PERSONAL: Elcom – The first month

I’ve managed to make it through the first month of my new job :-). And I love it. I’ve held off posting about the new role until I felt I had a good understanding of the company, people and clients.

First off, the job. I’ve joined Elcom Technology as their new Technical Director. This means I’m looking after their Dev and Tech teams, and responsible for the technology strategy of the company. It may sound a little daunting, but in reality it is a perfect fit for where I am at the moment.

Second, the company. Elcom are in the Enterprise Content Management space, and have their own product – Community Manager.Net – built on .Net and SQL Server. The product is mature, having been around over 5+ years, and is feature rich. It has over 50 different modules, and from what I’ve seen is pretty impressive. It’s not all fantastic of course, and part of my job is to manage how we smooth out the rough edges as well as enhancing it for the future.

Third, the processes. A good product is all well and good, but we all know a company’s success lies in the execution. And for this reason I’m pleased to see the company has a very strong foundation. They have a sales team, a marketing team, a projects team, a creative team, a customer support team, and of course the development and tech teams. They have everything in place for proper execution. To be honest, this was probably my biggest concern/requirement for my new job, and I was very relieved to find they have this all managed well.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the clients. I’ve now met with a number of Elcom customers and am pleased they are all highly professional and understand the process of software development. They all by and large understand the costs of developing proper web sites and systems. Our clients are more interested in fast tracking their systems into production than they are about haggling on price. This in turns engenders a strong ethic of service from the Elcom staff.

Finally, you’ve heard me say this many times… I’m the luckiest guy I know.