2011 Goals

Now is the time to make goals for 2011. Start with values and think in terms of what you value from a business, personal and family perspective. Once you are clear on your values you will be able to create goals that align with what you believe is important! It has been demonstrated that if you create goals and write them down you will gravitate toward them. This is true even if you do not look at them for another year. Besides if you don’t know where you are going, how can you possibly get there?

Here is the format I use...

Values:

1 Year Goals and 5 Year Goals:

Career:

Earnings:

Personal Relationships:

Family:

Education and Learning:

Health/ Fitness:

Improve Home:

Free Time/ Hobby:

7 Skills for IT Leadership

I read an article in CIO Magazine: 7 Essential CIO Leadership Skills That Get Results by Thomas Wailgum regarding a recent study and book on this subject by Graham Waller of Gartner Executive Programs, and Korn/Ferry's George Hallenbeck and Karen Rubenstrunk.

The 7 Essential Skills are:

1. Commit to Leadership First
2. Lead Differently than You Think
3. Embrace Softer Side
4. Forge the Right Relationships to Drive the Right Results
5. Master Communications
6. Inspire Others
7. Build People not Systems

The #2 skill “Lead Differently than You Think” is a little vague - They mean the natural tenancy for a technical professional is to outsmart everyone and this is counter to being effective as a CIO. The interesting thing is that all these skills are related to interaction, relationships and success through others. Note that none of these 7 key skills involves technical superiority or technical vision. Clearly to be an effective CIO a broad technical understanding is necessary but these are table stakes.

Article link for CIO Magazine: 7 Essential CIO Leadership Skills That Get Results by Thomas Wailgum:

http://www.cio.com/article/626991/7_Essential_CIO_Leadership_Skills_That_Get_Results_

Planning IT Projects

There is enormous power in sitting down and planning out an IT project before getting started. This is one of the keys to effective consulting. Typically a consultant has to follow a fairly rigid document path involving several planning steps. The plan should be created, then reviewed and revised by the team. As simple as this sounds, often IT projects get stated and move forward with little planning beyond the description of the work to be performed – “Cowboy Style”. If you find yourself moving too quickly with little planning, step back and re-assess the IT project. Develop a complete plan!

Values

Nortec has our company values: Excellence, Integrity, Responsiveness, Follow-up, and Flexibility. These values are guiding principles for success as an Information Technology consulting company and generally good personal values as well. Company values are important and should align with individual values. Chances are individual values will be prioritized differently and should not be compromised.

Knowing your vales is the first step in living by them. Since values change and are influenced by parents, peers, friends, media and such they may change over time. They should be periodically reflected on. It is hard to align yourself around your values if you do not take the time to reflect on what they ought to be. Since we are approaching the end of the year it is a great time to reflect on our values. What is important? What should our goals be for 2011?

What are your values is an interesting question. If you say “I value a healthy lifestyle” but live an unhealthy life style does this mean you really do not value a healthy life style? Do actions speak louder than words? I believe this is an example of misalignment with values and action. I believe this is what creates a lack of integrity within oneself and causes stress and unhappiness.

“This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man. Farewell, my blessing season this in thee!”

Polonius’ last piece of advice to his son Laertes in Hamlet by William Shaekspere

Sometimes we do not really think enough about what are values are and what is important so this makes it difficult to live by our values and results in misalignment without understanding why. The other challenge to living up to what we value is that sometimes it is hard and takes more discipline then we actually have. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline to live a healthy life style sometimes. You also have to define what living a healthy life style means for you.

Be clear in your values and what you want in life and then aggressively pursue the activities that will drive those results.

Enrique Salem, CEO Symantec Presentation at Partner Conference

Last week I attended the Symantec Partner Conference. Enrique Salem, Symantec CEO outlined the trends he sees in the IT Industry. He gave a similar presentation last year so I thought I would compare! Here are the five trends he outlined in 2009:

1. Virtualization
2. “We are under attack” – Businesses are under attack by criminals trying to gain financially through hacking into corporate information
3. “Consumerization of IT” – Consumers adopt and implement new technologies before businesses
4. Storage is growing extremely rapidly: A) 51% businesses plan to spend more on storage next year B) 33% businesses plan to spend the same on storage next year C) 16% businesses plan to spend Less on storage next year
5. Executives are targeted with IT attacks

This year Enrique Salem outlined the first five consolidating 2 and 5 as “Threat to Landscape” and added 4 more trends:

5. IT – ification
6. Mobility
7. Cloud
8. Social

IT – ification being that everything we do is becoming integrated with information technology. I suppose this explains the consumerization of technology….

Enrique Salem continued his presentation by painting a picture of the future with these four concepts:

1. Everything revolves around people and information
2. Business and personal merge
3. Simple and secure access to information is expected
4. The enterprise is more scalable and cost efficient

These trends do appear accurate. Nortec is engaged in most of these areas in some form or another. We saw the wave of cloud computing a few years ago and have been very active in our cloud offering, Nortec 24/7 since 2006.

Getting Results Using Checklists

Pilots have known for a long time the importance of checklists to avoid error. My father was a pilot and having flown with him many times, I still remember his check list for take-off: Trim, Temperature, Fuel, Flaps, Gills ….. Ok I don’t remember it all but he always said it before take-off and it was for a good reason. We humans forget little details when we do not have a check-list.

Creating simple checklists can deliver a consistent process with fewer errors. The key is creating checklists that are in fact simple and then getting everyone to buy into the checklists. Atul Gawande in his book “The Checklist Manifesto” examines a series of examples where simple checklists have added tremendous value in complex environments. One example he gives is that of a Critical Care Unit at John Hopkins in 2001. The problem was 4% – 11% of IV lines become infected and 10% of these lead to death. This is a very serious problem. The solution was a 5 step checklist: 1. Wash your hands with soap 2. Clean patients skin with chlorhexideine antiseptic 3. Put sterile drapes over entire body 4. Wear a mask, hat, sterile gown and gloves 5. Put sterile dressing over insertion site once line is in. The result was that the infection rate dropped to almost zero. Over the next 15 months only two patients were infected. The checklist is estimated to have prevented 43 infections, 8 deaths and 2 million dollars. There is tremendous power in a simple checklist especially if you are one of those eight who will never know it!

