Smart ideas from a smart guy

In any large organisation you'll meet lots of people -- some of whom you think are smart and others less so. And working in public relations you'll quite often listen to one of those smart people make a speech, give a presentation or do an interview based on ideas from an even smarter person.
Very occasionally you'll get to meet that person -- the guy (or gal) with the original idea.
Over the course of my four years at IBM I saw a number of smart ideas filter through the business -- and I found that almost every time I could trace them back to Irving Wladawsky-Berger. Though he's now semi-retired his blog is required reading for me still.

On leaving Dell

Woke up this morning knowing my days at Dell are behind me rather than in front -- it's a curious feeling and one which will take some getting used to. My initial thoughts are that I'll miss it -- no company is perfect but I can say with all honesty that I loved working at Dell.
Looking back I've been incredibly fortunate since coming into IT in late 2000. I've had the opportunity to work at IBM and Dell, two of the most influential companies in the industry.

Things didn't start out that well. When I first entered the industry I had only a few weeks to get my feet under the desk before the March 2000 Tech Wreck -- and all of a sudden the industry was on the nose.
But I joined IBM in September 2000 -- yes, in time to pick up some tickets to the Olympics -- right around the time the company was really embracing Linux and open source.
Over the next four years I got to talk to many very smart people within IBM (particularly Academy Members like Glenn Wightwick) and hopefully even retained a few fragments of what I learned.
What I learned at Dell was very different. Dell changed my views about what a company could be -- and set my expectations permanently higher.