Looking back at 2010

I am posting this from my parent’s house in Trivandrum, India where I am vacationing. It used to be a different world altogether just a few years ago – but today, life in US and life in India look a whole lot similar.

2010 has been an eventful year for me on career front, with many positive happenings. I attended Teched and SAPPHIRE, had an unbelievable number of people attend my session on BOBJ, and blogged a lot more than I thought would be possible. The debate on Agile was so enlightening that I exchanged a couple of hundred emails and blog comments with experts on the topic. And I had the honor of joining enterprise geeks for a podcast on the topic.

2010 also introduced me to the world of podcasts – thanks to my good friend Jon Reed *@jonerp* of jonerp.com. I am looking forward to doing more in future with him.

More than everythig else, I thoroughly enjoyed meeting many of my buddies from SAP ecosystem in 2010 – from all continents. Knowing them and interacting with them has been the highlight of the year.

On the flip side, 2010 really taught me what “burn out” really means. I got promoted as Associate Partner in IBM this year, and it changed the nature of my work significantly. It took me a little bit to learn how to delegate more, and I am still learning. I have even more admiration when I look at my managers these days – realizing what it takes to be succesful at that level.

I hardly took a vacation for the last 2 years, and by the time I left for India in early this month on vacation – I could not bear to even think of work. Old habits seldom change – so I take a sneak peek at my email every now and then. And I feel very blessed and very proud when I see my team handle high pressure situations without my active guidance.