“The Checklist Manifesto” by Atul Gawande:
http://tinyurl.com/36892wt

Cloud Computing Update

Cloud computing is currently at under 10% of the IT market. Predictions by Goldman Sachs indicate growing to about 50% by 2015 and higher by 2020 to as much as 80%.

The four basic questions an IT leader considers when making a cloud decision are:

1. Is your data center growing to fast?
2. What is more important control or trust?
3. Is it better to have operational expenses vs capital expenses?
4. Do you need a scalable system or is fixed going to work?

The cloud can expand and contract to business needs so in a highly dynamic computing resource the cloud is very effective.

Businesses are driven to the cloud for four key reasons:

1. The economy - Cost (although less so, as it is not always cheaper)
2. Access - anytime, anywhere
3. Scalability
4. Management

Quote of the Day: Gartner Analyst Philip Dawson on Virtualization

“Virtualization will continue as the highest-impact issue challenging infrastructure and operations through to 2015, changing how you manage, how and what you buy, how you deploy, how you plan and how you charge,” said Gartner analyst Philip Dawson.

Link to Article, “Gartner: Virtualization growing, but not fast enough”:

http://www.winshuttle.com/news/it-news/gartner-virtualization-growing-but-not-fast-enough-11023

Paul Moulton, Executive VP & CIO, Costco

I have written lately on the challenge IT leaders face bridging IT and business goals. Last week I attended an event that hosted a CIO panel including Paul Moulton, CIO of Costco. Mr. Moulton made a few great comments that reinforce the need for IT and business goal alignment.

Mr. Moulton stated that he preferred vendors that are not too technical and that he likes to see a PowerPoint presentation that uses business terms. If the presentation is in all technical terms Mr. Moulton immediately thinks the presenter is a gear head and wants to end the meeting quickly because “… he just makes me feel stupid.” The implication is that nothing is really translating to the business needs and the meeting is essentially a waste of time.

Mr. Moulton focuses on implementing technologies that are doable, sustainable and drive business cost efficiencies. Once the technology to be implemented is identified he asks two key questions:

1. Can we use what we have to accomplish the new technology plan?
2. Can we buy or do we need to build?

Mr. Moulton said they are looking at the cloud and what technology areas make sense to move that direction. He is in the wait and see mode primarily because of his belief in the basic principal that pioneers get a lot of arrows in their back. When anyone asks how to do something that he does not immediately know the answer his response is “Can’t the cloud do that?”

The Importance of Envisioning

Nortec uses Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) project management methodology. MSF has five phases – Envision, Plan, Build, Stabilize, and Deploy. Envisioning, the first phase, is very important and is where the technical professional bridges the gap between business goals and technology.

The technical professional needs to engage the business unit leaders that will be involved with the technical solution being created and understand their key performance indicators (KPIs). He then determines how the technical solution being created will impact the KPIs. Once the information is gathered the envisioning document can be created. This envisioning document should be reviewed with the business leaders to be certain that there is alignment around the technical solution to be created and that there is no miscommunications.

Engage the different business leaders, and understanding their goals to bridge the technology business gap.

7 Keys to Mitigate Risk in IT Projects:

1. Challenge assumptions
2. Manage dynamic changes
3. Maintain operational discipline
4. Take the right risks
5. Focus on long term
6. Maintain margins of safety
7. Anticipate failures

Dealing with Work Overload

IT professionals have skills that are in high demand and it is easy to become over committed. Managing time becomes extremely important and doing it professionally can be challenging. The IT professional typically is getting hundreds of emails a day and constant requests.

How can the IT professional possibly manage in today’s busy environment and not let things slip through? The key is managing priorities and pushing back in a professional manner when necessary. Take action as quickly as possible and avoid “I will deal with this later.” Make decisions on emails – delete, take action or schedule. Keep very few items in your in box. Plan your week and if too much work is scheduled than find work you can delegate or eliminate. Communicate the work that will be incomplete – “push back”. Be focused on the priority work and not just the most recent request or the work that is making the most noise.

Time management and communications are the keys to managing through when there is too much work to be done. There will always be more work that can be done than hours in the day. Prioritize, communicate and use time management to accomplish more than expected!

“The Next Leap in Productivity” by Adam Kolowa

I read “The Next Leap in Productivity” by Adam Kolowa and he makes a strong case for getting the CEO and other senior management involved with the information technology strategy. “Who is driving the IT Strategy?”

Implementing information technology provides cost reduction through process automation and this is the primary role. The secondary role is to drive strategic competitive advantages through “speed, agility, and consistency.”

“CEO’s and CFO’s are not expected to understand how IT works. But they are required to ask the write questions:

When approached with a new project the CEO should ask:
1. How much money will it save the company?
2. How much will it increase operational capacity?
3. When will it be done?

Of course the CIO can prepare the answers in a FAQ type format and here are some of the other important questions from the book I like:

1. What other processes can we auotomate?
2. Which legacy systems can we moth ball?
3. What are realistic expectations for IT?
4. How will IT performance effect other parts of business?
5. Is IT budgeting driven by business needs?
6. Does the company have an information strategy?
7. Does our IT infrastructure support our information strategy?

