CIO Career Development for Lunch

A long string of cold, raw, misplaced March weather was broken today here in Cambridge, and as a result, lunch was served al fresco. That was delightful for all, but eventually a little wearing on the a la mode part of dessert (though I did my part to rescue the melting stuff with sufficient quantities of apple pie) and those seated away from the shade of barely budded trees on the Charles Hotel courtyard.

So, needless to say, some of the themed conversations planned for tables (marked with flags for “Managing Expectations,” “Staff Development,” “Technology,” and so on) wandered from the strict parameters of IT and into matters of geography, weather and location. And lawn care trends and the philosophy of Star Trek movies.

As at my table, which was supposed to host the topic of CIO Career Development.

Still, even as eyes got sleepier from squinting against the sunlit white tablecloth, someone observed that the topic of globalization that had permeated much of the early sessions was not felt as keenly in places like the center of the country, where “we’re still catching up to the concept of nationalization.”

The world is flat, as Thomas Friedman’s book describes, but ironically less so in places like Kansas. Well, to add even more levels of complexity to the globalization conversation, a third of the people at my table were speaking French. Perhaps they were cleaving to the topic of CIO Career Development; je ne parle pas bien le Francaise.

I can only report: it’s apparently hard on a gorgeous day between the New England clam chowder and the Boston cream pie, to dwell on one’s trip up the corporate ladder.

–Sandy Kendall, CIO.com Web Editor