Continuing from the first half of my day two notes…

Steve Santini (internal EMC link), CTO, Bank of America Securities spoke next as the day’s featured guest speaker. Steve shared his perspective on how how Bank of America (BofA), as a very large company, organizes itself for successful innovation; the bank’s vision for the future of information; and the Center for Future Banking. Notes from this session:

• Per Steve’s acknowledgment, this presentation itself is innovation, since normally BofA has avoided such engagements so as not to appear to be making an endorsement. To those at BofA who made the call to allow Steve to present during this conference, a hearty “Thank You!”
• BofA is a company that is always in transition (e.g. due to M&A activity), and it has a well-defined process to handle transitions such as merging IT data centers (i.e. concept of a “lean” – e.g. if I could do X or Y, I lean toward X). A first lean is about gut feel. A second lean is about details, and a third lean is about execution.
• BofA has to innovate in order to deliver products that meet ever-changing lifestyles.
• First, create the room and the structure for innovation to grow.

Next, the conference focused on university research and heard updates from several EMC-sponsored efforts as follows:

1. Fudan University Ph.D candidate from Parallel Processing Institute, Haibo Chen, presented “Inside and Outside Protection of Cloud Services through Daoli Trusted Infrastructure.” More (EMC internal) details on this presentation are here.
2. University of Washington doctoral student in Computer Science & Engineering, Evan Welbourne, presented “RFID Data Management for Pervasive Computing Applications.” More (EMC internal) details on this presentation are here. Evan is the graduate student lead of the RFID Ecosystem project.
3. University of Michigan Professor Peter Honeyman, research professor, scientific director, Center for Information Technology Integration (CITI), challenged the conference audience to look to parallel computing for storage innovation. During session Q&A (in response to modern OS deficiencies where massive throughput is concerned): “you solve the problem you have…CITI is addressing new problems…”

The final segment of the conference was the announcement of showcase judging results and awarding the winners, which are outlined here.

This was a great conference both in terms of content and in terms of networking with fellow EMC colleagues. It was invigorating, and I’m already looking forward to next year’s event.

Update 10/27/2008: Cornelia Davis posted a nice blog on her conference experience here.

Continuing from the good start on day 1 (10/21/2008), the second and final day of the conference (10/22/2008) began with a world tour of EMC’s Centers of Excellence in China, India, Russia and Ireland. It was great to see a large remote gathering at each site via live video feed. The leadership of each center discussed how they innovate current EMC products and research the next generation of offerings. There was plenty of energy apparent in each team. Notes from this session:

• India is the largest and most tenured CoE, and this year its innovation showcase submissions alone outnumbered all submissions last year (i.e. the first year of the showcase).
• China is a much younger CoE, yet it already represents a significant percentage of innovations submitted this year. Where will the China CoE be at the same point in its history? Or Russia? Or elsewhere?
• The CoE concept has the advantage of multiple products being developed under the same roof (e.g. benefits of co-location collaboration, etc.).
• The “Great Wall” in the China CoE is a large, lengthy wall that acts as a whiteboard dedicated to capturing innovation.
• As we do in CMA, the China CoE has site-wide wiki and collaboration is encouraged.
• I’m a fan of Charles Fan, head of the China CoE, and it was a pleasure to meet and talk with him in person. Consider, for example, his perspective on hiring talent (with which I agree): It’s all about building EMC’s brand. A very selective hiring process–one that targets the best of the best–means that few are hired into EMC; however, many more candidates and applicants are exposed to what EMC is all about. Furthermore, many of those not hired become employees of EMC’s customers.

Next, there was a panel discussion about driving innovation within several EMC business units (i.e. which processes and programs work and which don’t). Doc D’Errico was an effective moderator of Rich Napolitano, Amnon Naamad and Mark Sorensen. Notes from this session (raw):

• Convergence – process/workflow
• Technologists maturing into business people
• Rid complexity (!…and reduce engineering cost); simplify to enable technology adoption by customers
• Tyranny of the installed base–the innovator’s dilemma
• Quarter-based drivers versus long-term strategy
• Critical transition for a successful startup: making the move from idea to value proposition; therefore, pay attention to wider industry and look for such events
• Practice of “R&D grants”: receipt of one rewards recipient with 1 day/week to pursue idea (e.g. 10 people in a 2000-person organization)
• (Music to my ears…) First architect; then implement.
• Not being able to measure is no reason not to start. Start!
• Forrest floor…big trees block out the light; develop others by allowing light hit the “sapplings”
• Encourage risk-taking (don’t reward failure)
• Mark captured Rich’s “army of innovators” remark, which I fully align myself to (versus an ivory innovation tower approach)

More to come in a follow-up post…some of which I see already captured here…