AOL's 3 steps to save $5mil in IT Operations

I met a bunch of Mike Manos's IT team from AOL in Santa Clara.  They were in town for Uptime Symposium and we invited the AOL team to meet some of the thought leaders in the bay area.  We gave Mike's team a bunch of Mike Manos's stories as there were a lot of people who used to work in Mike's group at Microsoft and Digital Realty Trust. Plus his brother Steve Manos was there as well.

I've gotten to know Mike as I used to help him on his presentations.  I met the presenters Chisty and Julie, so besides sharing the slides and writing a post, let me take a stab at telling the AOL story in a different way.

The opening slide is this.

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After going through the slides i would try "AOL's 3 steps to save $5mil in IT Operations"

Clearing the Cruft is not going to get people's attention.  Saving $5mil does.

The results are summarized here early on.  This is good.

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The order of the three steps presented are AOL Cloud, Power Absurdity, and Power Hog.

I would change the order. Put Power Hogs first.  Find those wasteful things.

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Some of these power hogs are not only wasteful, but also absurd.  Project Absurdity after Power Hogs

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What is left should try to go to AOL cloud.  The last step is the stuff left over gets moved to the cloud.

Although I bet you there are a bunch of VMware consultants who will gladly move the Power Hogs and Power Absurd to the cloud as well.  The more VMs the more they make.

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The list of steps taken are good, but I would reorder them and use it is a good chance to make fun of their absent leader Mike Manos.  Without an executive sponsor a project this is impossible.  I wonder if Mike calls his staff Donkeys for not taking up the challenge.

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Excellent slide with energy savings and carbon reduction.

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Overall this is a well thought out presentation.  I only suggest some changes in the order of the content, changing the title, and adding some humor.

Good job AOL team.  Hope to see you soon.