Are you blind in the the data center world? You can't see and remember everything, so at times yes

If you asked an experienced data center person how many times a day they are blind to what is going on. They don't know. Why?  Because, you are asking them to see what they don't perceive, how many times you miss seeing something. 

i-Perception has a post on research done to discover the frequency of when people miss a fight.

If you don't think this research applies, then you are probably of a mindset that you have a photographic memory and can remember all kind of details.  But, it is impossible to have a perfect photographic memory.

The Truth About Photographic Memory

It's impossible to recover images with perfect accuracy. The myth of photographic memory.

By William Lee Adams, published on March 01, 2006 - last reviewed on August 07, 2008     

59-year-old Akira Haraguchi recited from memory the first 83,431 decimal places of pi, earning a spot in the Guinness World Records.

He must have a photographic memory, right? Not so. According to mounting evidence, it's impossible to recall images with near perfect accuracy.

When a professor studied Eidetic (photographic memory), he found they were not perfect.

Alan Searleman, a professor of psychology at St. Lawrence University in New York, says eidetic imagery comes closest to being photographic. When shown an unfamiliar image for 30 seconds, so-called "eidetikers" can vividly describe the image—for example, how many petals are on a flower in a garden scene. They report "seeing" the image, and their eyes appear to scan across the image as they describe it. Still, their reports sometimes contain errors, and their accuracy fades after just a few minutes. Says Searleman, "If they were truly 'photographic' in nature, you wouldn't expect any errors at all."

Now, you may think you are the exception, but consider this reason why we don't have photographic memory.  

Although psychologists don't know why children lose the ability, the loss of this skill may be functional: Were humans to remember every single image, it would be difficult to make it through the day.

And, even if you do have photographic memory, does everyone else in your data center team?

So, how many mistakes and errors in judgement are made because people are absolutely sure they saw something or sure that something did not occur, when in fact they are wrong.

Being wrong is painful, and the reality is we are blind every day.  Yet, how many systems, processes, and management decisions all make the assumption that you see everything and remember all the details. That everyone has a perfect photographic memory.

What Data Center facility staff is 75% 55-65 yrs old? Uptime Fall Conference 2012

I was reading the post on Uptimes' Fall Conference 2012 at the Altanta Ritz Carlton, and the post starts with this comment of the problem of retiring people.

One of the predominant themes of the event (and persistent discussions in the industry in general) is the looming retirement of the current generation of data center professionals. The data center industry doesn’t have a very good farm system: an organization or activity that serves as a training ground for higher-level endeavors.

Now, I am used to hanging with old people.  I am 52, but when I saw this comment, I was thinking whoa what a different world of people are at this event.

“Over 75% of our facilities staff are between 55-65 years old,” one attendee said. “We all grew up in the industry together.” And many organizations worry that all of these skilled, experienced people are going to retire together as well, and a second generation of data center operators is not waiting to take their place.

Either there is a real problem in that there is a shortage of the 2nd generation of data center operators.  Or, the 2nd generation data center operators don't hang out with the 1st generation data center operators.

How many of you 2nd generation data center operators wanted to go hang out with a crowd 75% comprised of 55-65 year olds in Atlanta at the Ritz Carlton?

Maybe there is a problem with the young don't want to hang out with old timers.  

Growth of the web saves paper, 21% decline in paper in a decade

Being in the data center business we don't mind the decline of print.  But, the pulp and paper industry is going through some serious changes as the decline of print is faster than the rise.  Seattletimes has an article from the minneapolis star on the print industry.

As society sheds paper, an industry shrinks

The North American paper industry is in rapid decline. Towns from Washington to the coast of Maine have lost more than a hundred paper mills in a wave of consolidation in little more than a decade — a trend most people in the industry expect to continue.

By BY ADAM BELZ /

Minneapolis Star Tribune

How much is the change?  100 paper mills and 21% decline over  10 years.

“It’s kind of disheartening,” said Jim Skurla, an economist at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. “Paper’s never going to disappear, but it’s going to be smaller than it has been.”

River towns in the forest from Washington to the coast of Maine have lost more than a hundred paper mills in a wave of consolidation in little more than a decade — a trend most people in the industry expect to continue.

North American demand for three types of coated and supercalendered paper — shiny magazine and advertising paper — has fallen 21 percent in the past decade, according to the Pulp and Paper Products Council.

There is not enough demand out there and some mills have to shut down.

“All you’re doing is you’re moving around the mills,” Quinn said.

“The reality is the demand is going down. Some mills are going to have to come out.”

