John Linton
....are of more value than the combined 'yammering' of years of media 'reporting'.
I attended a 'breakfast seminar' yesterday because it was in a convenient location and because I was interested in the topic but mainly because a business acquaintance had a spare/free attendance he couldn't use and it was an awful lot of money to waste. The breakfast was 'gourmet' which I think meant it was really lunch (the event was held in an up market restaurant) and there was better than usual champagne as well as tea and coffee and (fresh) juices (but no Scotch or other hard liquor as far as I could see). I was impressed by the attendees (other than me) who were beautifully attired (I doubt that anyone had on a suit that cost less than $A5,000 and several that I could see had shoes on worth another 2 or 3K) and held high positions in some of Australia's better performing commercial enterprises. Simply by walking in to the restaurant you could tell this was a very high powered group of people.
The speaker was exceptionally good and spoke and illustrated his subject matter impeccably and cogently and with true humour, seamlessly and appropriately integrated, on several occasions - altogether among the best, if not the best, and easily the most polished 40 minute presentation I have ever attended in the whole of my commercial life. I now understand better than I ever have before why I have never made anything of the decades I have spent in the Australian communications and IT business but I understand it in a 'good' way and although I vaguely regret the waste of whatever small talents and abilities I might once have possessed I'm grateful to have had my thinking straightened out on what I should do with the brief time left to me.
Not exactly a 'life changing experience', it's far too late in my personal life for that sort of thing, but certainly a comprehensive re-understanding of what 'business life' could be all about and some incredibly different and highly useful insights in to the use of time in the workplace generally and time beyond the work place more appropriately. A mesmerizing performance for which I thanked my benefactor (of the entrance fee) profusely before making my way to our 'over the bridge in the boondocks' office through the thinning peak hour traffic while he strolled back the short distance to his huge office suite at the top of some prime CBD office block as, appropriately and deservedly, befits his august position.
One of the things I have missed, though I didn't really understand by how much until yesterday, since I left 'corporate life' all those years ago for the privileges and pleasures of trying to start up and run an Australian technology business, is the access to such events and exposure for even a small amount of time to the occasional first class mind who is able to share his accumulated knowledge so brilliantly as the urbane German who created such a deep impression on his, I would have thought, equally impressively credentialed audience (with one exception) yesterday morning. It isn't a matter of not having the time (time can always be made for anything if you really want to) but the lack of 'insider information' which includes you on the 'inner circle' lists of Australia's business cognoscenti that are included on these sorts of invitations. There is also the money (in this instance equivalent to the price of a long distance international airfare - not in economy) and the comfort you get when a multinational employer pays it on your behalf - I could never justify anyone but me paying for such an event out of my own money - certainly not Exetel.
I now remember how much I benefited from (and enjoyed) listening to older, wiser, much more experienced and incredibly more intellectually able people than I could ever have hoped to have been speak on a range of useful and sometimes (as yesterday) key topics of general and specific relevancies. Prior to yesterday's seminal experience I actually didn't remember how long it had been since I was last enthralled by the sheer brilliance of a 'presenter' who was capable of totally changing your mind on something of which you had thought you had a pretty firm and comprehensive understanding. As I drove back to the office I remembered the either formal or casual meetings I had been lucky enough to be present at 'back in the old days' with Andy Grove, Toshio Ikeda, Gene Amdahl, Bob Metcalfe and Brian Josephson (among many more) all of whom came 'flooding back' to me. While I understand those names would be unknown to most people today they were among the true intellectual greats of the IT and communications industry back in days when I was more seriously involved in the true technology aspects of the business.
After briefly feeling mildly sorry for myself for 'missing out' on the enormous benefits that such contacts with people with truly original minds and massive intellectual understanding bring to more mundanely equipped people like me I was jolted in to the realisation that not only did I, personally, now miss out on these contacts but all the people who worked for tiny companies like Exetel would never be exposed to such people because of the irrelevance of working for a small company instead of a large multinational. I had forgotten that every person needs to have contact with truly innovative minds in the earlier stages of their career to prevent them becoming 'weighed' down, and therefore constricted in their own 'vision' by the limiting effects of heavy work loads in demanding positions.
I must find some way of making that possible in some way. It's obviously going to be far more difficult for an unknown and tiny Australian company to get access to such people but there may be some ways of doing it if we give it enough thought. Perhaps we need a 'tie up' with a giant Japanese multinational if we could find some way of interesting them in some aspect of what we might be able to do for them in Australia in exchange? If not Japanese then maybe the PRC or.......it's hard to think of any other 'important' country that might wish to get some sort of 'feet on the ground' access to some part of Australia's communication market places off hand.......
......One more thing to worry about......
"Of all the things I have lost over the years - I miss my mind the most."