Transformation and the Database of Record

A Conversation with Dr. Hossein Eslambolchi, CEO of 2020 Vision and former CIO/CTO of AT&T

Historians have unfairly classified Thomas Edison as a mere inventor.

True, his patents for the first incandescent light bulb, motion picture projector, and phonograph record put him in a class with the greatest of inventors.

Yet Edison was also a very practical inventor, that rare breed of "ideas guy" who could communicate those ideas, bring them to market, and build profitable companies -- even industries -- around them.

Which is shorthand for saying Edison was a leader of people. In fact, his light bulbs and electrical distribution systems were made possible by an organizational brainchild of his -- the "invention laboratory" of Menlo Park, New Jersey -- the forerunner of today's R&D lab.

As we look at today's telecom industry, struggling to streamline its operations to compete in a fast-changing world, we can at least say that telecom is not starving for a lack of technologies, patents, software developers, or applications to stick on an iPod.

In fact, our problem is the opposite: we have so many choices, but we don't know where to focus first.

And how many years has the telecom industry talked about -- but failed to deliver on -- the grand ideas of systems consolidation, OSS/BSS integration, and business transformation? How many times must we go to conferences and hear the same litany of problems being played over and over again like a broken Edison phonograph record?

If you agree with me that the telecom industry needs less theory and more lessons learned. . . less dreams and more results. . . . less Houdini and more Edison. . . then you will certainly enjoy the conversation we had with Dr. Hossein Eslambolchi.