Reflection – written October 22 , 2001
My thanks to Fitzgerald Communications and Truste for hosting a book party in San Francisco on Monday night October 22. I have never been to a book party before, let alone be the one whose book was the subject of the party! I was quite honored. The origin of the party idea goes back to PC Forum that was held in Scottsdale in March (2001). My friend, Tara Lemmey, and I were catching up on things and I told her I was putting the finishing touches on Net Attitude. “Great!”, she said, “I’ll host the book party” . Dave Steer, of Truste, organized the details and Fitzgerald Communications was kind enough to provide their office and a nice assortment of wine and cheese.
(sorry the links in this story got lost when I imported to new weblog)
I gave a five-minute talk about the core themes of Net Attitude and then we had an open dialogue that lasted well beyond an hour. I really appreciated the interest and the great comments and questions. We talked about “Nine to Five” at some length. Seems that everyone has their own vignettes to share.
The next day I was honored to spend an hour with Moira Gunn at tech nation. Her radio broadcasts focus on the higher-level issues of technology and she asked a lot of really good questions during the interview.
Then it was on to Bootcamp for Startups at the Westin in Santa Clara. Garage Ventures has been holding the “bootcamp” conferences for quite some time and I have spoken at them in Washington and New York. Bootcamp attracts an audience – there were more than 400 – of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and various companies that want to provide services to startups. I gave a lecture about Net Attitude and enjoyed Q&A. Kepler’s Books & Magazines had a table set up outside the ballroom and sold copies of Net Attitude while I signed them for the purchasers. This was a first time experience for me too. It was a rewarding experience to write a person’s name in the book and give them a remembrance.
The next leg of the trip had me off to Paris from San Francisco. IBM holds an annual conference in different parts of the world for Chief Information Officers of companies and organizations who our customers. This one was held at DisneyLand Paris in Marne La Vallee, France. During the two and half days my colleagues from IBM and I had extensive dialogue about information technology and key trends for the future. I gave a closing talk based on Net Attitude.
What a week! After one day at home, it is off to Calgary in Alberta, Canada. This was my first trip to Calgary. I’ll update this story on the way back home.
