U.C. Berkeley held an event the other day to honor leading scientist Jim Gray.
I met Jim Gray at a conference once. By chance. He was sitting at a round, snack-sized table by himself using a Tablet PC–as a Tablet PC. You know with the screen folded down, with a pen in hand. I don’t see many people using a Tablet this way, so I had to stop and talk with him.
It turned out to be a fascinating hour-long conversation that has stuck with me like few others.
I had no idea who Jim Gray was when I talked with him. If I had, I probably wouldn’t have bothered him. So I’m glad I didn’t know.
He started by explaining to me how much he liked the Tablet PC idea and how he could see it being so much more. He told me he was at the event not to promote anything, but rather to see what other people were doing.
The conversation continued by talking about several things pro and con about Tablets and then eventually migrated to some of the Tablet apps I was working on. He keenly seemed interested and was able to grasp what I was trying to do with some of the applications like few others have.
I was impressed. Very impressed.
Hands down, he was one of the brightest, most approachable, interesting people I’ve met in a long time. Add to all of that that he listened and could engage in a two way conversation. He didn’t cower down over rough areas or hype anything. He was just having a great technical discussion.
After talking with him that one time and in a couple follow up emails I soon found out who he was and how other many people had been touched by him too.
It wasn’t just me. This was a remarkable person.
For a moment, I put up there alongside my childhood dream of working at DisneyLand the possibility of working alongside Jim Gray. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know anything about terraservers, which is just one area he focused on. I could learn that, if working with someone like Jim was in the mix.
It was with great shock and sadness that I later found out that Jim Gray was lost at sea. It was a terrible loss to the computer industry. I’m glad that Berkeley and others are working together to honor him.
We should all strive to have a little Jim in us.