What's it like to interview Grady Booch?

[Jan Cumps]

I'm a huge Grady Booch fan. How was it to interview him?

[Sam Lightstone]

Hi Jan

Thanks... I'm a huge Grady fan too, one of the reasons I wanted to interview him for "Making it Big in Software". The interview was a blast, and Grady is a much broader and more mature thinker than most. I think that comes through in his personal interests (kayaking, physics, chemistry, playing Celtic harp, just to name a few!). Grady is an architect’s architect. He thinks in the large, he thinks about systems, and he thinks about the future of where technology is headed.

The downside: as you can imagine the people I interviewed were extremely hard to reach. Some are nearly impossible to reach. I had to use a wide array of crafty schemes and nearly superhuman persistence to reach many of them. With Grady I expected an easier ride since he and I both work at IBM. I have direct access to his email, telephone and instant messaging. (Sorry, no, I can't share them with you). So how hard could it be? But, truth be told, it was hard getting time with him. He's a busy guy! Once we managed to finally get some solid time together the interview was fantastic, and I felt privileged having the one on one time with him. I was a Grady Booch fan before my interview with him and now even more so.


Sam

[Jan Cumps]

Thanks for sharing.

And I am happy that you have written a book with Software in the title that is not about the software. I just ordered it.