Your report for Friday, Oct. 4, 2002

STAY FLEXIBLE, SHOW VALUE AND LISTEN -- That's how you get ahead in tech in these troubled times, according to speakers at a Michigan Council of Women in Technology forum Thursday night in Troy. CEOs are demanding more value, budgets are flat or declining, yet tech still marches on, said Pete Janak, CIO of Delphi Corp. For example: Delphi's Dave Wolheen pointed out that a luxury car now includes 600,000 lines of software code and 20 microprocessors. Smart cars of the future, he said, will know their owners, avoid accidents, prevent theft, not pollute, enhance driver productivity, minimize driver distractions and entertain passengers. 

FORRESTER RESEARCH DIRECTOR Laurie Orlov told the group that so-called Web services would disrupt current applications, creating a new layer of technology that would run everything a business needs to run from a single interface. Meanwhile, the "X internet" -- devices and applications that sense, analyze and control the real world -- will replace the current Web. And adaptive business supply networks will sense and respond to change -- for example, automatic notification of customers of revised production schedules if supplies arrive late or incomplete, and automatic bidding based on excess machine capacity. 

FINALLY, TOMMI WHITE, COMPUWARE COO, gave a sterling little speech on how you keep up with all the changes in technology, and still do your job, and still have a life (oh, yes, that). Basically, she said: hire people smarter than you, encourage them to tell you exactly what they think, use that information to make good decisions, and prioritize -- realize that there are some things you just will not get done today. White said tech workers should cultivate deep relationships with partners, customers and analysts, and attend at least one industry conference a year, sharing what they learn with colleagues in presentations. Finally: make yourself approachable; you never know what you might learn. Well, your humble narrator learned quite a lot Thursday night -- thanks, council, for a terrific event. More on this great group at www.mcwt.org.