What was once the UtiliPointEuropeBlog has now become the CTRMBlog, a name/location that better reflects the focus of its primary author, Gary Vasey and the organization that he leads and represents as the Managing Director, Europe and Asia Pac for CommodityPoint. Be sure to check out the new site and stay up to date with Gary and the broader commodity and technology markets. Again, that address is www.ctrmblog.com.
If you’ve tried registering to the ETRMCommunity recently, but haven’t received your confirmation email, you might try again, or send me an email at preames@utilipoint.com. We seem to have a bit of an issue with approving new members. I’ll get our tech folks working on it.
UtiliPoint Europe will be conducting a series of webinars through the summer in conjunction with PGSEnergy Training.
The schedule is as follows;
May 29th 10:00 am to 11:00 am (U.S. Eastern Daylight Savings Time) 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm (Central European Time) - Market Sentiment as the New Risk Factor in Commodity Markets – How Energy & Commodity Markets Have Changed and It’s Impacts - for more details and to register click here
June 26th 10:00 am to 11:00 am (U.S. Eastern Daylight Savings Time) 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm (Central European Time) - European Energy Trading, Transaction & Risk Management Integration Problems and Solutions- for more details and to register click here
July 31st 10:00 am to 11:00 am (U.S. Eastern Daylight Savings Time) 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm (Central European Time) - European Markets for Billing and CIS Software – An Appraisal - - for more details and to register click here
August 28th 10:00 am to 11:00 am (U.S. Eastern Daylight Savings Time) 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm (Central European Time) - Blogging in the Energy and Natural Resources – Are They Catching on and What Role do They Play? - for more details and to register click here
September 25th 10:00 am to 11:00 am (U.S. Eastern Daylight Savings Time) 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm (Central European Time) - European Energy Trading, Transaction and Risk Management Software Markets – Characterization, Size and Trends - - for more details and to register click here
October 30th 11:00 am to Noon (U.S. Eastern Daylight Savings Time) 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm (Central European Time) - The Use of Weather Data at Energy Companies and Utilities - for more details and to register click here
A friend of this blog, Johan Steunenberg, who has his own terrific blog at http://steunenberg.wordpress.com/ (although in German - thank goodness for the somewhat iffy Google translator), commented on my Comcast rant, and pointed me in the direction of Twitter, a “micro blogging” service that is apparently monitored by Comcast in order to keep tabs on what their customers think of their “service”.
First a thought on Twitter. Apparently this system is all the rage for tech geeks and those that are extremely self-absorbed. It allows you to update the world, or those that might be interested, as to your every move or thought, as long as it can be described in 140 characters or less. This technical innovation, as much as any that I seen emerge over the last few years, begs the question “Why?”. I do see some good come out of it, like getting many of its users on the Beat the Hell Out of Comcast bandwagon, but other than that, a reading of the various posts just makes me feel very annoyed. Looking at the posts of one of the more followed posters, I see these entries…
Sunny outside. Writing inside. 03:55 PM April 05, 2008 from web
sneezing fit. spring is closer than it appears in the mirror. 05:18 PM April 04, 2008 from web
And from another micro-blogger picked at random from the list of ones that that guy follows, we get this informative bit of knowledge….
short ribs smelling AMAZING here in Connecticut! about 16 hours ago from web
Again, there is obviously something more to Twitter than meaningless posts, however, I don’t have the time or the patience to weed through the meaningless to find that true meaning (and yes I realize that some could argue this particular post doesn’t have any great meaning…)
On the other hand, I did find this…
Someone obviously hates Comcast as much or more than do I in order to have spent the time and dollars that it took to produce this pretty slick love note to my cable/internet provider.
As for the latest on my experience with Comcast…I’m relaxing at home and watching the Astros play yesterday, when suddenly, the standard pink and cream converter box message screen consumes my tv, informing me “Cablecard firmware update in progress”. After some twenty minutes of this the box turns itself off and I’m left with nothing until I unplug the #@&*(*&^ thing and reboot it. I really despise Comcast.
UtiliPoint is expanding it’s blog presence with the “soft” launch of our new European Blog. I say “soft” launch as Gary Vasey, UtiliPoint’s VP of Europe, says he’s still in beta mode with it and it may evolve over the next month. He indicates that he will be covering a wide range of topics important to the European energy markets, with a particular focus on the developing wholesale markets. You can also expect to see topics relating to European utilities, including advanced metering, meter data management, CIS, and billing. You’ll also find Gary and I cross pollinating each others blogs on occasion.
Gary describes it this way…
“UtilPoint established its European presence in late 2006 and has just completed its first full year of operation here. In the Spring of 2008 we will hold our first European client Conference in Prague (more details later) and over 2007 have conducted a number of research a consulting projects for clients here.
The idea behind this blog is to cover our activities and energy markets here in Europe. Come back often and soon.
Gary M Vasey VP, Europe”
You will find the new UtiliPoint European Blog here
As I am apt to do occasionally, I’m venturing outside of the ETRM space with this one…
This video is striking for many reasons. One of the most personal for me is that this gentleman is just about my age. I’m going to go home and give my daughter an extra hug tonight.
The ETRM Community website had been, and continues to be, pounded by spam postings. These posts are mostly advertising for porn, viagra, money making schemes, and some really strange things that I can’t describe here. As interesting as some of these things may be, I’m getting tired of having to constantly delete them from the website.
As posting to the site requires an ID, and to get an ID, you have to register, we are clamping down on registration. If you want to sign-up because you have a genuine interest in ETRM and all things associated with ETRM, please do sign-up. However, when you do, please use an email account that is associated in someway with a legitimate business.
Virtually all the spam we are getting can be tracked back to email accounts associated with hotmail, gmail, rediffmail, and yahoomail. We will not accept registrations with these types of accounts. Again, if you use an account that is tied to a legitimate business or organization, you won’t have any problems. If you use a “rediff” mail account, you’re not getting in.
David Rowe, the executive vice president of risk management at SunGard has started a new blog. He’ll be posting on new topics each week. The blog promises to be a good discussion across both technology and risk theory. Check it out here.
