The Mormons are Coming!

You'll never guess who I had lunch with last Saturday. I was at a 3 day Java programming symposium and I was eating lunch with one of the panelists Ben Galbraith. It turns out that he an IT director for the Church of Mormon. Did you know the Church of Mormon has the largest Cisco network in the world? I did not! His opinion is that the reformation was caused partly by the inability of the central Catholic church to communicate and preach effectively over the vast empire of Catholic states, and the Mormons are now consciously focusing on technology to make sure the same thing doesn't happen to them. He said he has 15 projects, the smallest of which is 10 people. That's a ton of IT! (Now you Mormons know where your 15% goes). Not only can you download all the Mormon scripture from the lds website, but you can also have it read to you through your speakers. And the yearly meeting of the Prophet and apostles is simulcasted on the Internet almost in real time! Pretty impressive. It was a pretty wild conversation which included him saying that God is the fountainhead for all technology (and the dark ages was when He abondoned us?) I emailed him a few days ago telling him that he should come back to MSP and give a lecture at St. Thomas through my department but I haven't received any response. Too bad.