Techniacl Focus

Nortec’s primary success formula is being great consultants by focusing on a relatively narrow band of information technology. We focus on network infrastructure and corporate communications and specifically around four key partners: Microsoft, VMWare, Symantec and ShoreTel. This focus allows us to hire and develop the best professionals and go deeper into these technologies. We specifically focus on the following solutions: Exchange and Email Archiving, Windows Server, System Center, Virtualization, SANs, Backup and IP Telephony.

Nortec does work with a broader set of technology around infrastructure that includes switching and routing, security, web servers, SQL, and SharePoint. This is where Nortec and many consulting companies and individuals are challenged as to where do they draw the line on their skill set. When do they stretch and when do they hold the line and say “I am not the professional for this work.” This is a harder decision if you have a client that knows you are great at what you do and encourages you to stretch.

The key for staying focused is having a clear knowledge of current skills and vision of skills to be developed. When there is an opportunity to stretch, only stretch to the extent it fits in with the vision and development plans. Great technical professionals have figured this out. They know exactly how far they can stretch and avoid putting themselves or the company in a bad situation. They do stretch and when they stretch they put in the extra hours preparing and make sure the stretch is not a leap they cannot handle.

Information Technology is extremely dynamic so updating and developing skills is extremely important for a successful professional. At least once or twice a year an IT Professional should reflect on their current skills, update their vision as to where they are going, and create a plan how they will get there.

Getting Away

I just returned from a camping trip with my extended family on the French River in Canada. We paddled down the French River in canoes about 6 miles. We camped in tents for three days with no email, phone, electricity, or even running water! It was really getting away. I camped away in the wilderness as a kid but this is my first canoe trip and first remote camping trip as an adult with my kids.

The experience of paddling for four hours was great. The campsite worked out really well with a 10 ft. rock to leap off into the water – my son’s favorite part of the trip. We had some fishing and great weather - 70s pretty much the entire trip.
Remote camping is like going back to primitive life style and somehow is appealing. The kids certainly love it! I highly recommend the getting away part. The family bonding from this kind of adventure is great. Oh, did I mention the French River is beautiful?

So, take vacation, really get away, enjoy your family, disconnect from the rest of the world and decompress for a few days. It’s as good as it gets!

Refining Business Model

Nortec is now in our 20th year and it looks like it will be a good one. I am afraid to get overly optimistic with the economy and markets just recently improving. Many companies are showing good results and have used the difficult times to make the hard decisions on how to run a leaner business. Business leaders are not in a rush to add non-revenue producing overhead. The result is businesses are creating a more successful business model!

A successful business model is the silver bullet! Ok, it is not a silver bullet; I just wanted to say that! A successful business model is one of the key success criteria and something that business leaders need to continually analyze to try and find ways to improve. Otherwise, you could end up with “bullet ridden body syndrome” - essentially a business with so many holes, there is no hope. If the business model is broken it does not matter how much business you bring in and how great of work you perform you will just create more of the same problem and this is usually in the form of losses.

I used to think that scaling a low profit or break even business model would get the economies of scale and then somehow the business would go through metamorphoses with the result of a thriving well established business at the other end! This is the model that you sometimes see venture capital drive businesses toward. In some ways it makes sense, as you need a minimal size otherwise profit is not material. If you can pull this little maneuver off great! The challenge is that driving profit in a larger organization is not really any easier and may even be harder. Figuring this out and driving a profitable business in every stage ensures that the discipline needed is in place and the model works. Then the questions become: 1. Will the business model scale? 2. Will the business grow?

Cloud SaaS Growth According to IDC

IDC is predicting Software as a Service (SaaS) segment of cloud computing to be $40.5 Billion by 2014. This reinforces the high growth expectation of cloud computing.

"Figuring out how to find and capitalize on the enormous cloud services transition is the number 1 strategic goal of most IT product vendors," according to Robert Mahowald, research vice president of IDC's SaaS and Cloud Services practice. "Cloud represents both a tremendous challenge and potentially an opportunity to align with partners, create new capabilities, move into new markets, and define new leaders."

The expectation is that most software vendors will be looking to sell a cloud solution first in 2014.
“Worldwide Software as a Service 2010–2014 Forecast: Software Will Never Be the Same” by Robert Mohowald:

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=223628

Hiring the Best Technical Professionals

Nortec is an information technology (IT) company so having the best technical professionals is paramount to our success. We are currently recruiting and hiring senior and mid-level consultants so this is top of mind. Actually, we are always recruiting since finding top IT talent is very difficult but currently we are looking to add at least two consultants. We are also always investing in developing our technical professionals as it is often easier to grow our professionals than hire.

Since hiring the best is so important, we have invested in creating a solid process for hiring. We start by maintaining a mind set of never cutting corners. Unless all of the interviewers give a thumbs up, we do not proceed with the hire. Everyone has veto power! This is important because success on the job often involves the team getting behind the new employee and ensuring that they are successful. We don’t need someone on the hiring team saying “See, I knew they would not work out.”

Our process starts by finding resume’s with the key skill sets that we need at Nortec and this usually centers on solid network experience largely around Microsoft Windows Server and Exchange. We usually start with a chronological in-depth interview to determine if the prospective employee has a track record of success and is the right kind of individual for the role at Nortec. This interview is in person and can be an hour and a half to two hours long. We than have a technical interview and this is usually done by phone and lasts about an hour. If the first two interviews go well we run a background check on driving record and criminal record. We then do a second in-depth chronological interview. If everyone gives the thumbs up and the background check comes out, we make an offer! Hopefully we succeed at bringing on a great new employee!

Cloud Computing Hype

Last year cloud computing market was about 2% of IT market and now has grown to as much as 4%. Although it is still a small segment of IT spending it is in a high growth phase – “Green Fields." Cloud Computing is garnering a tremendous amount of attention considering it is less than 5% of IT market. Two weeks ago at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference just about every presentation somehow involved the cloud. I have seen it placed at the peak of the hype curve and recently seen articles suggesting that it may be the next bubble.

