A while ago I got an invitation to the 3rd Annual Global Information Industry Summit.
You know the kind of event just by reading the pretentious title. One where all the speakers have titles of such immense gravity that they probably sit on the right hand of God the Father or have made so much money they can’t count it.
I wouldn’t turn up if you paid me.
And here’s why.
They don’t face the kind of challenges you and I face. They don’t have to get measurably better results every day or lose the business. They live in When Is The Next Meeting World. They’re the kind of people whose main skill is climbing to the top of the kind of big fat organisations we can all hear going “pop” right now.
Because no matter how smart these guys (and the odd frau) may once have been it’s years since most of them had to fight in the trenches, years since they had to worry where their next crust was coming from.
They’ve made it – and probably forgotten how.
Anyhow, any conference where an accountant talks about “knowledge-centric organizations” has just got to a be great big pile of stinking poo, hasn’t it?
Especially as we know most big organisations are lots-of-ignorance-and-ingenious-systems-that-cost-a-fortune-but-don’t-actually-work-centric.
One of the few pleasures of the current financial catastrophe is seeing some of these people exposed for what they are … and the greatest sadness is that most are walking away with millions.
