Ed Keating Chaired the CEO panel, focusing on agility issues. Al Wasserberger, CEO Intellext, oftentimes it's listening carefully to the clients. Steve Fadem, CEO of Relegence, Russell Secker sitting in for Hoover's CEO Dwayne Spradlin. My apologies for missing some of the comments on this panel, I was fumbling a bit at the keyboard and losing some concentration.

Ed: Buy/build/partner, who do you include in the team? Russell: try to keep key pieces in house, but many things get outsourced. News was outsourced, they're not a news provider. Steve: Have to focus on core competencies, outsource whatever we can to get speed to market. Al: Have to walk a delicate balance, successful at outsourcing, don't want to be experts in everything.

Ed: What works for competitive advantage? Russell: Distribute customer feedback in distilled for to everyone, it's helpful that everyone sees it. Al: Friends of Watson, got loud and profane feedback in some instances but a lot of very useful feedback also.

Ed: How do you promote effective teamwork? Steve: Hard when you have people who are very innovative and to keep them focused on client needs. Have to keep people focused regularly. Russell: reviews are important, quarterly rewards and recognition. Need to communicate goals clearly, absent them teamwork falls apart. Al: Lucky that they do a lot of cool stuff, main issue of what's addressed and what's not. But if there's consensus and never conflict, that's a problem. People from many different backgrounds, help to get them on the same page is the goal.

Ed: If everyone has same information, takes us away from the information is power paradigm. Russell: It's key. Steve: Do it collectively as an organization, can't have people on different pages. Even more true in smaller organizations.

I have to pull the plug on this right now, it's a great panel but my horsepower is going downhill. It's been an excellent conference with great content, looking forward to the next go-around - hopefully with a little more down time between sessions so folks can network more efficiently.