Tourtellotte Solutions Blog

Travel and Actuals

I think I've skipped a travel disaster or two in my scant blogging efforts, but our recent trip down to Atlantic City for IMDG Vendor day requires a quick sentence or two. First off, this is an event that is held once every 3 years or so, a special time when vendors can come address an industry group which generally excludes vendors. So we felt pretty special being able to go. And because it is in Atlantic City, we figured it would be best to... drive? (Don't ask) So driving actually turns out well because we have a GIANT RFP to work on and Laura bravely volunteered to read and type while I ramble and drive. Making great time and we stop at McDonalds in Greenwich CT, I'm looking for my wallet.. in my pocket, surely its there, my pocket simply cannot be that big... uh oh...

Which was good because then I had the rest of the trip to contemplate whether or not I had been pickpocketed, or if I was really dumb enough to leave on an 8 hour journey to a *casino* with no wallet. And finally how the heck I'm getting a room in this day and age. Long story short, Laura sold some jewelry* on the street corner and gave me $500 which I still have not paid back. What the heck! We had fun and talked quite a bit with a few prospects that the conference, anyway. Won big at craps the first night, and, as you can imagine, lost it all back the second.

ANYWAY,

With all that fun behind us we barely finished the Biggest RFP Known To Man in the Shortest Possible Time Frame, but by working during all waking hours, we pulled it off. Boy I sure hope we win this one :)

In the meantime, we have just completed tcVisualize actuals integration with ICON! We are showing the results to a major pharma customer of ours in the morning, and I have to say it looks fantastic! Thanks to our friends at ICON for their hard work on their part of the extract, and to Nick and Jeremy for pulling it all together on our end. I didn't mention before, but we also completed Clinphone actuals integration this year - we now have Clinphone, ICON, Perceptive, and an IVRS that we built for a major pharma (99%) complete! Things are going well.

Many demos and client visits continue on the horizon including 2 important Trident demos the first week in September. Anyone who is in CT can check in on Robin and Panlong and see the incredible things they are doing with the Trident Admin and EUS systems, really cool stuff and in my opinion this will be the next generation software for a loooong time to come.

Take care everybody,

*not true - used ATM

Kenflo Video

Anyone who is planning on watching Kenny Florian in UFC 87 tomorrow night might be interested in a video of his family talking about him and his life and career, it is really nicely done:

Kenny and his family

Quick Update

Again, its been far too long since the last blog entry. Next time I go more than 3 weeks with no blog I insist that someone send me a flame mail indicating moderate disappointment in my blogging qualities. First flame gets a candy bar. (Second gets to write a blog entry!)

Anyway, things are very very busy for us in August and I couldn't possible share all that is going on but a few highlights are that the tcViz pipeline continues to be quite strong, and we are working with a number of serious prospects to model sample studies and consider how to move forward. Also, Trident is progressing and we may have a first glimpse of the new *flash-based* admin system from the New London office as early as next week! Interest in Trident is also strong, especially for how little we've tried to market it lately. Ajaya's India team has apparently come roaring out of the gate and is already winning accolades in the first week or so of taking on IVRS tickets. (just like we knew they would!) We continue to expand our IVRS services group as well - under the organizational guidance and leadership of Kristina, this group is becoming a force to be reckoned with.

One thing that I mention to people sometimes, but I'd really like to stress here on the blog: if possible, learn tcVisualize. Not necessarily the code base or the heavily technical aspects, but rather the ability to model and tune just about any study that a customer can throw at us. This gives you the advantage of having a really neat birds-eye view of the clinical supply chain, also to have a skill which is more and more in demand (best practice clinical supply forecasting) and it also allows us to grow organically as more and more calls for our forecasting *expertise* come in.

Also, Kenny is fighting "el Matador" Roger Heurta on Saturday on PPV. Go Kenny!

TS'ers: CHECK YOUR EMAIL!

We have a big QA audit coming up on Tuesday and we may require some documents or other responses from you. For anyone with TS hardware we have new antivirus software to be installed and a few other polcies that need to be adopted, followed by a signed acceptance letter returned to KZ.

I think you'll find all of this pretty low-drag, and it will help us not just comply with our new policies but also have better control of our environment in a way that really does not add much overhead at all.

Thanks everyone for your prompt attention!

Its June!

