Tribal Eyes

I spent some time this week at a meeting of Sun’s Distinguished Engineers; to become a DE you have to go through a lengthy process including peer review. I’m not a DE, I was there to give a speech on Communication, my first outing on that subject. It’s an impressive group; there were lots of technical conversations (on IPv6, process modeling, mobile objects) where I was struggling to understand the basics let alone the details. Anyhow, I’ve already written here that I think people’s faces reflect the language they speak. Along similar lines, as I looked at all these very senior engineers’ faces, I was struck by a particular look in their eyes. I don’t seem to have a good vocabulary to describe it, but “stillness” and “coolness” come to mind. It wasn’t subtle. They are the eyes, I think, of people who listen intensely.