Disclaimer:  None of the ideas expressed in this post are shared, supported, or endorsed in any manner by my employer.

I work for a company that participates in the NAB Show, an annual show held by the National Association of Broadcasters.  So, every first quarter of every year, there is a massive push by all the companies to come up with innovative ideas to demo at the show.

This year, I was tasked with developing an AWESOME chat application (emphasis: mine) that integrates with the shows and commercials that you see on your television.  Now, what's interesting about this application was that it was conceived one late afternoon while chatting with the Vice President and General Manager of the company, basically just rambling about the cool things we could do in our industry.  It turns out, a co-worker of mine had a similar idea, and so lots of his ideas were integrated into this application.   This application, which I will call FanChat (because...that's what the marketing department called it), was developed mainly by me and backed by years of experience by my colleagues.

Fast forward through all the patent filing, the designing, the end-to-end prototyping, the burnt midnight oils, and a last-minute push after being pulled off the project to work on another critical application, an early version of FanChat was unveiled at the NAB show, with much anticipation -- and some anxiety -- on my part.  That anxiety would soon be quelled first by relief and then elation.

Long story short, I won an award.  Well, not me, but my AWESOME chat application won a Broadcast Engineering Pick Hit award.  My reaction was best summed up by my co-worker: "we did it, we actually did it!!"  Yeah, I couldn't believe it either.

ANYHOO, between the days in which I was coding up this AWESOME chat application, I managed to find a new drummer for Murphee K.  Yay!  His name is Ronnie, and I really enjoy his enthusiasm.  That is all the compliments that you're getting for now, buddy.  TOUGH LOVE.

-George Ryan

PREVIOUS

NEXT