Over the years I have been very fortunate to be able to travel to many countries around the world to talk about "The Future of the Internet", but for some unexplainable reason, I had never been to Scotland — until this week. It was a wonderful experience for which I am thankful. The Royal Bank of Scotland held a conference at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre and it was attended by nearly 500 of their information technology and business team from around the world. With a connecting flight at London Heathrow, it was a long trip. I arrived in Edinburgh on Sunday morning and Andrew was kind enough to drive me to downtown Edinburgh where I was to stay at the Scotsman Hotel.
As often happens with overnight flights to Europe, the hotel room was not yet ready so there was time to kill. Fortunately, the weather was spectacular — blue sky and 70+ degrees. The first impression one gets of Edinburgh is that is a very old (and beautiful) city. In America we typically think of an "old" city as having been around for 300 years. I don’t know exactly, but Edinburgh is roughly twice as old.
The Old Town of Edinburgh has been at the heart of Scottish history for centuries.
The main thoroughfare is called the Royal Mile and it connects Edinburgh Castle with the Palace of Holyrood House. It is one of those things that is hard to describe — you need to see it to believe it. Robert Louis Stevenson once said that Edinburgh is what Paris ought to be.
I thought I had planned the trip well, but as fate would have it, I forgot to take the GSM phone and the digital camera. Fortunately, during the walk around the city, I happened upon an electronics store where I was able to purchase a one time use Fuji "film" camera (made in Germany) for approximately 5 pounds (less than $10). It seemed so strange to use a camera with chemically based film — I think it has been ten years or more since I have held such a device. Nevertheless, I was happy to have it and began to explore the ancient city and take some pictures. Thanks to CVS, the twenty-seven pictures were converted to jpegs and they are now in the photo gallery. (There are also some pictures there taken with the Handspring Treo 600 mobile phone. They are mostly too small to be easily identifiable. As usual, I apologize for not being a very good photographer).
The theme of the RBS conference was "Momentum". The keynote was by Fred Goodwin, who is Group Chief Executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc. I was more than impressed (so much so that I plan to look into how to invest in a Scottish company on the London Stock Exchange). His vision was clear and I now see how RBS has entered the ranks of the top ten financial services companies in the world. Not acquisitions for acquisitions sake, but rather to build out the capabilities of the firm and to integrate the strengths of the various companies while retaining their individual brands (Mellon, Citizens, Charter, RBS, etc.). It goes without saying that information technology is critical to making the vision a reality and Mr. Goodwin displayed a clear understanding of this in concept and in details. He handled many employee questions with poise and precision.
Prior to the start of the conference at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, the RBS had a "Soft Zone", an Internet Cafe, a place for networking, and an Exhibition area for a dozen or so vendors who participate. One of the most popular booths was organized by the RBS’s largest IT partner, IBM. I was familiar with most of what IBM showed but I was particularly impressed with the IBM smartcard technology. Smartcards have been used in Europe for many years but the recent breakthrough is the Java operating system that was developed by the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory. The JCOP, as it is called, allows for multiple applications to operate on the smartcard chip and the Java operating system enables large numbers of programmers to build new capabilities for the smartcard. This will not only be important in the financial services industry, but essential in the healthcare industry.
My talk about "The Future of the Internet" was well attended and the audience had a number of very good questions during the Q&A. As usual, most of them were centered around privacy and security. I hope the series of short stories I wrote about Privacy and Trust is a helpful reference.
The evening gala was quite a treat. Most of the men wore tuxedos but some wore Scottish kilts. The woodwind trio and quartet were great but the most intriguing part of the evening was the ceremony and serving of haggis. Haggis is traditionally served on Burns Night (January 25), when Scotland celebrates the birth of its greatest poet, Robert Burns.The celebration was enacted in a dialect that I was not able to understand. The haggis was delivered in grand style and then followed by Scotch whiskey. If I had known in advance the ingredients of haggis I would not have eaten it, but I must admit is was quite tasty. There are many haggis resources on the web (and I took a picture with the Handspring Treo).
All in all, it was a very fast couple of days in Scotland, and I feel fortunate to have learned about a place I have not been to before, to have renewed some friendships, and to have made a number of new ones. The flight across the Atlantic was a good one and I was happy to get home.