Friday, December 4, 2009

SUNY Stonybrook

Wednesday (12-2-09), Karen Sobel-Lojeski arranged a wonderful group at State University of New York, Stony Brook campus, for me to present re the HP book. Deans from the Biz School, the D'school, the Tech in Society group, CS, Eng'g were among the audience. Very privileged.

Plus a full room (>75) and turning away an estimated 30 more (fire marshal rules). Great questions, including (a) what has been HP's response to the book, (b) how do you compare IBM and HP on services creativity these days, and (c) discuss the new leadership at HP Labs, this one from an ex-colleague of Prith Banerjee at UIUC.

I am increasingly using the "relevance" theme -- what can we learn from this history that applies to our world today -- and the notion that "bottoms up" leadership with marketplace deciding on success rather than "tops down" dictates wins the popular vote, no question. Students groove on that one, for sure. For experienced folk, the engineering-led vs. business-led notion garners lots of enthusiasm, particularly from engineers (duh)

I'm on KQED NPR radio this morning (FM 88.5 in San Francisco, 89.3 in Sacramento) with Dave Iverson. Should be fun.

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