Innovation: Day One.

The Innovation Conference has been interesting for a number of different reasons. Getting into the same room as a lot of people I usually only have email conversations with is just one of them.

Within the first few hours I had spoken to Stuart Miniman had lunch with TSA and Backup Platforms CTO Mike Fishman. Grilled Steve Todd on his idea before grilling Peter Quirk on his. Introduced Steve to Craig Randall. Caught up with Charles Fan. Had a light bulb moment while speaking to Cornelia Davis, which isn't that unusual but she introduced mathematics into the conversation and I usually daydream about the land of chocolate when that happens. But not this time. Met Sorin (Who wants to fight everybody and that's fine by me) and Kartik. (Who's still alive but claims "work" is getting in the way of his blogging. You owe me months of entries K.) Did the usual verbal jousting with David Black, who later waved me off when I needled him on his entry but that was the plan. Spoke with SNIA Chairman Wayne Adams. (Congrats Wayne) Cracked a joke Burt Kaliski just didn't get. Spoke with Gina Minks. Appeared behind Polly Pearson with such stealth that a glass of EMCs finest nearly hit the ceiling. Introduced Cloud Infrastructure development godhead Patrick Eaton to a few people and generally asked whatever questions popped into my head.

There's more people I was speaking to who I've left out but it's 3:00am here.

The session of the day award goes to Harry You. It was the first time I had seen Harry in person or heard him speak I was expecting a dry number cruncher or one of the usual blow dried corporate Napoleons which are so frequently found in the upper management of large corporations, but what I got was an open approachable strategist who didn't avoid a single question he was asked and volunteered insight which expanded the topics of conversation.

At the end of his session I was like "I'd play in your band.."