Cloud computing is getting a tremendous amount of attention because of the growth and more importantly it is a complete shift in the way that companies buy technology. Cloud computing presents challenges for the IT community as it is compelling in many ways but at the same time is extremely new to the customer and the suppliers. IT companies are scrambling to create models for the delivery of cloud services and how best to support the solutions. Nortec created our Nortec 24/7 suite of cloud services five years ago and we have been refining and working out the best practices. It has taken time to create the client reports, management processes and best practices on migrating and managing the cloud offerings.

There appears to be agreement among industry experts and IT business leaders that cloud computing will continue to grow at a high pace for the next few years. The real question is when will the growth slow and ultimately how much market share will be in the cloud when the growth flattens – Greater than 40%? We will see…

Brilliantly Simple

Shortel’s tag line is “Brilliantly Simple” and besides being an oxymoron, it speaks to what makes ShoreTel a great product. It is easier to put together an overly complex solution than it is to create a simple eloquent one. Some things are complex and complicated like calculus but the brilliant mind is able to take the complexity and create something that is simple. This is the essence of great technology. ShoreTel had the advantage of designing from the beginning an IP Telephony solution with a clean slate. The result is “Briliantly Simple.”

“Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Virtualization Challenges

Implementing a virtual infrastructure is extremely compelling from a cost perspective and management. There are four main challenges outlined in a recent survey "Strategies to Improve IT Efficiencies in 2010" by Forrester.

1. Assessing Server Sizes for Virtual Servers
2. Assessing Performance and workload needed
3. Major performance issues during peak loads
4. Managing the complexity of a virtual infrastructure

These issues are all tied in to the need for implementing a well planned virtual infrastructure. The complexity is greater than in a traditional environment so having the best technical experts do a comprehensive capacity plan and then design is paramount for success. The plan needs to go beyond standing up the infrastructure and include how the virtual infrastructure will be maintained.

Once you have the virtual infrastructure in place you will need to address:

1. Visibility – Where is the application and where is the problem?
2. How do you prove source of problem to the component owner?
3. Where will the next constraint or problem arise?
4. Planning for the next expansion
5. Dealing with applications resource contention
6. Over use of VMotion – simultaneous moves in same LUN can cause poor performance

Virtualization creates the most dynamic data center that IT management has seen - The mantra becomes “constant monitoring, modeling and planning.” Depending on the size and complexity of your virtualized infrastructure the technical management team should at least once a quarter and maybe as often as weekly do a capacity planning style exercise based on current utilization and planned expansion.

Here are the virtualization mistakes to avoid:

1. Racing to deploy and failing to plan completely
2. Configuration mistakes – check before using default settings
3. Not enough storage IOPs
4. Resource contention – not all applications work well together
5. CPU access – underestimate demands
6. Not understanding work loads
7. Not taking complete system into consideration
8. Lack of awareness of the dependencies
9. Lack of awareness of workload curves

Source Article: Datamation – “IT Survey Highlights Virtualization Challenges”:
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/features/article.php/3892601/

Investing in Information Technology

I attended a forecasting presentation by Tiffani Bova, “Reading the Tea Leaves” at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference yesterday. Ms. Bova spoke about the IT industry from the Microsoft Partner perspective and the presentation was excellent.

Ms. Bova stated that IT spending is about 64% on maintaining current IT systems and the other 36% is split between growing capability and implementing new technology. These ratios have been about the same for the past 10 years and this surprised me a little as I would have thought that through advancements in technology maintaining existing systems would have been reduced.

Not surprising technology spending is off from 2007 and 2008 and will take a few years to return to the peak levels. The cloud is expected to grow to about 20% of IT spending over the next few years so this is a high growth emerging market. Although traditional IT spending will grow slower, there will be 4% to 6% annual growth in most IT segments.

Ms. Bova pointed out that companies have been in the save money mode for several years now and are now trying to find ways to transform their business and take advantage of technology. Focusing entirely on ROI and saving money may not be the best strategy now. Clearly ROI is important but, “What technology can a business implement to drive success?”, is a more significant question today.

Cloud Computing

I attended a web presentation on SaaS / Cloud Implementation by Robert Kulhawy, Ken Powell and Kevin Nikkhoo. The presentation was from the perspective of developing a SaaS business from the software vendor perspective. Here are the pros and cons of cloud based solutions they outlined.

Pros:
1. Cost Effective
2. Allow businesses to focus on their core business
3. Ease of implementation and management
4. Operational cost instead of capital cost
5. Flexibility and scalability

Cons:
1. Perceived Security of information
2. What happens if the provider fails and you still want to use the software
3. Internal IT staff has empire threatened and gives up some control

The recommendation when developing a cloud based offering is to not over customize and to develop a multi-tenancy solution that scales in order to gain price advantage. The recommendation is to price the offering at an order of magnitude less than the traditional solution meaning not half the price but 1/10th the price.
The challenge for the provider is then to drive the volume and keep the transaction low touch and standard contracts. Historically, this takes a significant amount of time and the cloud provider needs to be prepared with great tenacity. The good news for the consumer is the price will be very compelling and if you are able to adapt your business to a cloud offering it will be a very effective solution.

Project Management Success

Project management is key to success in large projects as well as smaller ones. Nortec is closely aligned with Microsoft so we use Microsoft Solution Framework (MSF) and this is effective. MSF is designed primarily around software development and we have made some modifications to adapt to infrastructure projects and thinned it out for our smaller implementations.

The project management methodology is not as important as choosing one and then having the discipline to follow the methodology. Clearly a project will flow better if everyone involved is familiar with the methodology. The challenge really is having a Project Manager who is familiar enough with the work that he is able to gauge how long certain tasks should take and then willing to hold the individuals accountable. Unfortunately, the Project Manager has to be the bad guy sometimes!

