The Ultimate Corporate Entrepreneur

The World According to Futurists

Francine Gordon and I returned from this year's WorldFuture 2011 Conference in Vancouver where we co-led the workshop Corporate Innovation 2030: Revolution or Reinvention?

Don Byrne, CEO of Metrix411, and I met during one of the highlight sessions for me at the conference Acquiring Complexapacity: The Universal Imperative of the 21st Century led by consulting futurist, David Pearce Snyder. I'll be incorporating his ideas into future blog posts.

Don Byrne's info-packed session on Benchmarking Community Resiliency was another key session for me. Don shares highlights from his talk in this video interview.

 

  

 

I also caught up with futurist and author, Verne Wheelwright, during an early morning coffee meeting where he shares his ideas about the next wave of futurists. 

 

 

 

Grace Hopper 2010 Wrap-up: Show Up Like You Mean It

The Anita Borg Institute does a lot of things right. They sold out this year's Grace Hopper Conference during one of the worst recessions since WWII and attracted 2147 attendees--undergraduate and graduate students, industry professionals, sponsors who also participated in panels and workshops, along with 436 speakers over a four-day period of which I was fortunate to have been one of them. 

When you have these many people showing up like they mean it, e.g. ready to engage, contribute and learn, the amount of creative energy generated has the potential to shift perspectives, open minds to new possibilities, and encourage personal risktaking.

Of course, things didn't always run perfectly (including my own workshop) and, yes, there were a few logistical glitches here and there, but I like to stand back and view the bigger picture and assess the total value which, in this case, was well worth the investment.

Now that I've had a chance to digest things a bit, below are my key takeaways / learning from this year's Grace Hopper Conference (+ and ∆).

"What's Up with Mobile?" 02/25 SDForum TechWomen's Event (Silicon Valley)

Sometimes we get lucky and an event comes along that "catches you up" with what's going on in an industry. My event pick-of-the week is SDForum Tech Women's February 25 What's Up with Mobile?

My interest with all things mobile started years ago when I was the PPM for a mobile product line launch. I got a chance to work with some lightening smart development engineers and nimble-footed release teams both here in the U.S. and Prague. I was hooked.  

Today the world is mobile and it affects us at work, at home, and at play. But no clear answers exist for how money will be made and what might trigger customers to migrate en mass to mobile computing.

Next Thursday's SDForum Tech Women's program "What's Up with Mobile" is both timely and important. It's also brave.

Mixing a room full of smart women who are technologists and consumers with panelists representing platform companies, device manufacturers, carriers, and application developers, well, let's just say you can expect some spirited discussions (I know from firsthand experience!). At the very least we'll all learn something new from different POVs.

Location:
Adobe Systems (directions & parking)
321 Park Avenue
San Jose, CA

Agenda:
6:00 - 7:00 p.m
Registration and Networking
7:00 - 8:30 p.m. Program / Q & A

Cost:
$10 for SDForum Members
$25 for Non-Members
$0 for Platinum Pass

Hashtag: #SDFTW

Twitter: SDFTechWomen

Facebook group: SDFTechWomen

YouTube: SDFTechWomen

Learn and Give Back - Jan 29 Responsible Risktaking™ Webinar (Early Bird Pricing ends Jan 16)

Some years back I came across a non-profit organization that aligned with my personal and professional values.

I'm thrilled to be leading a special webinar on January 29 Responsible Risktaking™: 7 Ways to Thrive in the New World of Work in support of F.L.Y.'s fundraising drive that ends January 30. 

F.L.Y. (http://www.flyprogram.org/index.html) teaches at-risk teens how to make better decisions and is located in Silicon Valley. One of their programs has a striking 85% success rate! This is all at one-tenth of the cost of taxpayer dollars for incarceration.

Matching Donations

The Sobrato Family Foundation (http://www.sobrato.org) is gnerously matching donations received by the January 30, 2010 deadline (up to $30,000) and will given an additional $30,000 if F.L.Y. is able to meet its annual goal!

About the Webinar

I've pulled out all the stops for this 90-minute webinar on January 29. I've taken the top questions/issues about personal and professional "risktaking" that were asked of me during various speaking engagements and training programs in 2009 and pulled together a meaty presentation and eworkbook for our interactive event. (You'll be able to download the recorded WebEx webinar if you're unable to attend the event live.)

Early bird pricing ends this Saturday at midnight. Learn more and register here.

I look forward to your joining us on January 29!

46th DAC - Endings Bring New Beginnings

Preliminary attendance numbers for 46th DAC have come in 12 percent over last year's conference--good news given the overall state of conference attendance in this economic meltdown.

Although never a shortage of smart people at DAC, even the smartest folks in the room see an uphill battle on innovating their way out of the challenges facing the EDA industry.

Pressure to reduce chip design costs, meet government emissions and energy regulations, and improve overall ROI will drive some of the more established EDA companies to adopt disruptive technologies sooner rather than later. Start-ups altering the landscape, such as Xuropa, look to reinvent software sales processes for the 21st century with its Cloud-Computing application that SaaS-enables existing software applications.

