2000-a: From Inkjet to Chief Technology Office

Two of the elements of Carly's early days at HP were the centralization of decision making and embracing the Internet and what Carly and HP called e-services. So it's not surprising that Carolyn Ticknor hired Lee Caldwell to be the first CTO in HP's printing history. Not only did it give Carolyn a single focal point for technology, but Lee had just been in charge of IBM's Internet strategy prior to joining HP.

My own career continued to evolve in 2000, and I was reporting directly to Lee by April. Carolyn gave Lee responsibility for mapping business and technology opportunities, and Lee decided that the work Al's New Business Development team was doing formed a good starting point for his new Chief Technology Office. That gave me a great opportunity to migrate away from the deeper inkjet technology work that I had done for a few years and to move in new and important directions. It turns out that I would report directly to our CTO for the remainder of my HP career. But that role didn't grow old or stale for a long time, as the intrigue of being so close to the top of HP's organization and the constant opportunity to work on new things kept me motivated and productive.

Working with Lee was a fantastic opportunity. Every conversation ended with me feeling that Lee had stretched my brain and expanded my knowledge of the world. Lee counted on me to deliver results in some crucial assignments but also gave me almost complete freedom to get things done. He trusted me and recognized my contributions. It was common for me to stand in for Lee when he couldn't attend a meeting, and he often remarked that he could tell that I had already been places and taken care of things when he arrived. We had a great working relationship, and I was very loyal.

My results summary at the end of 2000 included technology evangelism as before but also many new initiatives and activities:

• Launched the technology strategy for a digital internet workflow transformation for commercial printing that was to be at the center of a three-way partnership with Adobe and Heidelberg. Handed off the leadership responsibility to Jim Langley’s Commercial Printing Initiative team.
• Created the technology strategy to support HP’s acquisition of access to a third major marking engine technology and worked with teams across IPS businesses and HP Labs to understand the roles each technology should play in commercial printing.
• Created a coordinated color technology strategy for IPS businesses. We continue to own the leadership of this vital strategic focus, as it requires more external effort with key partners and with international standards bodies than any of our internal businesses is able to sustain.
• Launched a transformation of the Internet printing and imaging model and briefed Carly and other key leaders on the strategic fit of this transformation with the business imperatives that are central to HP’s drive to be a successful e-company. We will add one staff architect to our team to drive this strategy forward. I will continue to play a leadership role with Kriss Kirchhoff’s ePrinting Solutions Team, with our Inkjet Systems organization, and with the Computer Systems organization as we drive printing & imaging into the fabric of the Internet.
• Played a key role in representing IPS on various cross-company transformational initiative teams. This includes close work with HP CTOs and CIOs, with center directors and teams at HP Labs, and with GMs and Lab Managers across Bill Russell’s Software Systems Organization and Rich Raimondi’s E-Services & Solutions organization.
• Provided a wide variety of strategic technology services to IPS businesses and organizations including delivery of technology speeches in the US, Australia, Europe & Asia, work with HP university grants programs, support for IPS strategic planning activities, and support of the IPS strategic investing and Internet Printing E-Services teams.
• Initiated a program to create and drive a strategic technology roadmap for HP’s e-services solutions architecture. Our goal is to provide a common framework for planning and execution of technology programs to deliver solutions to customers and to e-services ecosystem partners. This work is sponsored by the Architecture Advisory Council and is co-led by Denny Georg’s team.

It was a busy time of life with many new things getting started and ramping up. I'll detail a few of these in my next blog posts. To illustrate how hectic things were, I'll also detail my travel in 2000.

Next: 2000-b: Internet Imaging Model