Malek's Moorish Tales

Meanderings about life and technology

What I have been doing in the last 2 years

Ok, I have disappeared in the last 2 years. Actually I have been extremely busy for most of it. There have been both personal as well as professional aspects.

On the personal side, I have returned to Morocco, and it was (and still is) a very difficult adaptation process. I am used to a modern, indivisulistic life. Living close to family and relatives has not been easy. More serious is the way most Moroccans approach life and business:

  • I don't know if I have forgotten, or if Morocco is becoming a more judgemental society... Most people think it is their business to get their noses in other people's personal lives, and fight those that live differently... Also, religion is taking a much stronger hold on people...
  • I am convinced that the level of competency in all professions and industries is getting much lower. Close sightedness and close mindedness has grown to the extreme during the years I lived abroad. The general approach of most "professionals" is to avoid any kind of formal process, and to simply throw the can a bit further on the road... Just tinker the thing so that the problem at hand disappears, regardless of how seriously it impacts the overall working of the thing; any problems caused will be delt with later....

On the professional side, I found myself almost immediately upon my return dealing qith some of the largest and most critical projects in the country. I actually had to diversify my competency, not because there wasn't enough to do with narrow specialization, but because there was a great need for many aspects I wasn't necessary well versed in, but nobody else was, and I had the capacity to get into rather quickly... So I deepened my knowledge and expertise, and I now work as an independent expert on :

  • Solutions Architecure
  • Integration and interoperability
  • Cryptography
  • Application and code security
  • Business Process Management and organization strategy
  • Business Intelligence

At the same time, I have spend much time building a Business Process Management Solution. Initially, I was to have it owned and managed by a company I was to create with some friends. I have recently decided that that company wouldn't work, and I am creating a new company by myself. More to come on that front ...

 

Any now, I am just now becoming more structured in dealing with both the professional and personal aspects of my new life here... I hope I will be much less invisible to my friends and on my blog....

Leaving Microsoft

Just that, I am leaving Microsoft...