Tech-Ed 2003 was "my first", as they say at these events. Delegates were pumped up, as only Microsoft evangelists can be pumped up. From the event itself to the shows, the staggering alcohol consumption (18 000 beers on the first night between 1 300 delegates, including two journalists) and the sheer magnitude of the investment, Tech-Ed was evidence of one of two things: either things are going very well indeed in IT, or they are at Microsoft. It`s probably the latter.
I think Microsoft`s single-mindedness about success and its immense clout has been a seminal influence in re-defining cool.
Carel Alberts, technology editor, ITWeb
With this in mind, I was particularly receptive to the keynote address. The speaker in question, a former South African now based in Redmond, waxed supremely confident about the industry. Microsoft does not believe, he said, that the markets have got over IT, or as some would have it, that we live in a "post-tech world" or that technology has "lost its special status".
I doubt Microsoft is in denial about the industry-wide acceptance that we`ll never see the success of previous times again. I simply think that such statistics don`t apply to Microsoft. It is a perennial winner, and it`s hard to disagree with the speaker that the right vision and passion still engender a huge software opportunity, specifically to enable collaboration in an industry-standard environment.
Evergreen
Microsoft, at least, will be around for a long time, no matter what anyone says, because this company "gets (much of) it", meaning it understands customers, collaborative development, searing ambition and hard work. For a company so big, it is inspiring to see the focus and zeal of its people to build ever better applications, to conquer the still proprietary enterprise space, to make a play for the "right" industries and to move on from mistakes - in short, to do everything that allows a behemoth to fire on all cylinders.
Still, the seed was sown. Pondering Microsoft`s optimism in the face of so much defeatism, as well as its own recent vulnerabilities, I went into the rest of the event coming across many more reminders of a slimmer, quieter IT industry with inhabitants that are increasingly re-examining their own personal futures.
The next day I heard with regret of Richard Beytagh`s departure from Novell, to pursue business interests in the US, and to sail his yacht across the Atlantic. This jogged a memory of Aletha Ling`s earlier decision to quit MGX and board a yacht in past months, which in turn reminded me of a plane trip to Atlanta this year, on which I sat next to Jenny Retief, former Hollard CIO. Retief was on her way, as I remember, to study Scientology in California. And then the memories flooded in, of a UPS distributor in the late 1990s who left the industry to build aviaries and breed Macaws, and many others who found perspective on their lives by simply getting out of IT.
It`s not always easy to see another future, of course. A company as religious as Microsoft about winning has many long-time servants and loyal disciples. Many of its local spokespeople enjoy a high profile in a competitive environment, and can scarcely conceive of a different life. Just as this company will stay and prosper for as long as it "gets it", its people are likely to feel they`re appreciated and secure in the kind of environment that inspires them to deliver value and challenges them enough to make them want to stay.
But are they cool?
A movie in the late 1980s, Ford Fairlane - Rock 'n` Roll Detective, featured a moment when the ever cool Ford (Andrew Dice-Clay) was asked by a groupie whether "Sting is cool". They had heard this, but could not be sure about it, since Sting was something of an enigma to the teenage mind. Ford denied that Sting was cool in any way, shape or form, and this intriguing question and answer have stayed with me for a long time.
The sometimes-fiery presentations at Tech-Ed made me wonder the same thing about Microsoft and its people. Are they cool?
My idea of cool was largely informed by surviving Generation X, and by the sense of tragic boredom I developed during my pre-twenties. James Dean, so instrumental in first defining cool, was cool because he was a tragic outsider, and because he seemed bored and didn`t care.
Today, we know this is hopelessly misguided. But why do we think so?
Microsoft may have the answer. Firstly, they think it`s cool to write software. It`s a strange notion, but probably reasonable. Software coding has power and creativity and the association of lone crusading.
But you can`t write software only because it`s cool, said one speaker at the event. It has to be relevant within the business context. Is that cool? It`s certainly necessary, but to be serious about value is several steps removed from the vintage cool-merchant, who has until now been a rebel without a clue.
I think Microsoft`s single-mindedness about success and its immense clout has been a seminal influence in re-defining cool. Today it is cool to write software (as it has been for decades after Dean crashed his Porsche), and it`s cool to care about the customer. It`s definitely cool to be consumed by passion and ambition, to wear black jeans and faded periwinkle blue shirts, to know a whole lot about a whole lot of things at 23, to not fit the classic age profile of an avid gamer and yet know everything about Freelancer at a respected age, and it`s cool to be geeky about displaying and obviously using widgets and other things that were previously considered nerdish.
And who`s to say that is wrong?
Share