Here is a good article on Project Management in CIO Magazine “IT Project Management: 10 Less-Considered Keys to Success” by Meridith Levinson:

http://www.cio.com/article/597712/IT_Project_Management_10_Less_Considered_Keys_to_Success?source=CIONLE_nlt_research_2010-07-07

“Why are we happy?” by Dan Gilbert

Last week I watched Dan Gilbert’s Ted Talk “Why are we happy.” His main point was that we are happy because happiness can be synthesized, meaning we can learn to be happy regardless of our situation. He compared synthesized happiness to natural happiness, with natural happiness being the “feeling we get when we get what we wanted” and synthetic happiness being “the feeling we make when we don’t get what we wanted.”

When we synthesize happiness, we teach ourselves to be happy by realizing that we are in the best possible situation. Gilbert argues that synthetic happiness can provide the same feeling as natural happiness. We have the ability to synthesize happiness in any situation, as a type of “physiological immune system.” He provides some evidence of this finding in the full version of his talk.

He went on to explain that we tend to be happier when our choices are permanent. If we have the option to change our mind and switch, we often torment ourselves on the decision. Once the choice is permanent we grow to appreciate the situation, or item and synthesize happiness. As Gilbert put it, “The psychological immune system works best when we are totally stuck.”

Here’s a quote that fits well with this idea of synthetic happiness from the founder of capitalism himself, Adam Smith: “The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life seems to arise from overrating the difference between one permanent situation and another.”

You can check out the full talk at http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html

It might give you a new perspective, perhaps even put a smile on your face.

Paralysis by Analysis

It is important not to fall victim to “paralysis by analysis.” Information technology professionals by nature are very analytical and by nature want to analyze everything before taking action. This is clearly important up to a certain point. Sometimes, it is actually beneficial to not see an option and save a tremendous amount of time by not analyzing an option that turns out to be a “rat hole.” As they say “ignorance is bliss.”

More important than avoiding time wasting activities is just having the personal power to make a decision and take action. The joke on these lines is “He won’t take action because that would require a decision.” This problem becomes amplified in larger organizations where there is a culture of zero tolerance for mistakes. Sounds great in theory but when no one is willing to make a decision and take action for fear of making a wrong decision you have “paralysis by analysis.” Everyone starts taking cover on all issues and using CYA as their mantra! There will be meeting after meeting with many planning discussions and meeting notes and maybe even some action items but nothing is really happening.

Being decisive, making decision and then moving forward is absolutely a key for long term success. So how do you handle failure from making the wrong decisions? Mitigate risk and learn from mistakes. Embrace failure! “Fail early, fail often and fail cheap.”

Here is a quote by Charles Bosk, a Sociology Professor at University of Pennsylvania, who spoke with student surgeons and his observation of how they handle mistakes:

"When I interviewed the surgeons who were fired, I used to leave the interview shaking," Bosk said. "I would hear these horrible stories about what they did wrong, but the thing was that they didn't know that what they did was wrong. In my interviewing, I began to develop what I thought was an indicator of whether someone was going to be a good surgeon or not. It was a couple of simple questions: Have you ever made a mistake? And, if so, what was your worst mistake? The people who said, 'Gee, I haven't really had one,' or, 'I've had a couple of bad outcomes but they were due to things outside my control' -- invariably those were the worst candidates. And the residents who said, 'I make mistakes all the time. There was this horrible thing that happened just yesterday and here's what it was.' They were the best. They had the ability to rethink everything that they'd done and imagine how they might have done it differently."

Nicholas Carr: The Internet is Hurting Our Brains

I read an article by Bill Snyder “Nicholas Carr: The Internet is Hurting Our Brains.” The article is discussing the idea Nicholas Carr wrote about in his book “Is Google Making Us Stupid.” The concept is that we are highly distracted on-line jumping around from site to site and this is causing us to lose the ability to focus. I am not sure this is isolated to Google either as it seems to me we are generally in a more interrupt driven society. If you are not running from meeting to meeting, reading through emails and then on the phone pretty much the entire day then what are you doing?

I do find the time to think, read entire articles and write this blog. At the same time I often feel highly distracted and this creates a sense of anxiousness. I often arrive at the end of the day feeling somewhat apprehensive. 5:30 rolls around and I am thinking, “I can’t go home for another couple of hours because I just need to accomplish more to have a productive day.”

Clearly there are plenty of distractions and challenges to staying focused on accomplishing tasks. Is this actually damaging our brains? Maybe it is damaging… and besides it is not great being distracted. So how do you combat this? Here are a few ways to attack this:

1. Schedule time to work on items and do not look at email or take calls.
2. Read emails only once and either take action, delete, file or move to an action folder.
3. Designate a certain amount of time for reading online articles.
4. Participate in activities that do not involve technology – leave the mobile phone behind.
5. Take vacation and don’t check email for a few entire days.

Ok, enough - This is not actually brain surgery. It is an important point and it really goes back to life balance. In this case it is a technology and technology free balance. Nothing really changes – Use to be we worried about the TV frying our brains and now it is the internet!

On that note, I am ready for some technology free summer vacation.

Article in CIO Magazine by Bill Snyder “Nicholas Carr: The Internet is Hurting Our Brains”:
http://www.cio.com/article/597350/Nicholas_Carr_The_Internet_is_Hurting_Our_Brains

General George Casey on Leadership

Last week, I attended a presentation by General George Casey, Army Chief of Staff. General Casey discussed his current role and their goal of restoring health to the Army. He shared the challenges around the kind of warfare we are involved with today versus the past.

