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By Tony Hallett, 16 March 2007 08:25

COMMENT

I was at the Innovation and Growth forum event earlier this week, around for a short time in the day to listen to people such as Qinetiq chairman Sir John Chisholm and Rob Lewis, my former boss, as the founder of silicon.com, and now riding high as the CEO of new mobile phone music venture Omnifone.

But it was in the evening that, I must admit, I had most fun, at that event's annual awards ceremony. I do even remember some of the winners but it was having been placed next to BA CIO Paul Coby that led me to walk away with most ideas.

Paul has long been a friend of this publication. I assured him the other night that of course we'd pull no punches if his employer or he personally should cock something up or act inappropriately - he smiled at that and very much believed me - but he also knows we do our best to understand what the airline is trying to achieve with IT.

Among the highlights from several hours of intriguing chat:

• Yes, he knows BA isn't perfect when it comes to things such as customer service but they are making advances, some of which he was remarkably candid about.
• Yes, when it comes to in-flight calls, including VoIP over broadband connections or using BlackBerrys, he's between a rock and a hard place - "50 per cent of our customers would love it, 50 per cent would want to kills us for allowing it", he said.

• And no, there clearly isn't a week that goes by without another twist in the BA soap opera. OK, that was my observation, not his. But he didn't disagree.

Also, as part of the CIO group that supports e-skills UK, he was looking the other night for heads of IT from smaller companies to contribute. They could be companies that are internet-based or just very new. I could sense the need to be inclusive and not only rely on big user organisations, the household names. (So if you're interested, drop me a line and I'll let Paul know.)

And, I should mention, there was one other reason for Coby being there. He was nominated for, and won, the CIO Innovator of the Year award. Good on him.

Also nice to see was the equivalent gong for the public sector, which was won by another contact of ours - another member of our CIO Jury pool - West London Mental Health Trust's Alan Brown. I didn't get a chance to say well done that night.

But apart from all the virtual slaps on backs here, the serious point is that it is important for these kinds of events to recognise the users, those holding the largest IT purse strings.

Of course the VCs, entrepreneurs and the many other professionals who make up that mix are important but I can't help always coming back to a simple point - what you do with it.