| | From: "Marko Hotti" <marko.hotti@f...>
Date: Sat Aug 19, 2000 12:51 pm
Subject: Greetings from Marko
|
Dear Vocalisters,
It's been quite a while since my last post to the
community. Many things have happened both in my life
and to the vocalist domain - but despite the
concern many of you have shown in the past six months
I'm doing fine and now living in Helsinki working for
Oracle.
As many of you remember I was both studying medicine,
participating several projects in the area of telemedicine
and myself teaching at the polytechnic. Starting the Vocalist
mailing list and building the website was a hobby of mine
and I really enjoyed doing it. This all meant a lot of work
and less spare time that I actually needed. By the end of
January 2000 I was already feeling sick of all that. Also,
professionally speaking I had reached a sort of crossroads
as to making the decision about which the direction I want
to take and which the career to work and concentrate on.
I don't remember having told you this but I had been thinking
about moving down to Helsinki for over five years. The only
thing really keeping me in Oulu was my medical studies that
needed to be completed. But then again, I hadn't shown much of
an interest to a purely medical career for several years. Instead,
I was doing information technology related projects, lecturing
about unix operating systems and network protocols, consulting
at Nokia Mobile Phones and designing/developing information
systems more and more. I had already a long working career doing
IT so why not making it a career of a lifetime?
I took vacation from my work and at the same time Vocalist site
got hacked. The timing was really bad because I had just got
some sort of distance from my work giving time for myself to think
about what I really want to do in and with my life. In the same server
resided also couple of polytech intranets so I re-installed,
patched and fixed what I could and what was absolutely necessary and
then I was already busy arranging personal things - such as finding a flat
in Helsinki to suit my requirements (a task which can be a nightmare
and take weeks) and what's most important - finding a new job here.
Well, finding the job was never a problem. I got 15 job offerings,
four of them were absolutely mad about getting me but Oracle was
the most interesting. The recruiting process had four stages including
a psychological test + an interview made by a psychologist that altogether
took six hours!! But since there's wasn't actually anything wrong in my head
(*grin*) and my objectives and arguments about moving and making really
big decisions that directly affected hundreds of people made sense -
I got the job I wanted. It was maybe the combination of the really
good benefits at the world's second largest software company, the
vast selection of modern internet technology they provide and
the feeling of having the best opportunities to go even further
in pursuing my career.
About my work: My job title is Sales Consultant doing Oracle core
technology pre-sales work in the Sales Solutions team. A lot of my work
occurs at our office in Espoo or with our potential or current
customers helping to find them the best solution based on Oracle
Technology.
So you see, this all has had to do with me and my personal goals -
basically being really unhappy with my work load vs salary, wanting
to make an end to the eleven-year period of residing in Oulu and
finally doing some serious prioritizing. Moving on and having
a totally new fresh start has had an excellent effect on me - that's
what my friends keep telling me - and I feel really good and energetic.
The only thing I feel really sad and guilty for is having left the vocalist
community totally on its own - especially in a situation where
the actual service is not working at all!
Now that I have sort of settled down and returned from my four-week
vacation (which I was sure I had to forget as newly employed) - it's
time to find the leisure time activities again. I already started my regular
work-outs in May and now I've been thinking about joining a vocal group -
most probably a chamber choir to keep singing.
Vocalist mailing list and the web site has been constantly in my mind
for the last six months. The domain registration fee has apparantely
been taken care of, I'll have to check that with Internic on Monday.
What I have been thinking about is finding a new ISP. The server
in itself can easily be fixed once I just decide to do it. I also have
been thinking about applying the Oracle technology to the web site to
make it more intelligent and easier to manage.
So what shall we do next? Give me next week and I'll find out about the ISP
thing as well as the resources needed. I'd love to get vocalist going on
again so it's not really the lack of motivation that prevents me from doing
it.
The two biggest questions are going to be: 1) Where to get an ISP that
allows
potential commercial activity at the minimum price and 2) how to delegate
and share responsibility in developing and managing the community - yet
ensure
security, availability and scalability as well maintaining the original
Vocalist kind-of-family feeling. The answer to the first question is easy:
There are hundreds of internet service providers - I'll just have to find
the
suitable one. One problem I want to avoid in the future is the restrictions
on commercial content in university/high school/polytechnic servers because
of the public funding they get (like Oulu University gets its funding from
the state).
In the Vocalist-Temporary my contact information is incorrect. Could
somebody
please fix it. My current home address is:
Marko Hotti
Mechelininkatu 49 A 15
FIN-00250 HELSINKI
FINLAND
And my home email address is: marko.hotti@f... Also, if you want to
have
a chat with me, my telephone number is +358-40-5274665 (cellular).
You can also reach me at oracle.com but I'd prefer receiving any mail not
directly related to my work to fimnet.fi.
I try to get my hands on the vocalist subscriber database next week to share
information about Vocalist-Temporary which is great thing to have right now.
Please wait for my update next week in this very forum.
Finally I'd like to thank Hanna, Karen and all the people who have been or
who have tried to get in touch with me showing their concern, empathy and
support
in the Vocalist Crisis 2K case. I *know* you have *really* been worried.
With love and regards, Marko
|
|
|  |
|
