Welcome, dear Visitor, to my new blog. My name is Michael Suess and it has been a while since I have last written a blog post. More than six years now, to be precise. It was on another blog called ThinkingParallel, more or less fully focused on my thesis topic parallel programming.
Times have changed since then, and so have my interests and capabilities. I have more or less stopped working on parallel programming topics completely. I started working for a new company, TomTom – more precisely for TomTom Telematics. I grew from being a scientist to practising as software engineer, to leading a team, to leading a couple of teams – to leading the whole development organization now. My interests have broadened along the with my journey and right now I am most interested in leadership, technology, management, business and related topics. This blog will reflect that.
Like last time when I started a blog in 2006, I will start it with a short Q&A-session. Funny how my answers have changed since then, if you are interested you might want to check out the post from last time.
Who are you?
My name is Michael Suess. I presently fill the role of VP Engineering at TomTom Telematics in Leipzig.
There must be more to you than just a location and a thesis, right?
Of course there is. I am married and have two sons. I have hobbies (e.g. board-games and running), friends and even a life. But since this blog is about neither of those, I will stop telling you about them now.
If this is not a personal blog, what’s it about then?
This blog is about a variety of topics that I am presently interested in. Leadership could be called the leading theme. But I will also write about management and its techniques. I will write about technology, as I have stayed a nerd on the inside. I plan on writing about business-related topics. Sometimes maybe about User Interface Design or Quality Assurance. The Mobile App space. Let’s just see what it grows into.
Why should I care what you have to say about leadership or really anything? Are you some kind of world-class expert in the field?
No, I am sure not. I enjoy writing and often use it to structure my thoughts and come to a conclusion for myself. Right now, I am 35 years old – which basically means I have a lot to learn about all kinds of topics in life. I have come a long way since I have joined the corporate world 6 years ago, so I must have done some things right. Maybe I can help somebody with what I have learned so far. I have also made my share of mistakes. Maybe this will be more of a vehicle for me to learn more. You are welcome to join me in that journey.
Lets get a little more concrete: What are some of the topics you want to write about?
Let’s just wait and see what comes up, shall we?
What kind of writing style are you targetting?
That’s easy. As I have already told you, I am not doing this blog to write short snippets about my cat or what I had for breakfast. I am aiming to write well thought out essays, and the blog format merely gives me an easy way to solicit feedback. If you want to know how this can look like, take a look at Paul Grahams essays (yes, I know that’s not a blog, but it could be). My opinion pieces probably wont be as big, but that is the style I am targetting. Furthermore, I will also have shorter articles on topics I stumble over during the course of my work. Really, that part will be just like in the old times at ThinkingParallel.
With that, let’s stop it for now and hope to see you around here!
