Trying to put Vortex 05 into perspective
"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be." Douglas Adams
I'm baaaaack. After spending months preparing for Vortex and then two-and-a-half whirlwind days at the conference with 30 speakers in 19 different interviews, panels and presentations, it's difficult to put the whole shooting match into perspective. In a way, it's all a blur that will take some time to sort out. Some real highlights stand out in my mind and, as with any event, a couple of disappointments. Some speakers and sessions exceeded expectations in ways I couldn't have predicted, and some discussions or topics didn't generate the spark I'd hoped.
As Douglas A. says above, Vortex 05 may not have always gone where we expected it to go, but we certainly ended up where we intended. That's because the two fundamental premises of Vortex were validated in resounding fashion.
First, Geoffrey Moore and I began our work together on this project with the belief that the enterprise IT industry is undergoing profound change, and that both IT customers and providers are wrestling with the impact of that change. They're trying to apply and deliver technology in new ways and struggling with how to improve the value they deliver - either to customers or, in the case of IT executives, to the business.
This came out in a variety of ways:
* Geoff's keynote focusing on how to spark innovation by stripping away resource-draining contextual activities and realigning people and money to where they will have far more influence on the things that really make a difference for your company - the things that are core to you. That theme was fleshed out by CIOs from companies like Levi Strauss, Nortel, EA and Fidelity who talked about how they are dealing with the core/context challenge every day. (Here's a link to Geoff's soon-to-be-released book "Dealing with Darwin".
* Microsoft's Ray Ozzie and Sun's Greg Papadopoulos explored the ramifications of the movement toward software as a service. This was a great prelude to Microsoft's announcement this week of its services plans. Read more here.
* Cassatt's Bill Coleman and CIOs from Hasbro and DolphinSearch debated and prognosticated on the inevitability of utility computing and what it means for IT departments and the IT industry.
* AT&T's Ed Amoroso talked about how security must change because our current defenses are fundamentally flawed and cannot be fixed. The security challenge rang out loud and clear during the event, with CIOs in a roundtable discussion citing security as their top concern and attendeess voting resoundingly that security problems will be with us for a long, long time.
* Services oriented architecture is taking root in corporations and the payoffs will be huge. In fact, some 80% of the Vortex attendees say SOA presents "rich opportunities for investors and entrepreneurs."
* Mobility technologies are changing business dramatically, as the CIOs on our wireless panel detailed. This seems particularly true in the IT-challenged health care field, where the providers we talked to are fundamentally rewriting the rules of their game.
The second premise of Vortex is that it's imperative that both vendors and IT executives explore these issues together in order to speed the evolution of enterprise IT. This year, with help from the new CIOs on our advisory board, our program better reflected the concerns of the buy side and, as a result, we had many, many more senior IT executives in the room. They, and the top vendor executives in attendance, got a better understanding of each other's needs and strategies. That may have been the most important thing to come out of the event.
My colleagues Neal Weinberg and Jason Meserve provided additional coverage of speakers and sessions whilst I was on stage (read the earlier stuff here), and in upcoming days I'll share some more thoughts as well as links to coverage from the event.
Thanks for all the input you provided to help make Vortex 05 a success. Bye for now.
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