A peek inside Fred's mindframe
From SCAN's Print Edition

By Jennifer Bruce

My first encounter with Frédéric Boulanger was a little over a year ago at an OCRI breakfast panel titled Managing the Turnaround. As I'm not at my brightest at 7 a.m., I'd taken along my trusty recorder to be able to replay the presentations after clearing the cobwebs. No need in Fred's case, as he easily kept the crowd engaged with his story of steering his company, Macadamian Software Engineering, through the lean times of the tech bust and the measures he took to remain in the black.

Despite the increasing threatening trend since 2000 of outsourcing contracts to cheaper, overseas suppliers, Fred and his team managed to prove the value of keeping the work local by focusing on customer service and attention to detail. And by practicing the time honoured strategy of joining them if you can't beat them, over the past seven years Macadamian has managed to steadily increase its business by forging partnerships with foreign companies, which has provided the ability to benefit from cross-cultural collaboration. Fred has also travelled extensively during this time, most often to India, one of the world’s top regions for IT outsourcing. On top of giving his passport a healthy workout, his work abroad in the field has allowed him to compare and combine best practices learned from both Canadian and international tech projects.

We’ve had Frédéric Boulanger’s Journal on our blogroll since the summer, and it stands out on a few fronts. First, you’ll notice there’s nothing flashy or fancy about his ‘Blogger’-based offering, which Fred began writing in 2001, well ahead of the bloggerati pack. What? No RSS feed, skype link, or ads, you ask? Keeping it simple works just fine here, for the purpose expressed in the journal’s header ─ providing his ‘opinions on the Outsourced Product Development Business, technology in general, and from time to time, food!’ ─ proving that yes, Fred does have a few, select interests which lie outside his geeky domain.

The most distinct difference with this blog, however, is that its traffic only runs one-way; there’s no Invitation to comment. Yet it provides readers with everything a good journal should ─ a day-to-day look into Fred’s musings on tech, his travels (often with fun pictures!) and the occasional mention of a good movie or memorable meal. Well worth a visit.