Jan Berka, November 2021.

Eight years ago, I went blind. Seriously!

And if you ask my wife, she’ll tell you it was the best thing that has ever happened to me. (It wasn’t, by the way, but that’s a story for another time). Not because she got to have me at home, for the first time in 10 years.

But because with all the time I had to think, I realized that I had become a unicorn and that unicorns like me have become a dying breed.

To explain what I mean, I’ll need to go back to the beginning, to 1990. It was the time when Microsoft released their answer to Apple Macintosh in the form of Windows 3.0

Can you remember where you were when you first saw a video image on a computer? I had a few of these “aha” moments as I worked with computers since 1985. The one which is relevant for today happened when I saw a security video on the PC. It was terrific—the paradigm shift. I could see the potential immediately.

I knew that this – video over IP – was going to change the face of the CCTV industry. So I immersed myself in the old industry and tried to learn everything. As typical in my life, I had been a little too early. Axis released the first IP camera in 1996 in the form of NetEye 200. We now call it an IoT device, back then it was different.

When offered the opportunity in 2001 to build a specialized distributor for the nascent IP security field, I took the chance. I started to sell the first IP cameras, the networking switches, and the software they required. Building Europe’s most extensive IP surveillance distributor turned me into a hardware and software specialist. And as a necessity, an evangelist for this brand new industry.

When Prague Airport asked me to redesign their 1000 analog CCTV camera project into IP CCTV, I learned what it means to be a System Architect. Something like this had never been done before, so when they needed someone to deliver on my design, I was the only man who could be crazy enough to take this job, which meant that I had to become a Project Manager, too.

So this is how I started developing a deep knowledge of the hardware, the software, and the infrastructure needed for the most significant infrastructure projects. Along the way, I needed to learn how to design and price these systems.

Over the next 15 years, I delivered hundreds of projects and figured out how to do it profitably. Again and again and again. But it isn’t the long list of projects that make me a unicorn.

It’s the mistakes that I’ve made on these projects. And the network of experts that I’ve built along the way to solve those problems that I wouldn’t know that they even existed otherwise. Those errors and experiences are more precious than gold. And they are what I want to share with you on this blog.

The question I’ve been asking myself is where the other Unicorns like me are? After all, every client I’ve ever worked for wanted someone like me on their project. And they knew that we would more than pay for ourselves.

The ugly truth is that project work undergoes many boom and bust cycles. The hiring of experts is too expensive. So we are being replaced by junior Solution’s Designers or Project Engineers. Overworked men and women with not enough experience, forced to copy projects without the time to check them, and often have to outsource important decisions to vendors. It became quantity over quality. Instead of offering 10 proposals to win 3, System Integrators now bid 30 proposals to win 3 and they would still be worst off as the lack of experience leads to expensive mistakes during execution. This massive mistake is occurring daily across the whole industry. How massive? I estimate that up to half of all projects lose money for the Consultants and System integrators for precisely this reason. And if they don’t lose money for themselves, they lose them for customers. The long line of customers’ project cost overruns is a testament to this statement.

But this is a mistake that I might have a solution to. You could say that I’ve developed a way to create (or breed) more unicorns, those unique Solution Architects who make or break complex projects.

To make them more efficient across more projects. To enable more clients to benefit from their years of experience. To remove the unnecessary administration and tedious design work that kills their creativity.

Now I will talk more about how I’ve done that in future posts, but for today I’m simply putting out the call :

Unicorns – where are you?

Do you feel the drag of mundane daily tasks that you did hundreds of times? Do you still have the urge to do things properly, but you lack time or support from your surroundings? Do you remember the first IP camera or you are just curious and want to push the possible boundaries? I’d love to talk to you, so why not drop me a line at [email protected].

Till next time, Jan.

Ps. My sight was restored to me in June 2013 by a wonderful Czech Dr. Stodulka. And boy, does the world look different to me since then.