BT's chief boffin wears high-tech heart on his sleeve

NEWS Chief technologist at BT, Peter Cochrane, is not content with supplying a vision of the future to one of Europe's largest telecoms operators. He also sets up his own companies in his spare time. Whether he's pioneering the office-on-the-wrist or new integration technologies, Cochrane has one of the most original minds in the industry. And, as Silicon.com's Agenda Setter of the week, he told Lisa Burroughes that today's climate of innovation has been building up for years. Cochrane said: "Generally speaking, everything that I've dreamt up has been ahead of time. But the distance between coming up with the idea and it actually hitting the market place has gone down and down - from twenty years to ten years to five years, and it's now about two years. And what seems crazy now in two years becomes acceptable." Trying to introduce that spirit of entrepreneurship to BT, however, is a different matter. On arrival with the company, Cochrane cut the levels of management in his department from seven to two, in an attempt to make it more fleet-footed. But he freely admits that no large organisation can completely transform itself. Cochrane believes the future will bring a greater focus on care, with the development of data mining technologies in the healthcare industry playing a significant part. The full Agenda Setter interview is can be seen today in Silicon.com's Telecoms Channel (http://www.silicon.com/a36222 ).