While staying in New York I wouldn’t miss the opportunity to stop-by the John Lennon Memorial. It was a moving experience to think of that fateful day when John was taken at a young age. I knew that Scott Blitstein from mythermos.com would appreciate this in particular. The memorial is right across the street from the Dakota where he lived and was tragically shot on that cold December day in 1980.
The second day of the SES Conference in New York City was excellent. The day started out with a key note from Nick Car, author of "The Big Switch: Rewiring the world, from Editon to Google." Nick gave an interesting talk about the fundamental changes in the way computing and ultimately how business is and will be done. One interesting concept is what he called the worker-less companies. Consider the following companies and their work force:
- Skype: 200 employees. They service the same number of customers as the British telecom who employs in the tens of thousands.
- YouTube: 60 employees. Let’s hear it for user-contribution.
- Craigslist: 20 employees. This site always amazes me as one of the ugliest and amazingly successful sites. Raise your hand if you don’t actively use craigslist on a regular basis.
- Plentyoffish: a whopping 1 employee. He’s apparently done pretty well for himself.
What are the implications for the information technology work force? In this day-and-age it sure pays to be well cross-trained. How will computing continue to change the employment landscape in the near and distant future?
The Exhibit Hall was hosted on three floors with over a hundred vendors. All total the show continues again to hold-up to its reputation.