Mar 3

I write this at 7 PM in Timika while most of you are fast asleep - it's 3 AM in Phoenix.

Today was our first day at the office on Papua. The MIS offices are actually in Kuala Kencana, which is further up the mountain from Timika. Timika is where we land, heading up the mountain to Kuala Kencana is where we work, further up the hill is Tembagapura which is where the expats live, and then the mine is at the top of Grasburg. There are other small villages in the area - Kamoro, Banti - and they are REALLY small.

Yesterday, while I was relaxing, my two colleagues took a taxi into downtown Timika and had a good experience mingling with the locals - and some Aussie's that work at the mine. They were able to obtain some interesting information, as well. For example, in Timika, everyone just puts their trash on the side of the road. Vehicles come buy and push the trash into piles, and at night, someone comes by and lights the piles on fire. Efficient, but smelly. They also learned that the security around the hotel is, indeed, to keep out people, not animals. In fact, when there are riots on the island - like there were a few years ago - they rush all the expats to the security of the hotel. (Does the image of Jurassic Park sink in even more now?) Finally, we also learned that exchanging money here is difficult. If the US currency has a funny crease, or is to crisp or has any mark (like writing or www.wheresgeorge.com) then they won't exchange it.

Not to belabor the Jurassic Park analogy, but the trip out to the office reminded me of the scene where they took the jeep and were rushing through the jungle to get to the boat...only we were heading the opposite direction. When we left the hotel we followed a paved road to a security checkpoint, where our driver showed his credentials, and we turned on to a dirt road that ran parallel to the river. The river is one of hundreds on Papua, but happens to be the river that flows off our tailings. This means, the river has gold in it, and you'll see the natives panning for gold as you drive to the office. With gold hovering near $1,000 an ounce, and the GDP per person in Jakarta averaging around $1,000 per year, you can imagine how ecstatic they are when they find a single nugget.

Why isn't their a mad gold rush to Papua and the jungles of Irian Jaya? Well, first of all, it's illegal to pan for gold. Any gold they find, they sell for a substantial discount and someone very quickly makes it into some haphazard jewelry so they can sell it without many questions. It's less suspicious to sell gold jewelry than solid gold nuggets. Second, the rivers are full of large, hungy crocodiles. Gold panners often disappear under the water, never to surface. Of course, the native Papuans will also eat anything they can kill (including other humans if the stories are believed), so you'll also find crocodile meat in town and crocodile skin is an export of the island.

The dirt road finally ends on a divided highway that is our corporate campus and the local golf course (also operated by the Sheraton). The buildings themselves are squat, blue roofed buildings that stand out in the middle of the jungle. There is a mall in Kuala Kencana, directly across from the offices, with restaurants, a bank, and a grocery store. This used to be the center of the world for this area until Timika began to become a small town.

For lunch, we visited the Chinese restaurant. Trying to be adventurous, I once again ordered something that they had run out of - Deer, Kuala style. As most of the remainder of the menu was poultry, fish, or the ever ominous Jurassic pork (I know, bad pun), I chose the safe route and ordered sauteed bean sprouts with tofu. It was actually quite good and quite filling.

By mid afternoon the bright blue sky had become overcast, and shortly after 2 PM the rain came down hard. It continued raining until just a few minutes ago, though I expect it will start again before the night is over.

Before I forget the reason I'm here - my project - I have to say that this is the most challenging project I've worked on. The project objective itself is fairly straight forward - modify a help desk system in preparation for global deployment. The modifications are neither technically complex, numerous, or labor intensive. Where the challenge lies is with the people and the process. I'm sure we'll have the product fully tested and ready to deploy on the desired date. I am not so confident, however, that we will not have a mutiny (or at least muntinous grumbling) by every one who will now have to use the system as it is so vastly different in so many ways from what they are accustomed to.

Long term, the interconnectedness and simplicity it provides is absolutely the right move for the company. Short term, there is going to be a lot of pain and major culture shock. Adoption won't be difficult because there is only one option - use it. Getting through the training, rollout, policy and procedure changes, and system configuration will be a challenge. If I can just get us started on the development, I'll turn my attention to these more challenging aspects to see what can be done to mitigate so our project can be a success from the start. For now, those issues are a distant storm and I need to get the development team in gear so we can meet our delivery date.