Next Up : Internet of Things, Cloud and More Analytics

In my recent post I shared that I was leaving SAS after 18.5 years.  It has been overwhelming to see all the comments in response to that post on LinkedIn, Facebook and on the Blog post itself. Thank you to everyone for the kind words and for all you did to make my time at SAS the success it was. Seeing all those comments made me even more sad that I am leaving!

Many people have asked me where I am going next. The job market is a very interesting one at the moment and it was great to receive a number of offers to consider over the time of my search. Deciding where to go next was not easy especially with some self imposed constraints playing over and over again in my mind. I must also say that staying away from the shiny lights of the booming title is not as easy as it is to write down :-).

There are many great companies out there. I hope I will be able to stay in touch with those I spoke to moving forwards. Many thanks to each of them for considering me for their roles and for their time investment!

What’s Next

DecisionNow onto the future. I am now able share my next move. It is one I am very excited about.

I am going to go work for Microsoft (although I will remain located in Heidelberg, Germany) when not travelling as required.

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Leaving SAS: A new start after 18.5 magnificent years

Leaving SAS

Leaving SASAll good things must come to an end and so it is with my time at SAS.

I wanted to share that I will be moving on from SAS at the end of this month.

I have absolutely loved my 18.5 years at SAS. Those years have seen me grow professionally and personally. SAS is a good company filled with many amazing people who I will miss working with day to day.

During my time at SAS I have been able to work in many different areas (Technical Support, Pre-Sales, Sales Enablement, Sales, Product Marketing, Product Management, Analyst Relations, Alliances, Business Development, Strategy and more), on/with many different products and with people across the world. Professionally it has been a very rewarding experience which easily has surpassed the expectations I had when I joined back in 1997 as a technical support consultant.

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IoT – Enabler Of New Levels Of Personalization

The rise of IoT

There is now a rampant rise in predictions about the future of the Internet of Things (IoT). It is almost impossible to read a cutting edge IT article without some mention of IoT. It is now a fact that most organizations are trying to work out the role IoT will play in their future. IoT has almost taken over Big Data as the next topic companies have to crack.

Device GrowthTo that end industry analysts are lining up to share their views on the impending growth. Recently IDC predicted that “By 2018, there will be 22 Billion IoT devices installed, driving the development of over 200,000 new IoT apps and services” and thatBy 2018, IoT spending will grow 1.5X”.  Gartner also shared their view that “6.4 Billion Connected ‘Things’ Will Be in Use in 2016, Up 30 Percent From 2015, and will reach 25 billion by 2020″.

IoT_2016At the same time the World Economic Forum (wef) put out an excellent article “5 predictions for the Internet of Things in 2016“. The article nicely brings together many predictions ending with this comment which I fully agree with. “Thousands of businesses worldwide are already reaping IoT’s rewards, and 2016 will be the year that more companies join the IoT revolution.

In my opinion the IoT revolution is not on its way – it is already underway! To that end I agree with many of the industry analysts that 2016 could be a big year for IoT.  In an earlier post I covered my thoughts on “Why the Internet of Things will change how you interact with your customers”. That post focused on the styles of “interactions” and services I expect to see organizations having to carry out with their customers because of the advent of IoT.

In this post I want to share a few thoughts on why I believe a different type of personalization is going to be driven via the growth of IoT. This personalization I believe will be welcome, if seen at all, and not seen as creepy.

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