I participated in a Executive Roundtable on "Building a Real Time Enterprise" at the Warwick Hotel in NYC this morning. It was a gathering of a “who’s who” of NY financial institutions CIO’s and I with my name on the table. I’m accustomed to wearing my name around my neck or stuck on my chest, but there was this card with my name on both sides so everybody could see it oh, and there was a big fat microphone right in front of me as this was all being recorded.
It was a fascinating discussion, with phrases like Byzantine Data structures and Mainframe euthanasia and Excel spreadsheets via email, oh my! The moderator eventually turned to me, just as it looked as if all hope was lost and he asked what my organization needed more then anything else; “interoperability” I said and all the heads around the round table nodded in agreement. I continued to talk about XML and Web Services, SOAP; standards and extensibility and then felt as if I could heal the sick and dieing by laying my hands on them and reciting XML schemas.