Some years ago, I was asked to travel to the corporate meeting center to present at a presentation-fest to the CxO staff of Visa. Yes, the one with the logo on the cards in your wallet. The CEO of Visa was there. My CEO was there. (It was the only time I ever met her.)
The fest in general was a disaster. Except for my part, if I may say so myself.
During the discussion after the presentations, the CTO of Visa stood up and said "This was the most useless pile of nothing I've had to sit through for a long time! Nobody actually said anything! Nobody actually proposed anything! Nobody actually listened to what my problems are! Nobody expressed any opinion at all! Well, except for this guy!"
And he pointed at me. "He actually read my memo about what my problems are! He believes that open source is a good idea, and that cloud computing is a good idea! And I think he's right!"
The meeting broke up soon after, and all my coworkers left, kind of glum. Except for me, I had a spring in my step for weeks after.
I have no idea if there was any impact on how Visa did business from my presentation, but it was nice to be recognized.
The fest in general was a disaster. Except for my part, if I may say so myself.
During the discussion after the presentations, the CTO of Visa stood up and said "This was the most useless pile of nothing I've had to sit through for a long time! Nobody actually said anything! Nobody actually proposed anything! Nobody actually listened to what my problems are! Nobody expressed any opinion at all! Well, except for this guy!"
And he pointed at me. "He actually read my memo about what my problems are! He believes that open source is a good idea, and that cloud computing is a good idea! And I think he's right!"
The meeting broke up soon after, and all my coworkers left, kind of glum. Except for me, I had a spring in my step for weeks after.
I have no idea if there was any impact on how Visa did business from my presentation, but it was nice to be recognized.
