Real Time View

A short stroll past bank branch offices in New Zealand had me thinking about the role of services in support of NonStop systems and in NonStop migrations … This past week it’s been all about working from a unique location. Yes, for a couple of days we have been all at sea, so as to speak. With the need to be in Auckland for a couple of days followed by a day in Wellington, Margo worked out that we could sail to NZ, stop by both places and then return to Sydney. We also threw in a visit with former Connect board member, Alan Dick, who even today continues to work on issues of advocacy with long time NonStop supporters Bill Highleyman and Bill Honaker as well as with another strong advocate for NonStop, Randall Becker. We spent a leisurely day with Alan whose tenure with the board dates back to the time when ITUG elected to participate in the creation of the Connect worldwide community. Indeed, at the time Margo was Vice President Alan was there to offer wise council during the per...

On looking back to all that transpired at the NonStop Technical Boot Camp, there was much to excite the NonStop community … Seems more than appropriate to kick of this latest post with observations about shorelines that recede and lights that dim. We have just pulled out of Sydney’s Circular Quay as we start a very brief long-weekend voyage to Tasmania. I have written about Australia’s southernmost state on more than one occasion, but one sight has always intrigued me – Port Arthur. It was the extreme final destination for those Australia’s convicts who misbehaved in Sydney cove to such an extent that they had to be expelled from the more civilized penal colony along Sydney’s shores. As for the voyage itself it will follow almost the same course as the yacht fleet that will depart Sydney on Boxing Day (December 26) to race down Australia’s eastern coastline, across the Tasman Sea and up the Derwent River to Hobart. The Sydney to Hobart yacht race is one of the premier yachting e...

This is the time of year when the upcoming NonStop Technical Boot Camp (TBC) dominates many discussions – but what is coming next and are there further surprises install for the NonStop community? We are happily settling into our new and very temporary working life here in Australia. It’s been such a long time “between drinks” as they like to say down under, but there is no doubting the lifestyle that the average Sydneysider enjoys.  With beaches stretching north and south and a harbor that penetrates the distant western suburbs, not forgetting too that the Blue Mountains frame the far west of Sydney, it is a city unlike any other on earth. Comparisons have been made of San Francisco with Sydney but clearly they were made by folks who really hadn’t spent time in Sydney. San Francisco is more like other bay cities, including Melbourne, but Sydney is a deep water harbor framed by rocky sandstone outcrops creating changes in elevation everywhere you turn. Every time I retu...

If it’s Sydney, it’s meetings, ethics, and infrastructure and if we want to move the needle a bit further along, then I suspect even more meetings will be held … The weather has distinctly turned warmer in Sydney. The formal meetings of last week are now behind me and it’s been a week of heads down typing as I catch up with numerous commitments, but the many meetings with which I was involved took me back in time when almost every hour included one meeting or another. Perhaps it had to do with the positive nature of communication – when gathered together, ideas seemed to take on form more quickly and what started out as just a couple of threads developed into a full-blown tapestry in no time at all! On the other hand, perhaps it was just the enjoyment I derived from the free flow of ideas that would happen and how, from nothing at all the gem of a really good idea appeared. As I was walking the floor of the exhibition halls at SIBOS Sydney 2018 last week and yes, exhibitors ...