General Casey discussed Strategic Leadership. He said “Strategic leaders guide the achievement of their organizational vision within a larger enterprise by:

1. Directing policy and strategy
2. Building consensus
3. Acquiring and allocating resources
4. Influencing organizational culture
5. Shaping external environment
6. Communicating

“They lead by example to:

1. Build an effective organization
2. Grow the next generation
3. Energize subordinates
4. Seek opportunities to advance goals
5. Balance personal and professional demands; a. Read, b. Sleep, c. Exercise, d. Think, e. Personal passion (Hobby, sport)

On reflection, I think this is good stuff. I prefer building commitment to a plan rather than consensus but I suppose this could be semantics. Acquiring and allocating resources is probably more significant in large government organizations. At Nortec we focus more on saving and reducing resources consumed. Culture should probably be at the top but not sure this is supposed to be in order of importance. In business, shaping external environment, I would relate to front line selling and this is clearly key to business success. Communicating the vision is necessary so everyone knows the right direction to be going and this is where clear metrics come into play.

I am a big believer in leading by example and inspiring the team. I enjoyed the presentation and I think General Casey does a great job highlighting the key components to successful leadership.

Now, if I can track down that photo they took of me with the General...

CEO2GOV Summit Event Information:
http://tiny.cc/gycph

It Is a Great Time to be an IT Leader

A challenge for IT leadership has been aligning technology with senior management the CEO, CFO, COO. Historically the IT leader has not always had a position on the senior executive team and reported often to the CFO, sometimes the CEO or COO. This has changed with most companies now having a CIO and at the same time the other executives have become more IT savvy. This creates a great environment for the inspired, entrepreneurial spirited IT leader.

The IT leader now has direct access to the senior management team and the senior management understands more about technology. This can be a double edged sword as the CIO has to listen to other executives who “know how to do the CIO’s job.” Taking this into consideration it is still better having a senior team that understands technology and the value it brings to the organization. It may require more interaction to agree on what can be done but at least the conversation is seen as important and something senior management is interested in discussing.

It is time for the IT leaders to run with the ball and create creative ways to take advantage of technology. IT leaders need to build the vision of what can be accomplished with technology from operations to marketing such as social media and web 3.0. The technology vision needs to be drafted into a brief well written and understandable technology plan. This vision needs to involve the entire leadership team and be a plan that they all agree upon and are committed to implementing. This plan can be further reaching and more powerful today because the senior teams understanding of technology will assist in seeing the value.

An article in CIO magazine “What CEOs expect form CIOs” by Richard Pastore, that inspired this post:
http://www.cio.com/article/596384/What_CEOs_Expect_from_CIOs?page=1&taxonomyId=3156

Evolution of Information Technology – Dealing with the Shift to the Cloud?

While still in early stages, Cloud Computing is definitely a growing area within information technology (IT). Hosted service and remote managed services are growing faster in some areas than others. Small companies are moving their entire information technology department to the cloud in some cases. Certainly new companies are looking at this strategy right out of the gate. Most companies and particularly large enterprise organizations are utilizing a hybrid model. When it comes time to purchase new hardware or migrate to a new version of software it makes sense to evaluate cloud computing.

How should information technology leaders deal with this shift? There is some resistance since ultimately as technology moves to the cloud, one might think that a company will need less internal IT staff. This is true to a certain extent; however it is true more so for those that do not embrace cloud computing than those that do. If the premise is true that more technology will move to the cloud (and I think it is…) than IT professionals that embrace this and become experts at dealing with it will be in demand. Companies will need troops on the ground to migrate, manage and support the cloud services.

Here is a related article “Cloud Computing Is An Evolution of IT, Not An Overthrow”:

http://www.informationweek.com/cloud-computing/blog/archives/2010/06/cloud_computing_22.html

"Made to Stick" by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

I read “Made to Stick” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. This book is written by the same authors as "Switch" that I read and reviewed on April 8th: http://andrewgrose.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html

I liked ”Switch” and I really liked “Made to Stick”. The main idea of “Made to Stick” is that there are certain criteria that make a presentation or story stick with the audience or reader. What will the audience remember about a presentation a day later? This is important for business leaders and for that matter everyone in order to make your ideas stick! It is well known that conveying ideas in stories is more effective than explaining bullet after bullet and this is one of the key concepts – So what are the other nuggets?

Made to stick discusses how to make the stories more compelling by drawing in the audience at the beginning. It discusses the gap theory which is essentially that we do not like a gap in knowledge and this is why we will sometimes watch a lousy movie to the end because “We just have to know what happens!” The book discusses several techniques and boils it down to an acronym SUCCESs: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Story. The book then walks through stories that reinforce these 6 key components to make ideas stick. It is a good check list when you come up with a marketing advertisement to check off each box to see how many you hit. The more you hit the more likely your ideas will stick.

One example that the book gives of a sticky story is the Subway story of Jared. The story is that Jared goes to Subway everyday and enjoys the food and looses 245 lbs. It is definitely simple! It is unusual since usually you gain weight eating fast food. It is very concrete and credible. Finally it is an emotional story about a guy going from 425 lbs to 180 lbs, essentially saving his life by eating at Subway! There is a check mark in every box so it is no surprise that this story sticks.

I recommend reading “Made to Stick.”

Desktop Virtualization

I read an interesting article in Forbes magazine: “Desktop Virtualization Tips for CIOs” by Elias Khnaser. The article points out that desktop virtualization does not always mean VDI as it may mean streaming a virtual application or running virtual machines on your desktop but I will stick with VDI – a virtual desktop implementation.

Virtual desktop implementation (VDI) is compelling from a management standpoint. It certainly saves money on desktop operational expenditure but not on capital expenditure according to Gartner. This is different from server virtualization. Server virtualization’s savings on Op Ex and Cap Ex made it extremely compelling.

