A new era begins

Today is a day of mixed emotions. Today I resigned from IBM having been there for 18 years, 19 if you count my year out from university.
In all that time I have worked with some great people, and felt a tremendous sense of belonging.
Its been quite a journey, both in technical education and in personal growth. It is the extent of that growth and the speed that has not always been kept up to pace with by the system that I worked within.
I started back on green screens in 1990, very quickly moved to the PC’s and client server applications that followed shortly. Over the years the groups I worked with morphed from back office systems to customer facing ones, but in 1997 I made a break from what was traditional IT development. I threw myself into the web and the fantastic Interactive Media Centre. That itself morphed into the centre for e-business innovation but the group of people were known as Blueroom. An ecletic mix of can do people, graphic designers, producers and techies all bundled into one. That taught me that diversity of skills, coming up with ideas on the spot and good old fashioned teamwork for a common cause were what I thrived in.
For me that was the start of who I have become, the birth of epredator if you like.
When I decided that we should look in to the metaverse with Second Life back in 2006 I knew the industry was going to be big, but I was not expecting the evolutionary changes to happen to me. Getting this going turned me into a intrapreneur. The speed with which my fellow eightbars rallied and the spirit of innovation, just getting things done was simply amazing. It is something we should all be immensely proud of.
In leaving IBM I am not leaving eightbar, it is not something that can never really be left. The focus may change but I think we have made a decent enough mark in the history of virtual worlds.
Of course the question is what next? I left in order to be able to carry on and push this industry further. So in a few weeks you will see the birth of my own company, and I will seek to work and advise, speak and write just as I have done up to now. There are some significant projects that I already need to give some attention too.
There is, as I have told a few people, quite a story to tell on all this. The personal ups and and downs, the formation of our tribe and I suspect I will have to write that book after all. It will probably be called “Who says Elephants can’t Rez” or something similar.
So a huge thankyou and goodbye to all my friends, and thankyou for the support on twitter and see you all on Linkedin
I will also post this on http://www.epredator.com
See you all out there very soon.
***Update Feeding Edge is now live here, my new home

56 thoughts on “A new era begins

  1. Best wishes for the future Ian. It was great to work with you all that time ago in the IMC.

  2. Ian – I just forced Mum to sit and read this blog post, some Twitter and the other blog. At first hesitant, and dare I say it, slightly more interested in Masterchef, after a couple of minutes she was totally engrossed and wanted to read more and more and more. Anyway, we both think you are very brave and wish you the very best of luck! Here’s one in the eye for the big boys, as Mr Branson would say (when he was less of a big boy himself!)

  3. I know you will continue to inspire, and that is what the world needs right now. Enjoyment, freedom, happiness and other non-corporate approved words.

    Have fun

    Turner Boehm

  4. Wow… just got this after a week of vacation without being online.
    With this move your phrase: “Web 2 is Web DO”, really gets to the next level.

    Ian, I wish you all the best, the speed and loads and loads of succes.

  5. Ian – Good Luck in your new ventures. You will be missed, always a maverick and always good value – a real loss for IBM! Keep in touch

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