Hello there, I’m Robert Ross Peterson. I'm a non-fiction author and an Integration Architect at IBM. I'm also very involved with software patents - I've been given the title of "Master Inventor" for my IP contributions at IBM. My group is in engineering and is called the Integration Center of Competency (ICoC). Our mission is to improve the quality of integration across Tivoli monitoring and datacenter discovery products such as ITM, TADDM, OMNIbus, and TBSM. Although we are in development, we are actually very client focused. We have a lab with a lot of hardware and environments where we validate integration solutions that reflect real client environments at large financial institutions, insurance companies, and the like. I’m also the lab advocate for a large E&U company in Texas which we partner with and help from a technical perspective.

Prior to having an office job in Tivoli, I worked for WebSphere for many years splitting my time as a software consultant and sales engineer. I was what a friend of mine would call a master mechanic. I lived and breathed application development – I was the type of person that got a kick out of writing a prototype for a product or startup idea in a weekend. It was a job where I traveled extensively.

I’m the type of person that thinks despite all the extreme things that are going on around us, all is well. Things are progressively getting better and I hope to contribute to that process. I also think that what you truly spend your time thinking about will come to pass if you focus on it hard enough. I once read that olympic athletes spend almost all of their time thinking – fantasizing really – about what the experience will be like when they win a gold metal. A runner will think and dream about his heart pounding when he crosses the finish line first. He will practice the smile he will have on his face when he waves to the crowd. He will think about what he will say to his wife when he shows her the metal. I’m convinced that this is why athletes win gold metals and how actors win academy awards.

So what I believe in is what you spend your time thinking about is very important. What do you spend your mindshare on?

Something else that I value is those of us that can stay playful and genuine as we grow older. I’ve found a tendency to become cynically resigned now that I’m not in my 20’s. It seems the natural progression is to become pessimistic about things – every business is lead by egomaniacs – teams are often understaffed or outsourced – even when we are on vacation we cringe at the thought of catching up on email. I think the best leaders look past things like this and are still optimistic; they still see a world full of abundance and possibilities.

I grew up traveling. My father was a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy. My mother was born and raised in Honduras. Thus, although I do not appear so, I’m half Hispanic and fluent in Spanish. I’m then Scottish and Swedish which will be self evident if you know those cultures well enough. I very much enjoy traveling, but what I've learned over the years is that despite our romantic notions about other parts of the world, the United States is in fact the best country to live in. I went to a state school and moved to Austin to work for IBM. I wish Austin had snow - then it would be perfect as I'm a yankee at heart.