"Hi, I'm Joe Bolte. I work for Wolfram now." With these words, I started my career with Wolfram Research and the 2006 NKS Conference. The two women unpacking the makeshift headquarters in the small conference room where I had been told to come guided me upstairs to a corporate boadroom where Stephen Wolfram was meeting with members of the Science Group and some of the other researchers. It was a little disconcerting starting off a new job by being pushed into the middle of a meeting headed by the founder of your company, but I tried to play it cool while I shook hands with everyone and memorized names. Most of the people in the room were playing up the obsessive genius look, typing on laptops with furrowed brows and wild hair. It really was a strange scene, lil' ole me among these guys sitting in leather backed chairs and discussing their goals for the conference and the company's future. I figured there wasn't much to do except sit down, listen carefully and try to contribute. There's no way to "nail" situations like these, since the main topic of the evening was a problem on which some of the guys had been spending quite some time and thought, but at least no one seemed to think my questions or suggestions were an undue annoyance. And it was exciting; it had been quite a long time since I'd gotten to work on problems that were fundamentally hard to solve, with difficulties far beyond implementation details. Eventually our focus started to wander and the meeting broke up at 2 a.m. after about five hours of discussion.
In addition to commenting on presentations and NKS topics, I thought it would be interesting to post about my experiences like these, starting work at a company full of talented, dedicated people and fascinating ideas like Wolfram Research. I am not sure what forms these posts will take, but I'd love to hear feedback about this idea, especially if you have suggestions or questions about how things work behind the scenes at WRI. Drop me a line and I'll answer anything appropriate, but keep in mind I've already signed the NDA ;) You can reach me at joeb at wolfram.com