Moreover, Drucker predicts that the two systems soon will become one. We need to make one information system out of the two, and one information structure out of God knows how many. To do so will require a better leader than the average Joe, and co-keynote speaker Warren Bennis outlined some of the attributes successful leaders share. A leader must have a total sense of conviction and be able to communicate that conviction to the rest of the team. Leaders generate trust, according to Bennis, and leaders must know themselves before they seek to inspire others.
Leaders have a bias toward doing rather than conceptualizing.
Speakers included management guru Peter F. Drucker and leadership expert Warren Bennis as well as such CIOs from the workaday world as John Dahms of the CIA, who managed to discuss the intelligence community's Internet strategies without revealing state secrets. In addition to the wide variety of lectures and sessions, networking also was a top agenda item. Conference participants found plenty of time to exchange business cards and implementation stories in the Southern California sun.