Thursday, November 03, 2005
Thoughts on Jon Udell
Thoughts on Jon Udell
I normally don't blog about particular individuals but felt this situation was warranted. In 2003, I had the opportunity to speak at the Enterprise Architect Summit held in Palm Springs where I had the opportunity to talk face-to-face with Jon Udell. I had previously read many of his columns in Infoworld and knew him to be knowledgable but found that engaging in a conversation was even more stimulating.
Anyway, in a previous blog entry I commented on how I felt the previous Infoworld SOA Forum's were too driven by vendors pitching wares to clients in the form of thinly veiled sales presentations and how he needed to bring integrity to the conference space. He acknowledged my concern directly in his own blog and took my rant as an action item.
I was excited to learn that he not only stood up to his promise, he exceeded my own expectations. Hopefully everyone reading this blog that has an interest in SOA will consider attending the InfoWorld SOA Executive Forum to be held in New York on November 7th.
Even amongst the traditional vendor CTOs that speak, he has lined up people who aren't just slick marketers but know their stuff. In attendance will be David Linthicum whom was early in talking about SOAs and frequently blogs thought provoking stuff on ITToolbox. If you have an opportunity to talk with Edwin Khodabakchian of Oracle in the hallways, you need to listen to how he thinks. He was early into leadership within the BPEL space and has some mature thinking on service orchestration that can benefit large enterprises.
He even tracked down real world enterprises doing real world things with SOA and lined up:
Also understand that some other folks I have the utmost respect for when it comes to SOA will be there as attendees. If you have the opportunity as an attendee you need to track down the folks at CNA, Fireman's Fund and the guys over at the US Navy.
The whole point of today's blog was that I called him on something and he stepped up. It is rare that you will find this sort of integrity at any magazine and even rarer amongst the IT sector. Jon keep up the good work.
I think the one thing I can do as a token is to send him a copy of my latest book: Enterprise Service Oriented Architectures in a couple of weeks. Actually, while I am at it, I will pose another challenge. I feel like I am sliding down a slope of disillusionment with industry analysts, maybe in a future column you could talk about the notion of open source industry analysis?
| | View blog reactionsI normally don't blog about particular individuals but felt this situation was warranted. In 2003, I had the opportunity to speak at the Enterprise Architect Summit held in Palm Springs where I had the opportunity to talk face-to-face with Jon Udell. I had previously read many of his columns in Infoworld and knew him to be knowledgable but found that engaging in a conversation was even more stimulating.
Anyway, in a previous blog entry I commented on how I felt the previous Infoworld SOA Forum's were too driven by vendors pitching wares to clients in the form of thinly veiled sales presentations and how he needed to bring integrity to the conference space. He acknowledged my concern directly in his own blog and took my rant as an action item.
I was excited to learn that he not only stood up to his promise, he exceeded my own expectations. Hopefully everyone reading this blog that has an interest in SOA will consider attending the InfoWorld SOA Executive Forum to be held in New York on November 7th.
Even amongst the traditional vendor CTOs that speak, he has lined up people who aren't just slick marketers but know their stuff. In attendance will be David Linthicum whom was early in talking about SOAs and frequently blogs thought provoking stuff on ITToolbox. If you have an opportunity to talk with Edwin Khodabakchian of Oracle in the hallways, you need to listen to how he thinks. He was early into leadership within the BPEL space and has some mature thinking on service orchestration that can benefit large enterprises.
He even tracked down real world enterprises doing real world things with SOA and lined up:
- Steve Edens, Enterprise Integration Architect, Blue Cross Blue Shield Massachusetts
- Benjamin Moreland, Assistant Director, Office of Technology, The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc.
- Martin H. Brodbeck, Director, Global Application Architecture, Pfizer Global Pharmaceuticals
- Todd Richmond, VP of Enterprise Architecture, Sabre Holdings
Also understand that some other folks I have the utmost respect for when it comes to SOA will be there as attendees. If you have the opportunity as an attendee you need to track down the folks at CNA, Fireman's Fund and the guys over at the US Navy.
The whole point of today's blog was that I called him on something and he stepped up. It is rare that you will find this sort of integrity at any magazine and even rarer amongst the IT sector. Jon keep up the good work.
I think the one thing I can do as a token is to send him a copy of my latest book: Enterprise Service Oriented Architectures in a couple of weeks. Actually, while I am at it, I will pose another challenge. I feel like I am sliding down a slope of disillusionment with industry analysts, maybe in a future column you could talk about the notion of open source industry analysis?