The article points out that VDI must be planned entirely differently than server virtualization as the challenge becomes supporting many more applications than what is running on a server. This is where you run into problems of what applications will run on the desktops and who is in control. The technical team will like the control and ease of management – Will the users like it? VDI does create a great access anywhere and consistent look and feel.

The article is good – here is a link:

http://www.forbes.com/2010/05/24/virtualization-windows7-vdi-technology-cio-network-desktop.html

Solid State Drives

Solid State Drives (SSD) are growing at a rapid rate. The latest information states 510 Million and growing 50% over the next year. This is still a small number compared to traditional hard drives and Seagate just released a hybrid to enhance hard drive performance. Solid state technology is going down in cost and the controller technology is advancing to make SSD more attractive in more applications. Solid state technology does have a strong appeal as everyone knows that the more moving parts the more likely you will have a failure.

Here are a couple of articles on SSD Drives:

http://www.reportlinker.com/p0196489/Enterprise-SSDs-Technologies-and-Markets.html?request=news

http://hothardware.com/News/5Way-SSD-RoundUp-Sandforce-vs-JMicron/

Managing Cloud Computing

I read an article in CIO Magazine “Cloud Computing: What CIOs Need to Know About Integration” by Kim S. Nash. The article discusses the use of cloud based solutions and how they show up at companies the way a PC did in the 80s – often not through the IT department. IT departments role will be to integrate and manage at some stage. Clearly this creates an interesting challenge for the CIO.

The article also discusses running internal systems in parallel with cloud computing in order to accommodate peak requirement period i.e. between Thanksgiving and Christmas for retail and January through April 15th for accounting businesses. This appears to make a great deal of sense. The challenge becomes how to manage this! The business needs to recognize the savings and not consume them in management. It is still early days so it will be interesting to see the developments.

Nortec’s cloud offering is Nortec 24/7 and it includes hosted service including Exchange email, network monitoring and managed services. The cloud services are growing rapidly and going extremely well. In the hosted Exchange email solutions we implemented entirely cloud based solutions. On the existing Exchange email cloud services migrating premise to the cloud or from one cloud service to another is like any other migration and takes planning and time to implement. We are now working with Exchange 2010 in many clients and with this Microsoft offers a seamless passing back and forth to the cloud. Cloud technology is evolving without a doubt….

Link to article “Cloud Computing: What CIOs Need to Know About Integration”:

http://tinyurl.com/2cgl3b7

Creating Smart IT Leaders by Susan Cramm

I attended a conference call presentation by Susan Cramm on Creating Smart IT Leaders. Here are a few take away concerns and concepts:


1. Users are frustrated with IT, “they stifle creative entrepreneurialism that is critical to advancing the state of business”
2. Users are younger, tech smarter, and demanding; If IT department doesn’t do something, they will do it without their help
3. 30% of what IT has planned to do is “stupid, dumb work”
4. IT needs to empower the users to self serve
5. Ensure IT can be managed and measured
6. Use fast-cycle, value driven deliver – i.e. Agile development and Scrum method
7. Only 10% of companies are IT Smart!

I enjoyed the presentation and now I need to read the book!

Virtualization: The State of Virtualization in Federal Agencies

I read an article in Channel Insider or should I say slide presentation on virtualization in the Federal Government. It appears the Federal Government is a little behind on virtualization. The Federal Government certainly has a tremendous opportunity to consolidate and save money so this should be compelling and does present a great opportunity. According to the survey education events look like the most important thing that can be done unless of course we can get a Federal Government mandate. Mr. Obama, it is time to make a Federal mandate on virtualization. Maybe something like “70% of all Federal Government computers must be virtualized by 2014! "

Article:
http://www.channelinsider.com/c/a/Virtualization/The-State-of-Virtualization-in-Federal-Agencies-703535/

The Servant Leader by James A. Autry

About a year ago I went to a presentation by James Autry about his book, “The Servant Leader: How to Build a Creative Team, Develop Great Morale, and Improve Bottom-Line Performance.” I thought his presentation was moderate, and I was not immediately motivated to read the book. The book sat on the shelf for about a year. I picked it up last week for no apparent reason and I read a chapter or so. I thought … this is a really good book!

The essence of “The Servant Leader” is to help everyone that works for you in an authentic manner. The command and control management style is not effective as it does not create an environment that is creative and has a positive morale. Mr. Autry also stresses the importance of balancing the human factors and the pure business side of things. He really emphasizes the importance of a manager being connected and engaged with their staff. The management method he recommends boarders on being over the top California new age style, and frankly I struggle with this a little personally and philosophically. I did like the book and I agree with most of what he is suggesting. He also drilled down on how to deal with each different scenario, sort of like a how to book. I am not sure this was necessary, but I suppose it helps drive the tactical details of the methodology. I would recommend the book, especially the first 100 pages!

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

The main concept of Outliers is that people are largely a product of their environment. The first example given is that of professional hockey players. The more successful players are likely to be born near the beginning of the year. The reason being is that they are grouped by the year they are born so the older kids are naturally more likely to be better and therefore get more attention and practice. The extra attention and practice builds upon itself. These four sentences take many pages in the book and the point is beaten to death. It is an interesting point, no less. The book builds on this point stating that to be really great at anything it is primarily practice and not talent. The number Mr. Gladwell comes up with is 10,000 hours of diligent practice to be great at just about anything. The Beatles it turns out spent several years playing in environments where they were required to play for many hours straight every day of the week. They went from being modest performers to being great performers. The book goes on to make interesting points regarding cultural backgrounds and many other examples to support the impact of environment on an individual’s behavior and success.

I thought Outliers had some interesting material however it seemed to over emphasize the importance of environment. Clearly environment is an important factor to success. It is no coincidence that there are so many successful people in America – It is an environment that allows individuals to forge out and become successful. However, often when you look at successful people you will see that they overcame many obstacles and usually through pure perseverance and passion not because of their environment.

