I see People in the Data Center, do you?

8 years ago I left Microsoft after 14 years and didn’t know what I would do next.  One of the people I connected with in 2007 OSI’s Founder and CEO Pat Kennedy.  He asked the question on how to save power in the data center running applications.  After two weeks of noodling on this I figured out how to solve the problem, but then there were all kinds of other problems on how to execute a change in the system to use less energy.

Attending OSIsoft’s User Conference, I met at the time Microsoft’s data center executive Mike Manos and we started a business relationship and friendship that jump started my work in data centers.  One of the next executives I connected with was Olivier Sanche who at the time worked at eBay and again we started a business relationship and friendship that lasted until he tragically passed away.

One of the common traits of Mike and Olivier is they are/were great with people.  They cared deeply for their team and what they could do to support their team.  Hanging around Mike and Olivier I was able to observe first hand the people issues in running data centers.

So many times people when they tour data centers, they focus on the technology in the data center.  I have learned to focus on the people in the data center.  Even when things become automated, there are people behind the automation, design decisions, and maintenance choices.

When you tour a data center, do you see the people or the technology?

You can learn so much more from focusing on the people and talking to them, then analyzing the electrical, mechanical, and IT systems.  And, people can be your friends.

Is your Data Center Team Arrogant? Do you see the impact?

A data center team has a hard job and almost everyone tries to recruit what they think are the best.  What my friends and I have been noticing is how some of the data center teams have been tipping towards an arrogance of thinking they know more than others.  Curious I ran a Google search on “technical arrogance technology” and the following are 5 articles, all about silicon valley’s arrogance pop up.

Why is arrogance bad?  Check out this article.

“Arrogant people are more
than willing to take credit for
their successes, but not their failures,”

Silverman notes. “They 

get angry when their ideas are
criticized, and they tend to put
their personal agendas ahead of
organizational objectives.”

Michael Siteman Switches from (Huge) Digital Realty Trust to Boutique (small, elite) M-Theory Group, EVP of Cloud & DC

M-Theory Group announced Michael Siteman has joined their company as EVP of Cloud and Data Center Solutions.

NewImage
Fast Growing Disruptive Technology Company Strengthens Resources
Los Angeles, CA – M-Theory Group (http://www.M-TheoryGrp.com) announced today that Michael Siteman has joined the firm to lead their Strategic Alliances, Origination and Product awareness.

Michael has a quote in the press release.

Michael Siteman comments “I have worked for very large organizations in the past, however I am very excited to bring my enterprise experience to a boutique firm, where my contributions will have an immediate effect. Chant Vartanian has developed a very unique, first of its kind, model that I am certain will revolutionize the Cloud industry. I am excited to play a key role.”

Michael has gone from some of the biggest companies to a small innovative services company for data center solutions.

Michael’s former employers include Digital Realty, Jones Lang LaSalle, Base Partners, and The Staubach Company.

 

M-Theory provides premier datacenter and colocation services. Offering SSAE 16 SOC 2 Type 2 Audited Internet Datacenters with multicarrier Internet connectivity, flexibility and full 24x7 managed services, virtualization, application delivery and continuity.

We also understand that you may require multiple datacenter relationships. With that in mind, M-Theory provides datacenter real estate services helping design and implement the ideal solution for your growing business strategy. Our managed services and application delivery strategy can be utilized at any datacenter worldwide.

Our consultancy approach allows you to source or build your optimal datacenter solution.

Flaw of Customer Research, customers inability to describe what they want when the don't know

A friend sent me this post by I, Cringely on creating solutions, Age of Supply, not Demand

Here are a few nuggets.

“Demand drove supply in the industrial age,” said Aurel. “You needed more steel to build cars so a new steel mill was built. But today it seems to me that supply is actually driving demand.”

...

“You can’t rely on customers to tell you what to build,” said Aurel. “They don’t know.”

Some people think that money is what is needed to build innovation.  One example is Google going cheap vs. Excite being Sun Servers.

We see this effect over and over. Look at cloud computing, for example. It’s easy to argue that the genesis of cloud was Google’s desire to build its own hardware. Google was nailing motherboards to walls at the same time Excite (Google’s main search competitor at the time) was spending millions on Sun computers in a sleek data center. Google’s direction turned out to be the right one but that wasn’t immediately evident and might well have never happened had not Larry and Sergey been so cheap.

The whole idea of market research is turned on its head now a days.  In the past, companies would spend millions on customer research, and what are you building?  The next instagram.  What customer survey would tell you to build instagram?

When you bridge the gap between IT and Facilities, where is your dictionary?

I get a good laugh whenever I see companies announce or promote they have a service/solution that will bridge the gap between IT and Facilities. DCIM is the latest service to be promoted as bridging the gap between IT and Facilities. But, guess what there is something more at the core of bridging the gap than technology.

Can IT and Facilities communicate? The reason there is a gap, a communication gap is because they use words in different ways.

To illustrate the communication gap that can exist when groups are separated without a common dictionary check out this post on The Guardian on South Korea’s efforts to create a common Korean dictionary to support the communication between the countries.


Two Koreas make strides to talk the same language


The Korean People's Comprehensive Dictionary will iron out the differences between the North and South




  • Steven Borowiec in Seoul



  • The Guardian, Friday 11 July 2014 12.22 EDT



Joo Yeon-ah did not realise how hard it would be to settle in South Korea. The 45-year-old defector says she was prepared for the dangerous journey out of North Korea, and the unfamiliarity of everyday devices such as mobile phones and cash machines.

But what she wasn't expecting was a communication barrier with people who spoke the same language.

"I didn't understand [what people were saying]," said Joo, who has lived in Seoul since 2009. "Everything is so different in South Korea, but I thought at least our language would be the same."

What she discovered is that after more than 60 years of division, different forms of the Korean language have evolved, with the South incorporating many words from English.


this work is not trivial.

Han says he and his South Korean colleagues have completed comprehensive definitions of more than 20,000 words. The completed dictionary is to contain more than 300,000 words.

When someone starts discussing a common dictionary between IT and Facilities then I’ll spend more time discussing how they are reconciling the differences in communication between the groups.