John R. Patrick
President, Attitude LLC
John Patrick was vice president of Internet technology at IBM Corporation from 1995 to 2001. He worked at the company for thirty-eight years. John serves on a number of boards, writes one of the most popular personal blogs out there, and speaks at conferences around the world.
As IBM's chief Internet technology officer, John
led the company's efforts for the next generation of the Internet.
John was also closely involved in IBM's aggressive backing of the red-hot
Linux movement. However, if you read between the lines of Patrick's
official job description -- or have heard him deliver cutting-edge remarks
at conferences throughout the world or read one of the many articles
he's been featured in -- you'll see that John's unofficial title is
Internet visionary. It's one of the reasons why Business 2.0 recently
named him as one of the industry's most intriguing minds, Industry Week
named him one of the top 30 people who drive innovation and provide
the initial spark to economic growth, and why Network World called him
one of the 25 most powerful people in networking.
John was a founding member of the Global Internet
Project, a founding member of the World Wide Web Consortium at MIT in
1994, a member of the
Internet Society,
the Association for Computing
Machinery and a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers. He is a member of the board of directors of Jupitermedia Corporation, Knovel Corporation and Danbury Health Systems, Inc. and has been an advisor to numerous startup companies. He is also past president of The Ridgefield Symphony
Orchestra Foundation.
While at IBM, John created a number of innovative programs including
the alphaWorks Web site, which is IBM's on-line research and development
laboratory for advanced Internet technology, and IBM's successful "Get
Connected" program to expand the use of the Internet both within
the company and to serve as a model for other companies.
John joined IBM in 1967 and spent the first half of his career in various
sales, marketing and management positions. He was a pioneer and developer
of IBM's leasing business at IBM Credit Corporation, today the largest
computer leasing company in the world. He was subsequently the chief
financial officer of various business units of IBM and was also vice
president of operations for IBM's Computer Integrated Manufacturing
Business. In 1992 John became vice president of marketing for Personal
Systems and was the senior marketing executive responsible for introducing
the successful ThinkPad brand.
He earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Lehigh University and
an M.S. in Management from the University of South Florida. He also
has a law degree (LL.B.) from LaSalle University which he earned during
his military service.
John's book, Net Attitude, was released in November 2001.