My Latest Folly, and Article

Here's my latest CW article, which brilliantly illustrates my contention that most of the problems we have in IT are due to our inability to communicate with each other.

It seems James Rogers was in a session I did last week and wrote a Byte and Switch article on one of the issues I raised.  Then David DeJean wrote this article arguing with James' position.  It looks like they are disagreeing but they really aren't, they just didn't hear things the same way.  I love this example.  Interpretation and translation - that's where we all fall down.

On a much more serious note, last evening I entered the Hilton in NY as I had a keynote to deliver this morning (which was 90% the same presentation I did at SWC last week which caused the aforementioned ruckus).  I took the train down with my brother Greg, had a nice dinner, and went to the hotel around midnight.  I, as always, ran into some folks I knew who, as always, were able to convince me to have a glass of wine prior to heading to bed.  While I was kibitzing with folks, the bar lights suddenly came on, and last call was called (which I didn't think happened in NY, especially with a very crowded bar making lots of money).  I tried in vain for 10 minutes to get a bartender to acknowledge my existence when I happened to look across the bar and noticed two lovely young ladies who appeared "professional", if you get my drift.  The bartender, however, was hovering over them, so I made my way over and asked the blonde young lady if she would mind getting the bartender's attention.  She said "sure" and within 8 seconds I had a glass of bad red wine.  I thanked her and was heading back to the hundred or so IT and IT industry people (all of which were now looking at me, mind you) when "Charisma" (no lie, her real name, not even a stage name) started chatting me up.

Now, I may be a lot of things, but I like to think one of them is that I'm a realist.  I know I'm not rich or handsome, I know I'm not really interesting except in very small, very odd niches, and I know that I'm married to a six foot goddess who I adore, and who could kill me in 4 seconds if she wanted to.  Therefore, I simply assumed Charisma was beginning the sales pitch, and I'm trying to get out of Dodge.  I turn away and start chatting with someone (by now a bunch of semi or full on drunk vendor marketing guys have made it to this side of the bar under the guise of really needing to ask me something) and have every intention of working my way back to safety, when my brother yells to me, "hey, Charisma's a porn star".  Well, that is one business I know absolutely nothing about, and as you know, I love to learn.  She was very forthright and gracious in answering a slew of questions I've always wanted to ask but never had the opportunity, and she wasn't at all disappointed that I wasn't familiar with her body of work - making her a much better person than I, since I get really irritated when people don't know who I am or just how darn important I am.

It turns out she was in town for the Howard Stern show (I love Howard).  I was able to satisfy many curiosities during the 30 minute conversation, and then I ran away.  I'm not sure what happened after that, but the drunken marketing pack kept edging closer and closer.

Bizarre little things like that always seem to happen to me, and really does make life interesting. In the last week I've met a secret service agent, a district attorney, a few CEO's, and a porn star.  I almost can't wait for next week.

P.S. the showering at the Hilton was entirely uneventful.

Cheers