I was able to attend all sessions of the CIT Department’s Newel K. Whitney Summit. This year Steve McCown, the CEO and CTO of Rfinity, Sean McBride, co-founder of Critical intelligence, and Joey Skinner, president of Rodeo Software, spoke specifically to the CIT students about a wide variety of topics.
Steve McCowen
Steve McCowen spoke a lot about the entrepreneurial process. He talked a lot about the differences between middle managers and innovative engineers. He said that middle managers like to have a steady improvement year by year, and they like to avoid risk. On the other hand, an innovative engineer thrives on risk and doesn’t like to fixate around a previously sustained object. They like to move around and so forth. He also talked about how entrepreneurship is a “bane” to middle managers. He told a story how he used the word entrepreneurship at a meeting and ever since then people started to look at him funny. I think there was a lot to take in from Steve McCowen, especially since I would like to own my own business one day.
Joey Skinner
Joey Skinner talked a lot about the cycle a lot of software companies go through. Mr. Skinner is a consultant that helps companies get back on track. He talked a lot about being a team player. Here are a few points I enjoyed
- Each member has a different role but the same goal
- Have one common metric
- No finger pointing
- Constant communication
- No bureaucracy
- Everyone owns the problem
He said that once software companies have a lot going for them they get caught up in a cycle of not listening to customers, not innovating, blaming others and so forth. I think that there is a lot I can learn from Joey Skinner about creating something built to last. A lot of people can make something good, but something that is great is something that lasts.
Sean McBride
Sean McBride had a really fascinating presentation about security. He showed a lot of pictures about famous people in the technology world. He had us guess what they were famous for. Then he told us a story about a guy named Albert Gonzalez. Albert Gonzalez stole millions of credit cards and sold them all around the world. This pointed out how big of an issue security is for companies around the world. There is so much information on the web that we need to keep track of. I think the greatest thing I picked up from Sean McBride’s presentation was that I can make a difference.
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