I recently presented at the Ohjelmistokehitys 2006 seminar. My talk was about Lean Thinking and its application in the context of software development. I'm not going to blog about my talk, however, (even though it went quite well--I love talking about lean ideas) because what really got my juices flowing was the ending keynote right after my set.

The keynote was given by Mikael Honkavaara, the CEO of Hybrid Graphics, a small group of Finnish "elite ninjas" in the field of embedded graphics (with a background in game development tools and graphics engines). In short, Mr. Honkavaara's presentation was top-notch. I'll try to extract a couple of things from the actual experience that I believe had perhaps the biggest influence on me receiving the presentation so well.

First and foremost, I heard a story. The presenter told the story of Hybrid. Moreover, he told a story of the company as a living thing, a family. It was concrete and personal. Mr. Honkavaara pretty much stripped himself naked as a presenter, speaking directly to the individuals in the audience rather than delivering The Message.

Second, I could assimilate with almost everything that was told of Hybrid's culture. From their recruitment policies to treating employees with respect to the way they party, I could nod to myself and say, "that's just like with us."

I'd also like to highlight one specific aspect of the presentation's content. The fact that Hybrid recently cashed out through an acquisition by NVIDIA is something many "corporate" presenters would naturally levitate towards as the main focus or grand finale, especially for a presentation titled as a "success story". That's not the story I heard. It was part of the story, yes, but--and rightfully so--an insignificant part. Far more important, for me at least, was to hear about a group of people dedicated to being the best they could be, supporting each other and not giving up their ideals even during the tough times.

The fact that the story had a happy ending really didn't matter.
The value was created during the journey.