Shh, a secret on why the Green Data Center is popular, it's the money

One of things I figured out long time ago as an Industrial Engineer is efficiency is good to some, but not all.  If you talk about being Green you get almost all the people saying being green is good with few fighting the green initiative.  And what is behind a big of being green?  A big part is being efficient.  

Chris Crosby does a good job of giving an insiders view of the secret of being green in the data center business.

“We all talk about being green like it’s our ticket to corporate sainthood, but really we just keep improving the energy efficiency of our data center operations because it helps us make more money”.

...

You really thought that all this incessant talk about being “green” was about saving the planet? How quaint. Well, why don’t you come sit up front here and let me explain a few things.

Got your attention?  Chris explains more.

Marketing, and its very close friend Public Relations, are all about making people want things because they think they are important. So about five years ago, some very bad people began to say that data centers used too much energy and that wasn’t good for the environment. While a whole bunch of folks in the data center business panicked, some marketing people got together and said, “This is awesome. We know that using too much power hurts our profit margins, and people that think that’s bad anyway, so let’s jump on the bandwagon and call our energy efficiency efforts “green initiatives” and then everyone will be happy”. This is what’s known as a win/win proposition. Naturally, the whole industry cheered.

Seizing on this new vision, data center companies began to improve their energy efficiency. They even came up with a new standard to help measure the improvements in performance called PUE so customers could prove it to themselves. This new standard has become so popular that now data center providers and operators use it as part of their marketing and PR efforts. Really big operators love this concept. They do all kinds of wild things like spending large sums of money on horribly inefficient technologies like solar panels so they can turn around and talk about their commitment to being green. Now of course we all know that this is just to keep large groups of generally unshaven, Birkenstock wearing extremists from causing a big fuss and driving down their stock price, so we all play along and show our support by saying things like, “Man, that’s what I call a real commitment to green”. See the double meaning there? A lot of people don’t, but for obvious reasons we don’t bother to correct them.

Adding TSA Pre beyond your sponsor airline, watch out for picking Canada Travel

I am in the Alaska Airlines TSA Pre program as a frequent flyer, and 4 months ago was curious how TSA Pre works.  It was just automatic that I was signed up for Alaska.  Didn't have to do anything.  Which is kind of worrisome as how do you maintain the status?

The TSA Pre web site is here.  Coverage is pretty good in major airports. The most glaring missing points are the SFO, and SJC airports.

TSA Pre✓™ is an expedited screening initiative that is expanding to airports across the country. Implementing a key component of the agency’s intelligence-driven, risk-based approach to security, TSA Pre✓™ enhances aviation security by placing more focus on pre-screening individuals who volunteer to participate to expedite the travel experience.

The problem is I don't know what my "Known Traveler Number" is to register as Alaska takes care of this on my reservation. 

Certain frequent travelers from Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, US Airways and certain members of CBP's Trusted Traveler programs, including Global Entry, SENTRI, and NEXUS who are U.S. citizens are eligible to participate. TSA plans to expand TSA Pre✓™ to include additional airlines, as well as airports that participate in a CBP Trusted Traveler program, once operationally ready. In addition, accompanying passengers 12 and younger are allowed through TSA Pre✓™ lanes with eligible passengers.

So, getting a Global Entry card seemed the easiest way to do this.  I filled out all the paper work back in Apr/May 2012.  In June I was conditionally approved with approval to schedule an interview.  The first available interview was three months later in Seattle's Boeing field which is convenient for me being a 1/2 drive.

Why so long?  I found out a contributing problem in the interview process yesterday when talking to Canada border personnel.  When you fill the USA Global Online Enrollment System one of the questions is "will you travel to Canada?" or something like that.  Anyone who travels frequently in the USA would with a high degree of certainty say yes.  The problem is when you pick this option, the system puts in the process for the USA/Canada Nexus program.  OK, go ahead and do this.  Which makes total sense to me being in Seattle.  But, if you live in let's say San Diego like the guy in line with me.  This means the guy in San Diego had to schedule his approval interview from a short list of offices near the USA/Canada border.  I don't think Canada is going to station border agents in San Diego. :-)

The gal from Canada Border said all day long she has had people who have been from far away to get their Nexus approval, but they really only need the Trusted Traveler program from Global Entry.

So, if you want to get in that TSA Pre line which is totally sweet, less than 5 minutes.  I've at the most had 2 people in front of me.  Keep your shoes on, laptop in the bag, don't take liquids out, keep your light weight jacket on.  And, you want to be able to have TSA Pre work beyond your sponsor airline.  Being approved as a Trusted Traveler makes sense and get your Known Traveler Number.  But, watch out for picking the travel to Canada option if you don't live near one of the Nexus interview offices.