Wow and I haven't posted annything on the blog since before tax day, how shameful! I am going to have to insist that you all (9707 visits to date!?!) pester me whenever the blog goes silent for a week or more. Lets see, whats new:

- we've got a new email system, finally we can get away from Microsoft on the server. There are a few oddities in the web client which can be easily handled: 1. messages by default will cluster together in their "thread" - go to preferences to disable this if you have trouble with it. If you seem to be missing some emails this is likely the culprit. 2. html may be off by default - fix this in prefs as well if you wish. Also bear in mind that we can now connect *any* email client to the server via secure IMAP so if you've got one you like better than outlook (mozilla anyone? apple mail?) you can now use it. And your iPhones too. Thanks to Alex for setting all of this up and transferring files over as well.

- we had another successful conference in San Francisco not long ago, with myself, Nick and Laura attending. It was nice to come face to face with folks from the west coast, including a number of smaller companies we may not otherwise have met. Overall a great event (as all VIB events are!) resulting in a healthy number of new prospects for tcVisualize and even a few for Trident. The 360 degree integration concept is still blowing people's hair back.

- speaking of which, Laura and I will be stepping into Paul's role throughout June and Paul will be moving on to new things starting in July. We all owe Paul a debt of gratitude for his tremendous hard work in trying to grow and expand our business.

- we have a new company quality policy which includes elements of SDLC, testing, validation, documentation and more. The new policy represents a *vast* improvement over the prior and I honestly believe it will be of great use to all of us going forward. All software developers in the company will be required to take training on the new policy (and adhere to it) as well as GCP overview and 21 CFR Part 11.

- a few other policies are coming out soon but believe me, they are all streamlined and useful, or I never would have let them come to be.

Thats all for now!

Haiku

I've long liked haiku. I love a 3rd line surprise! I heard this last night:

haiku's are simple
but sometimes they don't make sense
refrigerator

OK so that was mostly entertainment, but, to prove that I really do like haiku, I promise to write and post a few in the coming months.

ps: Kenny in Rogan's spot this Sat.!!!

pps: another E-travel disaster blog in the works!

Kenflo Replay

As I type this, Spike TV is running a replay of the most recent Ultimate Fight Night Live, headlined by our sponsored athlete and good friend Kenny Florian, who (spoiler coming) will beat Joe Lauzon in round 2. If you missed it, now's the time to catch it!

A Note on Comments

Well, I was hoping that we would not have to do any anti spam stuff but unfortunately the bots found us and started advertising all manner of unwanted garbage. As a result I have implemented an extremely simple method to stop spam: commenters need a password. For now we have one password for everyone, which we will send out in email internally. (Any external readers feel free to request it!). If this doesn't work (for whatever reason!) we can go to the next level with jpg decoding, IP banning, etc.

Kenny Wins Again!!!

(... and our night out last night was splendid as well!)

I dont have much of a link this early but I'm **almost** calmed down enough to even consider sleeping now. First round in Kenny's headling fight against Joe Lauzon was very exciting, back and forth, but second round was all Kenny. Eventually I think Joe just realized he could not do anything and shortly thereafter the ref stopped it - not so much because Lauzon was out but more because he was completely stuck and eating endless punches. Yea Kenny you did it again! We're all proud of you more than its easy to express.

As for the rest of the week, we've hit home runs in every major event so far, including in my opinion the night out where we welcomed half a dozen new TS folks to the fold with an *old school* Roadhouse night, including a game of settlers and a late nite coda at the Radisson because Nick just happened to have a bottle of Bushmills in his car.

All that and the week is only half done.

Its gonna be a Big Week!

Too busy to write much but here are some highlights:

- multiple tcVisualize and Trident IWR demos lined up
- big meeting with [important pharmaceutical] about the future of IVRS
- big internal meeting Tues to discuss architecture, etc.
- internal demo of tcV + Trident in New London office, Tues
- big night out at Roadhouse, Tues night
- Ajaya in town Tues -> !!
- Kenny Florian HEADLINING on Spike TV, live national TV Wed night
- (plus Wed. is April fool's day - be careful!)

I think of all this stuff, I am most exceited for the big night out since we have so many new people now and its been so long since we've all hung out together. This will be a great way for everyone to get to know everyone and see some of our software as well. Plus, how often is Ajaya in town!

(This means, btw, that our India IVRS support operation is officially kicking off!)