Ever-cheerful Angie from human resources came by my office today to present the company's job offer letter to me. The offer looked good, so I signed the little squiggle of my signature (1) to bind myself to the big squiggle of the company (2). I leave contractorland to become full-time staff on Monday.

This is the best job I've ever had with the amazing opportunities to work with some of the world's greatest experts on technology at MIT and Stanford. I feel like I've just bought an unlimited E-ticket to Disneyland--only I have to operate some of the rides while having fun. I will be directing three excellent managers who in turn manage three talented teams of four who work on the content of our 5000 page web site.

Both the president and CFO of the company welcomed me to the company again with enthusiastic handshakes later in the afternoon. Wife (who is a co-director in the same group) and I then went to dinner at the Hotel Monaco restaurant to celebrate (4).

Thoughts of work were quickly swept away when we got home to Cianna. She's pictured here (5-8) asking me to read from her book. What a sweet way to end a great day.

- mike lee - langley park, md

Looks like I have a break in the days-long major outage Danger is experiencing with their network. Let's see if it lasts.

Here are photos of my departure from Montreal and flight back including having my flight cancelled due to bad weather and having to stay overnight at the airport Hilton.

- mike lee - langley park, md

Next to the Fairmont Hotel where I'm staying is Cathedral-Basilica Marie-Reine-du-Monde (Mary Queen of the World). Completed in 1894, this is an exact 1/3 replica of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

- mike lee - montreal

Here are the missing photos from the Meeting Minds post. The Fido Network has been flakey and frustrating all day.

And a second try at the correct link for the misfiled post on the underground city.

- mike lee - montreal

Here are the missing photos for the Meeting Minds post. The Fido Network has been flakey all day.

Also, the correct link to photos of the Montreal Underground City.

- mike lee

Reposting a link to this morning's post of photos from my walk through part of the underground city so this link will appear in my main moblog newsfeed...

- mike lee

After stimulating lunchtime conversation with BJ (1), and chatting with Christina (2) in the hallway, I'm back in the conference for a panel discussion on managing teams of information architects from a manager's perspective (3 & 4). I also found out that the team that won the gold medal for yesterday afternoon's IA Slam. The IA Slam is a think-on-your-feet competition where sevral randomly selected teams are given 45 minutes to come up with a "big idea" solution to a business problem. The problem this year was to design a new shopping experience for a large national retailer named "BAL-MART," which aquired a high-end department store named "Fordstrom." I'm wearing my medal (5) this afternoon.

- mike lee - montreal

After an intensive day of conference sessions and networking, a bunch of people--like around 30 of us--from the DC area met for dinner at Le Grand Cafe a couple blocks from the hotel (3). The prix fixe dinner was excellent. Dinner ended up taking 3 hours, so instead of looking for some of the other conference parties, Elizabeth and I (1) walked around the area near the hotel. At least at night, the area feels like downtown Chicago with wide streets, but everything is in french. E turned in, and I went down to see the entrance to the Underground City. What I saw in the basement of the hotel was the entrance to a large multi-level underground shopping mall. I'll have to walk farther/deeper tomorrow to see some of the long tunnels.

- mike lee - montreal

First, check out this year's conference proceedings pictured on the ledge of my hotel room window. It's a book that's just short of a REAM of paper. There's some good reading in there, but this chunk of paper is not a load I'm willing to bear this weekend. The sheer number of papers is another indicator of this year's record attendance.

The conference keynote speaker was Dr. BJ Fogg, Director of Stanford's Persuasive Computing Laboratory (for which I am now an affiliate corporate sponsor). BJ gave a storied, and at times humorous, overview of his work at the intersection of human persuation and computers, a discipline called captology. He showed many good examples of good and bad captology, presented some unpublished theoretical models, and ended with some words of wisdom on how people can effect change in their personal lives.

- mike lee - montreal

...for four days.

I had a nice taxi ride to the Fairmont from the airport with three planemates who are also attending the conference. Since I'm on expense account, I took care of the fare and assuaged their objections by saying "one day, we'll get your money." They laughed.

Pic 3 shows the nice room that a good exchange rate and conference discount buys. 5 thru 8 is my spectacular 20th-floor view to the west of the local skyline bathed in twilight.

I'm going to head down to the reception shortly.

- mike lee - montreal