Invensys Users Conference Day Two
After high-energy artist Michael Israel kicked off the morning presentation with a couple of paintings, Michael Caliel president of Invensys Process Systems gave a state of the company presentation. I find it refreshing that Invensys executives in the US are acknowledging the financial problems that have existed in London for sometime. Perhaps they have waited because the news is better now than it was a year ago. Caliel pointed to the recently completed re-financing package that gives the company financial stability for most of the rest of the decade. Incidentally, Wonderware president Mike Bradley made the same point during an interview at the ISA show a couple of weeks ago.
The approximately 800 attendees heard Caliel point to three core goals-competitiveness, reliability and safety & security for IPS. Perhaps the most significant point was that he has pulled all development for the groups under IPS (Foxboro, Triconex, Avantis, SimSci) into one group headed by Steve Young. This will help future integration of new technologies and products.
The star of the morning without a doubt, sorry Mike, was Dewitt Jones, a photographer for the National Geographic as well as a commercial photographer, speaking on creativity. He illustrated his points on creativity with the development of his photographs. You can check them out at http://www.dewittjones.com.
Jones defined creativity as that moment when we look at the ordinary and see the extraordinary. It's not something in the head, but a feeling much like when you fall in love. When you fall in love even ordinary things look differently. His challenge to the audience was "how much time do you spend sitting quietly with no distractions and think about how what you do aligns with corporate goals?" Or even your own goals?
Ingredients of creativity:
What lens do I have -- perspective
What's the right focus -- that is, what elements are important
There's more than one right answer
Break the pattern
Pay attention -- be a good listener
Sound advice.
10:53:28 PM 
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