Antony’s Life Blog

I spent this weekend “joining” a finance course from Professor Shiller, Yale University. No… no… I didn’t go to Yale University. I just “watched” the course online on Academic Earth.

For those who don’t know, Professor Shiller is an American academic, economist and best-selling author. He is quite popular these days after the housing burst in the US. He (with his two other economists) introduced Case-Shiller Index to track house pricing.

The course is very interesting, especially for me who come from a totally different world. There are 26 lectures in total, discussing about banking, insurance, stocks, options as well as financial crisis.

I have been asked by friends and colleagues, where I’ll be going to. I always said that I’ll be going to Ontario area. Most of them were able to guess that I’ll be joining RIM (Research in Motion), the maker of BlackBerry. How can they guess? RIM is the biggest high-tech company in Canada and the top five public companies in Canada. Besides that, RIM’s headquarter is in Ontario area. So, it’s not difficult to make a guess for them.

Why RIM?

• First of all, I couldn’t find a good job in Vancouver area (honestly). Most high-tech companies in Vancouver have been laying off people, including Nokia, Microsoft, Kodak, Electronic Arts and recently Sierra Wireless.
• RIM is one of the fastest growing mobile companies in the world. According to Canalys, it is growing by 83.5% in Q3 2008 compared to the same quarter in 2007. In other words, the company is still doing well (although it is not immune from the crisis).
• It’s always been my dream to develop mobile applications that will be used by millions of users out there. The team that I’ll be working with are responsible for developing BlackBerry core applications. I might have a chance to realize my dream.
• The company is based in Canada. I am planning to apply for Canadian citizenship this year; so I don’t want to move to another country at this point.
• President Barack Obama is using BlackBerry… just kidding.   Apparently, he’s not giving up his BlackBerry (see comic below from Joy of Tech); and now he becomes the first president of the United States of America to have access to email.

 
(Picture is from Joy of Tech.)

When I resigned from Nokia last year, one of my best friends said, “I think for some time now you will have sort of corporate cultural-shock… homesickness and even before you’ll realize Nokia will be a history.” He was absolutely right. Nokia is going to be a history for me soon.

Some of you may already know that I’ll be pursuing a new career in Ontario area. My new job is not related to Nokia any more. You may ask, how about my current job? Is it related to Nokia since I have left the company last year? Well… although I am no longer working for Nokia; but my current project is still dealing with Nokia’s platform. Even if we trace where my salary comes from; it might still be coming from devices sold by Nokia.

That’s why; I’ve been having a sad feeling in the last couple of days. I got my first “real job” at Nokia. I learned many new things and gained new skills at Nokia. I met a lot of great people at Nokia (unfortunately I didn’t have a chance to meet Jorma Ollila and Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo yet). I am going to miss all those people talking in English with funny “Finnish accent”… just kidding…

OK… life must go on…