Anecdotes (Or: Meeting Important People)

Today I'd like to write about a topic that has interested me for a while, and at the same time tell an anecdote, about an event that I found fascinating. You might find it interesting, or not, but I guess some might like it.

To make a start, let's make a jump back in time, about one year ago. Back then, I had never met a real "VIP" in person. I had met a few "Internet-famous" people, among them Matthias Ettrich, and Alan Cox, but let's be honest here: While some of us FOSS people are well known in our Free Software circles, ask Joe Sixpack in a bar about them (or really just some guy in the non-FOSS IT area), chances are slim that they'll know them.

At this time I got an interesting offer for a software project, the nature of which is irrelevant to this story, so I won't disclose it. What I can disclose is that it had to do with Gibson Guitar Corporation, and I (along with two co-workers) was invited to a meeting in Berlin, for a presentation of the project, with the the boss himself, Henry Juszkiewicz (on this photo he was meeting Steve Wozniak). You may have never heard of Henry himself, but you sure have heard of Gibson, because it's basically a given that some of the artists you listen to are playing a Gibson guitar. Gibson is one of the biggest musical instrument manufacturers in the world, and if you like guitar music, you'll probably know that most guitarists either play a Fender, or a Gibson, or possibly both (many guitarists use multiple different guitars, depending on the thing they are writing).

Being a big music fan, I realized that I was about to meet the man who made the guitars played by Mike Oldfield, Pink Floyd, U2, you name it. I don't know about you, but this made me very excited (and nervous). I was wondering, how could such a person be in real life? Would he a be a chair-throwing tyrant like Ballmer, or arrogant and preachy, and would he talk to me at all (a lowly FOSS coder)? As it turned out, I didn't have to be nervous at all. Because the man is completely different from what I had expected.

What I met was a calm person, considerate, quiet, and very friendly. Henry knew all our names, he knew exactly what we did (he had used Amarok before), and he talked to us just like you would talk to any other person. It boggled my mind when the guy shook my hand, and said something like "Hey Mark, thank you for coming here! It's nice to meet a developer of Amarok, I really like this software." Bahm. Just like that. After a few seconds of disorientation, I started to talk to him, and realized that there was no need to be nervous at all. I wasn't talking to some VIP (although he is that), but to a normal guy, intelligent, witty and friendly.

Fast forwarding a bit in the meeting, I learned to know another side of Henry, no less fascinating: He was given a presentation of some audio gear, and evaluated the speakers. At the same table, there were three audio experts in speaker technology. Henry listened to the speakers for a few seconds, then went like: "Stop. Ok guys, these speakers here are... something. They aren't good though. What I want, is the best. Get me XY on the phone ASAP, he's the best guy for this job, I've worked with him before." Bahm. You should have seen the faces of the "experts" at the table. It's hard to describe the exact look, it was something like flabbergasted.


To sum it up, I've often found that really important people (not those who pretend to be) have the following qualities:

They are in that position for a reason.

They know exactly what they want.

They don't have to be arrogant, because that gets you nowhere. They prefer getting things done.

Hope you enjoyed this little anecdote