Saying good-bye to John Sidgmore

By John Gallant, Network World
February 03, 2004 05:21 PM ET

. What's this?

"But you were always a good man of business, Jacob," faltered Scrooge.

"Business!" cried (Marley's) Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Dear Vorticians,

Two very different themes this week.

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First, just a few moments after I sent out VORTEX Digest last week, I learned that John Sidgmore had died. John was a great supporter of Vortex and I offer my condolences to his family and to the many of you who knew John and had the pleasure of working with him over the years.

John's obits did a wonderful job of relating his life's accomplishments, which were many. But they fail to capture his personality and his classiness. John was quick-witted, smart as hell and funny to boot. He was open with his time and ideas and, on many occasions, I personally benefited from his insights on the industry. More important, I just plain liked the guy and always enjoyed talking with him. (He had great stories and I hope you heard his tales about driving a beer delivery truck.)

One personal anecdote illustrates John's nature. I had lined John up to speak at Vortex 2002. John was going to appear on the so-called "Thought Leaders" panel. But weeks before Vortex, as Worldcom was spiraling deeper into crisis, John agreed to take over as CEO of the embattled telco. Big job, and I fully expected to get that dreaded call from his assistant saying he wouldn't be at the conference. Heck, I wouldn't have showed up knowing the kinds of questions that were likely to be posed by the nosy executive producer (me) and the audience.

Days went by and I hadn't heard anything, so I finally got in touch with John. To my surprise and delight, he simply reiterated that he'd be there - and he was. In fact, he came in the night before and spent an hour or so talking with other speakers at a reception.

John had made a commitment and he followed through. That's more than can be said of some business leaders, who think nothing of bailing on conference promoters and their audiences at the last minute. What's more, John stayed and mingled with his peers after his presentation, unlike celebrity CEOs who helicopter into events and vamoose as soon as they can.

Not surprisingly, John faced tough questions about the future of Worldcom (now MCI) and he was scrappy and fiercely Worldcom-loyal in his responses. He famously vowed that Worldcom would not go bankrupt, something that proved impossible to prevent after he quickly came to grips with the bitter depths of Worldcom's financial fraud. But by rooting out that fraud and coming clean to the public, John did as much as anyone could to restore a piece of Worldcom's reputation and at least some public confidence in the company.

There's an old saying that if a person is nice to you but not nice to the waiter, he or she isn't a nice person. Turning that a different way, if someone follows through on their commitments on the little things (like appearing on a panel), that tells me a great deal about his commitment to the big, important things.