INSPIRATION: Sir Terry Matthews

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I had the pleasure of meeting with Sir Terry Matthews this morning. Thanks to our friends at Ethan Group, Peter Metcalf (Talman’s MD) and I were invited to a small gathering (15 people) with Terry in which he talked about his background (btw the Wikipedia account is not quite correct – the real version is that a shipping company lost the crate of lawnmowers) and his then his thoughts on broadband, future trends and internet telephony.
 
This guy is remarkably passionate about technology and ‘winning’, and is a great inspiration for would be entrepreneurs.
 
He talked about the importance of timing with regard to technology and the need to be plowing money into R+D if you want to be a long term success.
 
Peter and I had a chat to him about the interaction of software and IP hardware and Terry’s assertion that there now seems to exist a new 8th layer of the ISO model above the Application layer which basically deals with Content.
 
As an interesting aside, I had actually forgotten about the meeting until I got into work this morning… in my jeans, jumper and casual shoes. There was no time to change so when we got into the city for the meeting I ever so casually strolled into the room where everyone else was dressed up in suit and tie. Rather than run and hide, I put on my best confident look and mingled with the other attendess (all high profile IT managers in big companies). Funnily enough people came up to me to introduce themselves, including Sir Terry who came up and shook my hand early on. I think people had me confused with someone really, really important (you know, the kind that is so important, that they don’t even bother to dress up for a meeting with a world famous billionaire…)

2 comments

  • Craig, I work for Camden Council in the UK. We’re fortunate enough to have Sir Terry Matthews visiting us tomorrow. Judging from your blog it should be good value…can’t wait…

    John Jackson

  • Craig, I work for Camden Council in the UK. We’re fortunate enough to have Sir Terry Matthews visiting us tomorrow. Judging from your blog it should be good value…can’t wait…John Jackson

By Craig Bailey

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