Hello everybody,
following the example from Erik, here some details about myself. Born in Germany, studied electronics in Nuernberg and Berlin, but only ever worked as a hardware engineer for about 8 months, then moved on to writing real-time multi-tasking operating systems for power station controls in ASM86 (proper stuff!). From there I moved into a management role, with sales and technical staff, doing meter reading systems.
In 1996 I moved to South Africa, as part of a JV staff exchange programme, where I did sales, marketing and product management. Decided to get self-employed, but couldn’t get a work permit for that. Left South Africa in 2002, and came to the UK. Worked as a freelancer for a while, then got picked up by a web design and hosting company, which promptly went belly-up because the owner couldn’t sell to save his life.
I then became IT Manager at Mobile Fun, a very dynamic and agile e-commerce company. There I implemented an ERP system from scratch, using VB.NET and C#.NET, with a MySQL database, and loads of open-source technologies. Got head hunted for a company in Cambridge, but left after 4 years because top management didn’t want to do anything with IT (other than cut it back to zero), and found myself this job as IT Applications Manager for Tarmac Building Products, where I am heading a team of 7 analysists, implementing Dynamics AX 2009.
I don’t know (yet) a lot about AX, but I do know a lot about how ERP systems and database applications work, and I am pretty good with SQL, too. And, after 20 years of practicing, I am now also a pretty decent manager of people.
On the private front: I am married second time around (to an English girl, that’s how I ended up in the UK). Two kids from my first marriage, both grown up. One stepson from the second marriage, who thinks I am a reincarnation of a 4500 year old alien named Fuzzy Rainbow. Well, can’t get it right with everybody.
So, now I am looking forward to posting some probably very odd questions, and getting good replies.