Summa

The Holidays are here! Soon snow will be falling, presents will be wrapped, and kids will be in line for Santa at the mall. I thought to myself, in this stressful/wonderful time of the year I would write a little light reading for the blog! I know that sometimes technical blogging can be a little on the strenuous side, so sit back, relax, and hum the tune with me! I know that you know it!

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September 2011 marks Summa’s 15^th Anniversary and we have a lot of exciting things happening at the company. We’ve received accolades locally and nationally for our sales and employee growth, along with recognition of Summa as a great place to work.

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I am back again to finish my top 12 list! I know, I know, Part 1 only had 5 items; but hey I saved the best 7 for last! Just to summarize, I am trying to give others out there who are new to the consulting world a view of my experiences from the first 12 months of being a consultant.

In my previous post my main focus was on camaraderie, and unexpected processes involved in development. In this part, I will focus on technology and work culture!

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A year ago I began my consulting career with Summa as an Associate Technical Consultant. It was a dramatic adjustment from my previous job as a Software Engineer at a large corporation. After talking with a lot of my coworkers I found that the majority had the same thoughts that I did when I made the switch. The thoughts of uncertainty in what to expect from a new job, piled on top of a completely new way of doing things.

So I have been consulting for a year now, a short time in comparison to an entire career. Even so, I feel as if within this short period of time I can create a “what to expect” list. I hope that you can get some insight from my experience so that if you choose to make the same transition you know what to expect. Enjoy!

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I recently stumbled across Retrographer, a site being developed by students at CMU that provides a mashup of images of historic Pittsburgh against locations on Google Maps along with the recent photos for the same location. The find was a launching point into an intriguing exploration of the history of Summa’s downtown neighborhood and the Ewart Building, Summa’s home.

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I just returned from an Open Spaces conference and was completely jazzed by the power and possibilities of the format: Technologists getting together, discussing what is interesting to us.

A few of the Pittsburgh attendees of the conference decided to organize: Pittsburgh Geek Out Day (PGOD). PGOD is a semi-regular meeting of technologists to discuss software engineering, how to be rockstar programmers, trends in software, and anything else that people find interesting.

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Summa is one of the first IBM business partners to achieve IBM Software Value Plus Industry Authorization.

The new authorization program is focused on select business partners with specific experience in key industries. Summa was invited to participate based on its successful track record delivering value enabling, application and integration solutions in the Healthcare industry.

Full Press Release

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Summa will be presenting “Modernizing Integration to Achieve Meaningful Use” at the annual meeting of the Virginia chapter of HIMSS at the end of October. We’ll be discussing:

• The “meaningful use” criteria of the ARRA HITECH legislation that is related to systems integration
• The fact that many hospitals have interoperability infrastructures that are not well suited to some new integration patterns that will be necessary for achieving meaningful use
• Options to consider when modernizing integration in hospital / IDN environments

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It takes real effort for a consulting organization to develop and retain a group identity. Consultants often work at client sites and are surrounded by clients who aren’t coworkers. We can get caught up in our clients’ problems and successes. It’s important for Summa as an organization that our consultants periodically renew their connection to the “home base.”

One way that Summa employees stay connected to one another is through our annual Summa Summit and anniversary party. In the fall of 2000, then-CEO Ed Engler gathered together all of Summa’s staff for a “Summit,” which has been repeated almost every year since then. The Summit has become one of the most important times in the Summa calendar, and it helps us all reconnect, share success stories, and plan for the year to come.

We also throw a big party.

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Integrating with SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions is often underestimated in complexity and effort. This white paper covers key planning considerations related to data modeling, data mapping and security, as well as key capabilities needed in a SaaS integration layer.

The “Planning for SaaS Integration” white paper is now available for dowload at our website (simple registration required).

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Summa was recognized by IBM as a finalist for the Smart SOA award during the Business Partner Summit at Impact – IBM’s annual SOA Conference – in Las Vegas last week.  

 IBM’s award program showcases business partners who have demonstrated excellence in delivering business value solutions to customers based on their integrations with IBM WebSphere software.  The SOA Award recognizes the best SOA based solutions that help customers create sustainable differentiation, achieve agility and realize business value.

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Summa is a sponsor of IBM’s premiere SOA conference, IMPACT 2010, being held at the Venetian Resort Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas from May 2 through May 7, 2010. We will be presenting five sessions at the conference, along with a “Birds of a Feather” Breakout Session focused on “The Transformative Role of IT in Healthcare.”  The sessions include:

• UPMC Modernizes Healthcare Interoperability with WebSphere Process Server (Session ID: TIH-1218A)
  
• Highmark Modernizes Healthcare Insurance Sales Process with WebSphere Message Broker (Session ID: TCE-2182A)
  
• The Real TCO of WAS vs. JBoss and other Open Source JEE Runtimes (Session ID: TDW-2420A)
  
• Accelerate Your Cloud CRM Deployments with WebSphere (Session ID: TCE-1477A)
  
• Panel Discussion: WAS vs. JBoss and Tomcat: Customer Insights and Perspectives (Session ID: TDW-2671A)

If you are going to Impact 2010, stop by the Summa booth # IZ16 in the Industry Zone.  We are  highlighting solutions in Healthcare, SaaS/Cloud Integration, Application Modernization, and SOA, BPM, CRM and Connectivity.

For more information and more details about Summa’s sessions and the IMPACT 2010 conference, visit http://www.summa-tech.com/news/impact2010.php4.

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As a newbie to the field of IT consulting, I am constantly observing my more seasoned colleagues. In my observation, a characteristic common among “good IT consultants” is that they are technology savvy. They are IT geeks and have a thirst to learn new technologies. They desire to be a part of the next big IT movement and spend their spare time - evenings, weekends, holidays acquainting themselves with new technologies, and creating mini projects to work on and learn.

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Summa is sponsoring two upcoming  ZapThink SOA events.

The first event is a networking and panel discussion of SOA Experts (including Jason Bloomberg, David Linthicum, Summa’s own Jason Armstrong and others.) It is October 1 in Washington DC (Tyson’s Corner).  More details are here:

The second event is in Pittsburgh on October 22nd - focused on SOA and modernization featuring project case studies from CMU ahd Highmark. More detail and registration information are here.

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Instead of giving the obligatory dictionary definition, I’ll just say it like this: a consultant is someone with some wisdom (hopefully), that is asked for advice and guidance. More specifically, companies employ IT consultants to help them solve their business problems with technology. Some consultants are specialists; they have a narrow field of expertise, and are brought in to work with one specific technology. Other consultants (Summa consultants, for example) tend to be generalists; they’ve worked on many different problems at many different companies, using varying technologies as needs dictate.

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