Robin Wilton's esoterica

       
 
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26 Jun · Sun 2005

An MBA and a ponytail...


Last week I had the chance to be on a speaker panel at the Delivering Effective Innovation event hosted by Osney Media. First one of their events I have taken part in, and I found it very interesting. Unlike the standard conference format, Osney set theirs up on a 'round-table' basis, so in between each presentation the tables 'convene' to discuss some aspect of what they have just heard, and then feed back to the room as a whole, with thoughts, comments or further questions. As a panellist, I found this gave the whole thing a great dynamic: it's a real ice-breaker, and there's very little of the "us and them" feeling which the standard auditorium presentation set-up often creates. Many thanks to Osney, and of course to all the other participants, who could not fairly be called an 'audience'! It was also good to have to devote some thought to the "Innovation" theme, rather than my more usual "Identity" gig. I thought about some of the innovators at Sun: John Gage (who encapsulated Sun's strategy, "The Network Is The Computer"); Whit Diffie (co-inventor of public key cryptography, and one of the first Sun speakers I ever shared a stage with); Bill Joy (inventor of Java); not forgetting Scott McNealy and Jonathan Schwartz, who consistently push us to innovate in the way Sun does business. I don't want to get mushy here, but it occurred to me that, of the places I have worked, Sun is probably the closest to what I would call a "Commercial Technocracy". It's a company where a genuine value is placed on techies, and they have the opportunity to contribute to the company at the highest level. You really can have an MBA and a ponytail. Which is a bit worrying, as I have neither... Technorati Tag:
Posted by racingsnake @ 05:37 PM GMT+00:00
 
 
 
 
 
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Such views as I express in this blog are based on my own opinions, experience and judgements. They do not necessarily represent the policy or views of my employer. It is not my intention to offend readers in any way. If you find anything on this blog offensive, please contact me in the first instance.
Robin Wilton
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