"Social sites are building the database for the planet"

Thanks to Melinda Meyer Moses, I was able to attend the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium yesterday. Although I wasn't able to sit in for the whole day, I was able to catch a few excellent sessions, including the one on virtual organizations (you'll have to scroll to find it on the agenda) where Simon Crosby, Citrix's CTO for Virtualization and Management, dropped quite a few gems.

Honestly, it's hard for anyone on a panel about virtual organizations to say anything new. Most people are operating from the limited base of their own experience - their company, for example, which was the case with most panelists. I should say "is" the case with most panelists. I've been on a slew of such panels.

And, as is typical, regardless of the question, especially at a tech conference, which is where, say, 99.99% of these panels take place, the answer is almost always about technology, i.e. we use x, y, and z. Further, the only technologies referenced (again, typically) are the real-time things - teleconferencing, screen sharing, video - all useful, necessary, yadda yadda, but, in my experience, not what makes for profound breakthroughs in how we can work differently in a no-travel, post-meltdown, carbon-emission-intensive, whatever-the-name-of-the-next-flu-is world.

Yesterday's panel, with its earnest participants, was no exception, which is why Simon's remarks stood out. Good work, Simon. Reposting here the tweets (#mitcio -- get ready, there are tons), including my own, unmarked below. 

• Simon Crosby: "social sites building database for the planet" #mitcio
• Citrix CIO reports that distributed developers with rigorous process work beautifully w/out f2f or even flaming
• "Born-digital workforce doesn't live in locked down world" - Simon Crosby-CIO, Citrix @#MITCIO
• abbielundberg Virtualization threatens IT's existence - Simon Crosby, Citrix #mitcio
• aagee #mitcio how do we deal with expectations of born-digital workforce? Virtualization gives user own world free from legacy apps
• BillIves #mitcio Simon Crosby companies need to throw stuff off the cliff periodically (test recovery? or clear deck?)
• BillIves listening to panel on virtualization at #MITCIO event employees are ahead of most CIOs on this

• And from the convener of the panel, Irving Wladawsky-Berger via ESLundquist #MITCIO: The organizational skills to create virtual orgs lag the tech tools

Comments

[Melinda Moses]

Love this. Thanks for attending, for the call out on the blog, and for the insight.

It seems that STILL the more things change, the more they stay the same, eh? Whether it's a vendor delivering to a client, or a CIO/CTO delivering to their (internal) clients ...

Make it simple, make it safer, start small, get the right people together before you start, get a sponsor (although these days those sponsors might be in the head office or in the offices next to you), expect (and work through) the hiccups ...

So at the end of the day people can actually begin to work together, collaborating, innovating, focusing on the important things more and tending to the systems a bit less.

Focus on the teams first ...