I've thoroughly enjoyed the last few days. At work, I'm driving forward a new initiative/project that should launch next week. It's a project of pretty big strategic importance, and one being led forward with some level of strategy and understanding of its purpose (quite unlike the launch of our other similar project - edited for clarification).

This project has largely been built outside of the engineering team and has really been the first one where we, as a company, stop trying to do everything ourselves. With the help of Pete, I'm working with two separate companies to help launch this project: the hosted company we partner very closely with is managing the technical infrastructure while a local development firm is helping me build out the shopping cart. 

To get this project in on time, I've been working on-site at the latter company (their offices are two blocks from my loft - right in the middle of the Gaslamp).

I have to say, I've loved working out of this office. It really brings me me back to the earlier days of MindTouch, when things seemed to get done faster (but with the downside of less quality) - I remember quite fondly working with Pete during the second launch of Wik.is - we had a huge whiteboard of tasks, and we just trucked through them for launch. I love that feeling. When I left their offices yesterday, I was in such a good mood - a feeling that's been missing lately. I felt SO good that I actually ended up going out last night ... quite a change from my normal Fridays, where I'm so burned out I usually just stay in and watch a DVD and sleep.

So I'm back here today, working with these guys on the launch (and I don't feel resentful of working on a Saturday, although these guys may disagree... hehe). It's a beautiful day outside - the window is open, and there's a faint smell of charred wood (smells wonderful!) - every once in a while, you'll hear a horde of Eagles fans start a rowdy cheer at one of the local open-air bars. The only thing that would make this more perfect would be if we were making faster progress so I could go sailing today...

What makes me additionally happy is the professional services team at MindTouch really seems to be hitting the ground running as a self-contained unit with relatively little oversight from me. They kicked off two large projects this past week while wrapping up a huge one (I'm still running two more on the side). With just a few phone calls from my side on Friday, things kept moving forward. The best feeling for me is building a self-contained team and watching it succeed.

After this project launches, I'll be heading up discussions on Phase 2 - if this launch takes off, it really gives the product team a more defined roadmap to focus on - right now we're just floating around in many different directions. My attempts at a roadmap a few weeks back simply defined the boundaries of the float - it didn't actually give us a great direction.

And of course, there's some soul searching afterwards. Why is it that I enjoyed working out of these offices so much the past few days? Is it me? What needs to change? I need to find out...