Gen. Cartwright's nod to Mrs. Robinson

In the movie "The Graduate" (1967), Ben Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) gets some sage advice from an older man, Mr. McGuire (Walter Brooke). The advice is one word: "Plastics."

Gen. James Cartwright reminded the audience at his FOSE keynote about the scene, and then said: "Today, they'd probably say 'cloud.' It's [presented as] the solution all problems known to man."

Cloud computing, while useful, really is not such a panacea, he said. 

Later in his presentation, Cartwright touched on the wisdom of crowds. "There is no one Einstein in here," he said, referring to the audience. "The crowd is always smarter."