Today I gave a presentation about grid computing to the IT heavyweights in my company. You’d think I’d get an opportunity like that because I’d been slaving away on a guerrila grid project that was finally paying off and gaining visibility, but the fact is that I got the opportunity simply because I spoke up at the right time and nobody else did (eg. when they were asking for ideas to present at this offsite). And there are in fact other people at my company (and at this offsite, even) who have indeed been slaving away at guerrila grid projects that are just gaining visibility, which I did feel a little bad about.
Anyway, 4 weeks ago I knew nothing about grids other than having had SETI@home installed on a computer or two in the past. But I now had an excuse to spend some work time surfing the net, doing research and learning lots of new things. I took my head out of my day-to-day tasks and it was really invigorating. They say Google requires its developers to spend 20% time on their own projects and while I think that might be excessive, I do think all companies should place more emphasis on making sure people get to explore new technologies. You never know what might come out of it.
