

Looking back to where I started, it was passion that pushed me to start an IT career, it was passion that gave me career promotion, and now it is passion that makes me go back to continue what I envisioned - my own IT company.

Let me conclude by saying that ideyatech will be back on track and will continue to build quality software and deliver world-class services.

Here is an interesting trend about blog for the last three years. Obviously, blogs hasn’t reached it’s tipping point yet, but it is a matter of time. The fundamental concept behind blogs enabling individuals to reach millions of audience is very powerful thing, it is an expression of freedom and democracy. So, why hasn’t it been a norm yet? Well for one, people are afraid to expose themselves. There are more people who are introvert than extrovert. So, introverts (like me) are more protective of their identity.

Before I was converted by the famous Web 2.0 preacher - Kevin Leversee, I have no digital identity. I am afraid of posting my life story online, besides I see no reason to do so. What will I gain if I blog? nothing, except to waste a few minutes talking about myself. As introvert, I am naturally shy to expose myself. But I later realized that blog is not about me… its about my career, my beliefs, my principle. Its not about what I will gain, but what I am losing. I am losing my digital identity and I need to build one quickly if I’m to pursue my career. I can share my knowledge, experience and opinions. I am building a digital identity of me and I don’t want to lose this opportunity.

Blogging is a very powerful thing… with the audience within your reach, you can influence so many people’s opinions and beliefs. Well, I guess there is something to gain after all. With blog comes great power, with great power comes great responsibity. If this power is abused, we will reach the death of blog immediately. When email reached its tipping point, spammers get into business and killed email marketing campaigns. When we start seeing blogs selling viagra everywhere… it has then reached the tipping point and you will see the death of blog… sad. But then again, the good will always prevail… so someone will come to the rescue blogs by organizing contents and providing credibility.

I started the vision of my first lame attempt to build the next generation software last 2004, after 7 years of getting bored from corporate pressure of delivering enterprise application. I realized that working hard for 12-16 hours a day does not fulfill my needs. So to start off, I did some consulting for a friend until I had enough money to join this premier online project bidding website. After a few tries, I got into my first major project for approximately $1,600.00. This kept me afloat for a while and I started to build my profile and credentials. After a few months, I had several clients that comes back to give more work… so, I tried balancing client requests with my next generation software.

I was working with freelancers and part-time developers to get things done. For half their time, I get half the product and eventually have to complete it by myself. I control the cashflow $$$ like freak using a simple rule - all expenses should have concrete deliverables. I choose to work on projects that we specialize - Java. I took advantage of the Internet and ran a remote development team using 3 basic tools: forums, issue tracking and cvs. Finally, I make sure client expectations are well set. So far, these basic principles help me maintain perfect feedback and ratings. Cool.

By end of year 2005, I didn’t have my next generation software - someone did it already. So all I have are several pieces of reusable codes and $2,000 at my disposal. I decided to hire and train 2 full-time staff in my native town, Bicol. With my existing clients, I can pay my staff to keep the business going. As for me, I’m back at the drawing boards for yet another next generation software but this time I have reusable codes and a stable business foundation. Its a slow start but considering that I started this company by doing consulting work with no available capital… I am quite fulfilled.

Well this is not my success story… but a story of building something out of nothing. Caio!