I dream of IT
Dave misses a big opportunity for a ‘Gordon's alive!' joke as Brian Blessed makes a welcome appearance. Also some other IT stuff
There's nothing like a big vendor get-together to prompt Tyldesleyesque levels of hyperbole. And I was pleased to see the Cisco Live event in the capital last week didn't disappoint, proving to be as unforgettable an occasion as that magical night in Barcelona, as our Clive might say.
I was particularly inspired by the first chap on the main stage, Cisco exec Jeremy Bevan, who told attendees that just three things were needed to make the vendor's vision of a totally connected future a reality.
"Those three things are dreams; technology; and you," he whispered, tremulously.
I was already feeling more than a little misty-eyed when the networking giant's technical head honcho Padmasree Warrior came on to ratchet up the inspirational inspiringness.
"Jeremy reminded me of that brilliant quote," she beamed. "A vision will always remain a dream... unless... unless you have concrete plans to execute against it... I'm probably misquoting that wonderful saying," she added, helpfully.
That's not necessarily so, Padma. It's entirely possible you were, in fact, misquoting a thoroughly meaningless load of old tosh.
But I had a good time anyway - though I was disheartened to find out that when Warrior asked her Twitter followers the night before her speech what she should talk about, the top answer was apparently "software-defined networking". I can only presume "Leyton Orient greats: past and present" was a close second.
Un - acceptable?
As a stack-‘em-high, sell-‘em-quick old-school reseller, there are few things that fill my heart with dread more than the idea of attending a cloud conference.
In fact, one of the only things I can think of would be a cloud unconference (bear with me), which is exactly what went down in London six days ago. According to some marketing gubbins I received this time last week, Cloud Camp London has teamed up with Cloud Expo Europe (what - not enough demand for two cloud unconferences?! Shurely shome mishtake?!) to create an über non-event for cloudophiles, which took place on Tuesday of last week.
Features of the unconference include "brief lightning talks and an unpanel session" (oh, god, really?).
I must admit, the concept of an unconference was a new one on me, but a cursory Googling reveals the idea is a relatively established one. According to the interweb, there are numerous "styles of facilitation" for yer average unconference. These include the standard "knowledge café" (no, really), the slightly more out-there "speed geeking" (shudder) and the totally off-the-wall "dotmocracy" (BLEUUUUURRRRRRGH!).
Righty-ho. I must say this whole unconference idea has left me thoroughly unenthused, somewhat uncertain and just a little bit unwell.
Blessed relief
The phrase "national treasure" may be egregiously overused these days, but it's hard to baulk at its application to a man who's the oldest to trek to the magnetic North Pole, has boxed with the usually peaceful Dalai Lama, intends to climb Everest without oxygen (at his fourth attempt) at the age of 80 and once played Grampy Rabbit in Peppa Pig.
Take a bow, Brian Blessed. The 76-year-old has clearly achieved a lot in his varied career, so it's heartening to see the bearded, board-treading behemoth is still breaking new ground by branching into the world of... bespoke IT vendor-endorsed voicemail.
According to reports last week, the first 100 customers to buy one of the new HTC Windows phones and tweet #brianmail to O2's Twitter account were in line to receive a personalised answerphone message from the septuagenarian thesp.
"I'm planning to have a lot of fun with the voicemail messages, and leave the caller amused, confused and generally bewildered," said Blessed.
I wonder if he'd be available (and willing) to fill in on Dodgi's always-busy customer complaint hotline?