Joe

Not just any Joe, but the Joe as in the CEO of this fine web site.

When I found out that Joe was giving a talk at a technical meeting this evening, I stayed in town after work today to attend. I filled the invervening time taking street pictures and generally acting like another lost tourist. One diversion took me to the Museum of Scotland where I noticed the absence of parked cars and (more crucially) a bright red carpet in front of the main door. I asked an organiser-looking person who was the VIP, and he said it was the future heir to the throne and that he was due at 6:30pm. I wasn't entirely sure if he was pulling my leg but I hanged around until that time, then when nothing happened bailed out to attend my technical meeting.

I was expecting Joe to give the usual techie three-tier Enterprise application talk with some UI at the top, a database at the bottom, and an application server in the middle running some trendy language like Haskell or Ruby. Hence, I was pleasantly surprised that it was more about how a good idea does not make a good business without a lot of hard work. I had a good chat with him and I agreed with his approach to emphasize the business angle, rather than the underlying technology.

I also grabbed him for this natural window light portrait before the day faded into dusk.

Oh, and the Duke of Rothesay really was visiting the Museum for his supper...!