[Macpartners] Leaving IS, and thanks...

[Kerem B Limon]

Friends and colleagues at MIT and the IT community--

As some of you have very recently heard from me directly, I am leaving my 
current position in IS Delivery as a project team leader, which became 
effective as of November 14th, this past Friday. While I was notified a few 
weeks prior that with the impending budget situation and the gradual 
closing down and phasing away of Delivery work to other areas, my contract 
would not continue past that date, I chose to wait until now to share the 
information with you all to avoid being a potential source of undue panic 
at an uncertain time. This also gave me time to tie some loose ends and 
transfer certain responsibilities to other colleagues in an orderly manner 
to ensure a smooth transition for work which I have led and in which I have 
been involved.

As indicated in the recent closing down announcement for the Windows 2000 
Domains, Workgroups, Servers Project from Bob Ferrara and I, much of the 
migration work in this area is going to be handled (as the new IS 
organization also reflects) by the Academic and Administrative Computing 
divisions depending on the customer's affiliation. Through the Delivery 
Project and since then, resources within these areas have carried out a 
:)umber of pilots and actual migrations successfully, and our experiences 
have shown that a somewhat personalized approach to each migrating 
organization serves their needs better than an overall, generalized single 
strategy which failed to emerge from among the complex and diverse variety 
of Windows implementations at MIT. I encourage your 
department/lab/center/office IT resources, if they have not already done 
so, to contact the appropriate parties through Phil Long (Academic 
Computing) or Theresa Regan (Administrative Computing) who have kindly 
agreed to front these efforts. With the Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 de-support 
deadline looming ever closer, they will be able to point you to resources 
that will be able to orient you in the right direction and help plan your 
progress no matter what your endpoint is--within the central win.mit.edu 
Active Directory domain or as an independent one.

There is more work to be done in the on-line and off-line documentation and 
support side of Windows Server platforms, and to this end, I have been 
working with other colleagues to place such ongoing efforts in a framework 
that will carry them through January and beyond. I will continue to work 
with both groups and efforts, time and opportunity permitting, and I have 
every confidence that in due time, there will be information and resources 
available for your use. Having served in the Support process for a long 
time, my heart is still somewhat on that side of the business; and it is 
still very much fresh in my mind how difficult it is to implement a 
scalable and robust support structure, including consistent documentation, 
especially in the face of diminishing resources. These are uncertain and 
difficult times for all, you, our customers, as well as those of us 
remaining in IS, and thus I would very much appreciate and encourage you to 
give our colleagues in IS serving these areas your patience, confidence, 
and benefit of a doubt as they work their best to deliver what you need. 
You are being left in very capable hands.

Before I leave you, I'll include a portion of what I wrote to a collection 
of close friends this past week to let them know of my departure. It 
applies equally well, and was actually penned (keyed?) with the larger IT 
community in mind:

>As some of you know, I am a pack rat (understatement of the century) and 
>archive all my e-mail. Recently, I took the time to go back and pull out a 
>particular message I had sent nearly some six-and-a-half years ago, on 
>August 14th, 1997, to a smaller subset of IS, when I was graduating from 
>MIT and leaving the Help Desk (then in Building 11). In that message, I 
>had written:
>
>>I wanted to take the opportunity to say that I have really enjoyed working
>>with all of you [at the Help Desk]. I am lucky to have had the chance and the
>>environment to meet and work alongside some of the brightest and most
>>competent people I know at MIT in my one and a half years as a consultant
>>here. I will surely miss the friendly atmosphere [of the Help Desk] 
>>wherever I
>>go, as it will remain among my best experiences at MIT.
>>
>>I would like to wish all of you the best of health, happiness, luck and
>>success in the rest of your endeavors, wherever life may take you, including
>>N42!
>
>That was written when I had occasion to have known only a much smaller 
>fragment of the IS family and the IT community at MIT, and had not yet met 
>many of the other personalities and characters at large. At the very least 
>for present company, whom I've come to know and count on since then, I am 
>glad to say it still holds true.

Although this past Friday was my last day, I am not going to just 
disappear, of course! My Athena account and e-mail will remain open, and I 
will be around campus, at least in the short term, while I search for other 
opportunities. As I mentioned above, time permitting, I'll try to help some 
of the ongoing efforts on a volunteer basis. And you can expect to see my 
continued participation in the IT/IS/Win/Macpartners forums as long as I am 
able. In these hard times of diminishing resources, our community and 
cross-organizational collaboration will become even more significant a 
source of mutual support and assistance; that is something in which I have 
always firmly believed, in which I have eagerly participated, and by which, 
to this date, not in the least been disappointed.

Conversely, I would greatly appreciate if you could let me know of job 
opportunities and openings that crop up in your areas or you hear about. If 
you'd like me to pass resumes around, do let me know.

It has been a pleasure and a privilege working and serving with you all. No 
matter the climate, MIT is one of the better places to be, regardless of 
whether you are a student or a staff member (and most probably an 
academician). Trust me; I speak from experience.


Sincerely,
Kerem B. Limon
Project Team Leader, Delivery Process
MIT Information Systems

Contact information:
kerem.limon at mit.edu  /e-mail
kerem at limon.ws  /e-mail
617-492-9922  /voice /fax