I'm Bob Sutor, IBM's VP for Open Source and Standards in the Corporate Division. We have several executives with various combinations of "open source" and standards in our titles, but I'm responsible in part for

• issues that span multiple business units
• intellectual property and membership agreements
• promotion of new standards activities in emerging markets
• accelerating use of common standards across vertical industries
• strategies for business growth via new standards and open source programs
• driving activities to help reform and improve the standards programs in which we take part
• talking about all the above, though I don't think of it as "evangelism" because that has too much of a marketing tone to me.

My academic background is in mathematics and I spent 15 years in IBM Research. I like to brainstorm and discuss what some people might consider outrageous ideas, if only to extract the interesting and creative bits. All the rest will be useful next year. Lately I've been looking to dialog with with people who are "progressive, passionate, and pragmatic."