EI Dinner...good food, good friends, good ideas

This evening, the Enterprise Irregulars descended on La Famiglia Giorgio restaurant in Boston for a get together. As with all EI get-togethers, I was sure it would be a worthwhile experience, but tonight proved to be particularly entertaining.

• While Andrew McAfee and I may agree on the importance of Enterprise 2.0, we vehemently disagree about the place Led Zeppelin holds in the rock 'n roll pantheon
• Luckily, Andrew came to his senses when it came to ranking the Beatles (best all time) and Ray Charles (more important than Elvis) among music greats
• Virtualization is a grossly underappreciated tectonic shift in the technology landscape. Calling VMWare the most important IPO in the last five years would hardly be a stretch
• The quest for platforms continues apace, with an ever-decreasing line between consumerized portals (e.g., Facebook, MySpace) and enterprise portals (e.g., AppExchange, WebEx)
• Facebook is a MUCH more important platform play than I realized
• Google is going about things in the right way, they are building a development community and charging nothing for it
• The situation with Yahoo! is a house divided, some believe Jerry will bring much needed change, while others wonder why he represents any major change at all
• We have some brilliantly talented entrepreneurs in the group, including Neil Robertson (Newmerix), Greg Reinacker (NewsGator) and Charlie Wood (Spanning Sync)
• Atlassian is an impressive company. Self-funded, cash flow positive, significant revenue base with a high growth rate. Yet, the founders are in no rush to monetize their company. They're more focused on pushing toward $100mm revenue mark and expanding levels of employee ownership. I had the chance to spend time with Jeff Walker (CEO) and Scott Farquar (co-founder) this week and they are top notch guys, both personally and professionally
• There are a ton of startups at the conference that fall into the "me too" category, but it only takes one or two of them to emerge to make the entire effort worth the while
• I may not be the best looking Wood in the Irregulars, but I'm damn sure the youngest :)
• There is a lot of fear that the U.S. equity market is due for a major correction, and some are wondering when we'll see an end to the M&A engine
• The Enterprise Irregulars is a powerful community, and we haven't begun to tap into its potential
• EI should be a sounding board for ideas big and small
• We underestimate our impact and presence within the enterprise technology ecosystem
• EI is powered by the confluence of disparate viewpoints; the value is in the differences, not where we agree
• We, as a group, need to do a better job of eating what we grow. There are a lot of collaborative tools to increase the effectiveness of our day-to-day communication, and we've done a poor job of leveraging them

I probably left out a lot of meaningful nuggets, but these will do for now. If you were at the dinner and think I missed something, say so in the comments. Otherwise, until next time...

enterprise2conf enterprise 2.0 IT conference enterprise irregulars woodrow

Comments

[Dennis Howlett]

Jason - I'm sorry to tell you but you are fatally flawed by NOT being old enough to understand the true godliness of Led Zep. Sorry mate but c'est la vie. IOW - sometimes advancing years do have advantages and benefits that whippersnappers like you will only appreciate in your dotage. -:)

Otherwise - I'm seriously jealous I wasn't there to weigh on on Andrew's behalf - especially having seen the rock gods perform in their prime on several occasions.

[Mark Crofton]

Missed something? yeah, you missed something.... Why don't you tell your readers which band you cited as "best band of the 70s?!" ;)