The first talk was by Peter Senge, of Fifth Discipline fame.  He talked about how reducing your company’s carbon footprint and doing other environmenaly-friendly work can improve your company’s profitability.  It’s perhaps counter-intuitive, but he is a good speaker and had a variety of good examples.  You can see the abstract here, and videos will be online soon.

Next up I listened to Oli de Weck talk about the importance of adaptability and chaneability in systems.  He was my System Project Management professor and I really liked him then.  He is a good speaker and has good examples.  You can see his talk abstract here.  His group also has a web site at strategic.mit.edu.

Then I went back to the office, but I came back for the last talk of the day.  Valerie Casey, head of “Software Experience” at IDEO, gave a pretty interesting talked about “Networked Culture and the New Cartographers.”  She was a good speaker, especially when she got into it and ad-libbed a bit.  IDEO is a company I really like, mainly for their super-creative vibe.

I’m also Twittering from the conference.

Thanks to the SDM engineering management program and staff for organizing and sponsoring the conference!