Dealing with technology disruptions and discontinuities is challenging enough, but equally challenging is how EDA companies are transforming their workplace environments and reinventing workforces into nimble innovators capable of meeting these industry challenges head on.[In a future series of blog articles I'll highlight how EDA leaders and teams are tackling these challenges and raising the bar at the same time.]

Seizing an Opportunity

The final day of a conference typically offers one-off opportunities, with exhibitors more relaxed and willing to chat about the event and provide their own industry perspective. 

Which is how I got a chance to sit down with Rich Goldman, Synopsys Vice President Corporate Marketing & Strategic Alliances and CEO Synopsys Armenia.

Moving into the industry leader's position with Cadence dropping to second place, Rich and his team assumed ownership for designing this year's DAC exhibits and interactive events for Synopsys (their first crack at it).   

"I felt that Synopsys needed to step up and support DAC with a strong presence."

Social Media - Synopsys Raises the Bar

The Synopsys challenge was figuring out how to speak with their customers in new ways. One thing Rich knew from the outset was that social media would play a big part for them at DAC. He just didn't know what it would look like.

"Given that our focus is geek-to-geek (G2G) we know that our customers don't respond well to marketing b.s. Building the engineering relationship is about providing them with the right tools and the right answers at the right time to solve their problems - this is what builds our credibility in the tech space. It also makes it easier to build trust and credibility in the marketing space--something that social media is allowing us to do."

Rich challenged team member, Karen Bartleson, a standards guru and Synopsys blogger to own the learning and understanding of how people were using social media. One of her ideas? The popular Twitter Tower at DAC. 

Armenia - A Differentiating Factor for Synopsys

There are those who think that Synopsys took a big risk in establishing a strong presence in Armenia.

"It's definitely not for the faint of heart," Rich laughs as he recounts the country's infrastructure challenges, "it requires a strong commitment."

46th DAC: Navigating a World of Change

The practical aspects of helping companies navigate through disruptive change is a key focus of this year's Design Automation Conference (DAC) at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

The EDA industry is in the throes of managing through some heavy duty inflection points:

• Complexities, challenges and opportunities associated with the design, process, tools, and resource limitations of chip manufacturing
• Social networking and media tools for getting closer to customers in new ways
• Talent engagement and resource management driven by shifting demographics, disruptive innovation, and cost constraints
  

Yes, change is definitely in the air.

But change and innovation has always been the industry's mantra--in the seventies when I was working in semiconductor manufacturing, playing a part in the early pioneering days of the industry, to experiencing the start-up intensity of manufacturing the world's first 6-inch wafer fab at Intel's New Mexico facility in the early eighties (rebuilding the NM facility for 10-inch wafers now).

And I'm not even an engineer (although I have lots of friends and business clients who are).

So, it was with curiosity that I wandered around the cavernous Moscone exhibit halls on "freebie Monday" where I was able to wear different hats: connector, networker, learner, and observer. 

What Stood Out for Me

1. Telle Whitney's one-on-one conversation with EDA Confidential's Peggy Aycinena. CEO of the Anita Borg Institute and this year's recipient of the 2009 Marie R. Pistilli Award, Whitney provided candid remarks about her own career path and shared key points of the ABI and Stanford University landmark study Climbing the Technical Ladder: Obstacles and Solutions for Mid-Level Women in Technology in respect to the attitudes of technology companies and the women technologists they employ.
   
   Biggest takeaway? The 1800 women interviewed for this study were in various decision stages of whether to exit their field of choice. Why? So that they could start-up their own technology companies? Not according to Whitney, where a greater percentage were looking for the flexibility associated with starting their own micropreneur business and, perhaps, giving up their technology focus (and original passion) altogether.
   
   Technology companies looking for innovation as a key differentiator (and who isn't!) should be concerned about why women technologists are voluntarily silencing themselves, choosing to become invisible in the workplace, and transitioning to the fringes of the workforce. 
   
   Companies doing a good job? Whitney highlighted companies such as IBM and AT&T which have remade their Fellow and distinguished engineer programs (not lowering the bar for women, but overhauling their programs) and now have greater percentages of female representation.
    
   
2. Synopsys' Twitter Tower (#snps, #46DAC) and Conversation Central   
   
   What's not to like about the Twitter Tower? You can tweet and track 'em as you stroll by or stop in to check out the Snopsys demos.
   
   Conversation Central: You gather industry insiders for "unscripted, unrehearsed" 30-minute drop-in sessions and you have the makings for lively, straight-from-the-hip discussions. I caught Harry Gries' (harry...the ASIC guy): "Job Search: How Social Media Can Help Job Seekers & Employers" and EDN Executive Editor Ron Wilson's: "The Changing Media Landscape" (Building community for engineers? It needs to be Safe, Authoritative, and Moderated). Thanks to the moderating efforts and community-building of Karen Bartleson the sessions were fast-paced and informative.   
   
   
3. Connecting with new folks in the industry and reconnecting with people like the talented Michael Brito who continues to reinvent himself since I first met him at Sony almost a decade ago. His Conversation Central session "10 Twitter Best Practices for Brands" was packed. It was also fun meeting up again with Gayane Markosyan from Synopsys Armenia after two years. 

Photos (l to r): Harry Gries, Karen Bartleson & Michael Brito, Ron Wilson, Telle Whitney & Peggy Aycinena, Gayane Markosyan