Bring Aboard Intact Teams and Networks

27 Nov 2006

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Management and organisational psychology guru Bob Sutton had a pretty well timed post on not only getting talented individuals, but getting groups of people who work together - Fight the War for Talent Right: Bring Aboard Intact Teams and Networks.

As I mentioned before, I'm going to be joining CareerJunction at the same time as my current team-mate Bryn is joining them.

Leaving Jam Warehouse was the hardest work-related decision I've had to make before, and the continuing wins of the KnowledgeTree team and the solidifying of the team after some group facilitation (and some only recently-begun friendships) has certainly made me question whether I made the right decision (that's a behaviour I'll allow only for as long as I'm doing my notice, and then I'll revert to my never-look-back attitude).

But, as I've watched the team start getting into gear, I've also had this growing sense of excitement about the future.  And much of that is the comfort and stability of having Bryn being along for the ride.  We've already sorted out many of the problems two people of our personality types have when they meet, and I already trust his abilities.  And I know I'll have a friend when I start in the new environment - and I know that it takes me quite some time to make friends.

But, taking this idea further, I've always been astounded by how brilliant some of the people I've worked with are.  I've managed to keep in touch with many of them, and others I just bump into every few years.  I've been keeping a list of them - my "Dream Team".  With only one exception, each job I've been at has introduced me to at least one more member of my Dream Team.  At perhaps the least enjoyable job, I met four of them.

I've been warned about putting together a brilliant team without infrastructure (and, you know, a reason for them to be together), but the idea of getting together some (or all!) of the Dream Team for a project has me very excited.  So, I'm starting to plan my life around starting a company in 2009 to do something with my Dream Team.

The next step is just figuring out what that something is...

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Hi, I'm Neil Blakey-Milner, a technology generalist most interested by open source, security, and building scalable systems (especially if I get to use the Python programming language).

I "work" at the incredibly fun web-sites-for-everyone startup SynthaSite based in beautiful Cape Town, South Africa.

What I do

  • StarCamp

    I was the main instigator behind this 2-day unconference in December 2007 in Cape Town. There'll be another one in Cape Town around July.

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    I help out in making these geek social events happen every two months in Cape Town since March 2007.

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    I make sure that the systems run smoothly at this Cape Town-born Web 2.0 startup.

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    I speak publically on a number of topics - generally related to technical aspects of open source software or on software development.

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    I've written a few software projects of my own over the years (although mostly I'm the only user of them).

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