Virtualization Impact

Virtualization is proven to reduce cost by consolidating servers on less physical servers. I read an article “Does Virtualization Increase IT Management Costs?” by Charlie Schluting in Enterprise Networking Planet. Charlie Schluting states, “Cisco started saying that virtualization doesn't actually save money due to increased management costs involved with running a virtual infrastructure.” The article goes on to discuss all costs associated with virtualization: management, training virtualization staff, virtualization consultants. However, I believe it still makes sense to virtualize corporate infrastructure and that these costs will continue to decrease as virtualization becomes more and more mainstream.

In the 90s there was promise of the paperless office as the typewriter died and the word processor took over. Companies were also able to scan documents and discard the paper. However, it turns out that businesses actually print more revisions of every document with a word processor than when using the old type writer. We print far more in general not less than in the past. I doubt anyone is going to argue that we should go back to typewriters and discard scanners. Clearly we are able to produce better quality documents and office automation makes the office worker more efficient and effective.

Will virtualization drive more servers and more applications? Applications you could not justify because of the cost associated with supporting another server can be quickly and easily launched on a new virtual machine. Will businesses then end up with more physical servers?

“Does Virtualization Increase IT Management Costs?” by Charlie Schluting:
http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/_featured/article.php/3876576/Does+Virtualization+Increase+IT+Management+Costs?.htm

“Switch: How to change things when change is hard” by Chip and Dan Heath

I read "Switch" by Chip and Dan Heath. The book is about how people behave and what drives their behavior. Essentially they describe three components to human actions and they outline them as the elephant, monkey, and environment.

The elephant is our instinctual, emotional drive and our habits. Essentially, the elephant describes our regular non thinking type behavior. Our monkey is riding the elephant. Steering the elephant to do the kind of things we rationally want to do. The analogy does a great job of creating the image of this poor monkey trying to control this very powerful willful elephant. When you see that bag of cheeses the monkey may want to pass and the elephant wants the wonderful orange goodness – who wins? The environment is the people you are around and the social acceptability of your behavior.

After explaining the elephant, monkey and environment, the book gives examples of these forces and how to flip the switch to change the behavior of yourself and others. How it makes sense to appeal to the elephant instead of the monkey in some cases. Sometimes to effect the change you are looking for you need to change the environment. Who do you hang with? Appealing effectively to one or more of these behavioral forces will cause the desired change in yourself and others. I liked the book because it is powerful, interesting and a short easy read.

“5 Virtual Desktop Pitfalls” by Jon Brodkin

I read “5 Virtual Desktop Pitfalls” by Jon Brodkin in Network World. According to Mr. Bodkin the 5 pitfalls are cost, storage, network, multimedia support and user experience.

The network requirements and user experience are probably the two areas that have improved the most over the last decade so I would say these are fading pitfalls. In fact the improvements in network infrastructure and the user experience are driving VDI adoption.

Multimedia support will continue to be a game stopper in some cases.

The cost pitfall surprised me. Mr. Bodkin quotes Forrester analysis finding that the ROI is 3 – 5 years if that. This contradicts acquisition costs that I have seen that were lower than the cost to replace desktops not to mention the lower operational expenses. Clearly a business needs to be in desktop refresh mode to have a rapid ROI.

The article is worth reading especially if you are involved or considering a VDI implementation.
Link to “5 Virtual Desktop Pitfalls” by Jon Brodkin:
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/040110-virtual-desktop-pitfalls.html?page=1

“Virtualization Management and Trends” a CA Study by Forrester Consulting

I read “Virtualization Management and Trends” a CA commissioned study by Forrester Consulting. The study was to evaluate the impact, challenges, and requirements around the operational aspects of virtualization. The report had seven key findings:

1. Capacity management is top operational concern
2. Moving to internal cloud requires process and automation
3. Comprehensive domain coverage is critical
4. Need a top-down application approach
5. Cloud based offerings are in demand
6. Operational control moving to day to day administrator
7. Virtualization is very positive to operation

The study confirms the explosive growth of virtualization and the overall shift to management automation. The essence being, that as a businesses moves to a virtual environment it is extremely important to have well planned and managed infrastructure. This is clearly cutting CAs own grass as a supplier of virtualization automation tools but this is in line with industry best practices. Management software and tools have often been shelfware in the past. Virtualization is driving the adoption and implementation of management tools and is forcing a more efficient managed infrastrtucture.

“Virtualization Management and Trends” a CA commissioned study by Forrester Consulting:
http://www.ca.com/us/analysts/reports/collateral.aspx?CID=227749

Virtualization and Security

Virtualization continues to grow at a rapid rate as a result of the compelling ROI. Although the average consolidation rate is less than 10:1 the latest hardware and virtualization software enables companies to implement upwards of 20:1 and 30:1 consolidation. The challenge is getting the expertise to implement, secure and manage the virtualized infrastructure.

Most IT leaders recognize the challenge to grow virtualization skills. We are investing heavily in developing deep technical skills around virtualization. Gartner in their recent report is estimating that 60% of servers are less secure in a virtualized environment versus physical enviornment. This will continue through 2012 and slowly decrease to 30% by 2015. The reason they contribute less security in virtual environment is the lack of IT expertise around virtualization.

"Virtualization is not inherently insecure," says Gartner vice president Neil MacDonald. "However, most virtualized workloads are being deployed insecurely. The latter is a result of the immaturity of tools and processes and the limited training of staff, resellers and consultants."

We will continue to invest in growing and recruiting the best virtualization experts to meet the challenge head on. We are committed to implementing secure virtualized infrastructures. We are developing air lift programs to help our clients in later stages of their virtualization implementations to take their skills to the next level. The case for virtualization is extremely compelling and growing fast so it will demand diligence and commitment from internal IT and consultants.

Gartner Report "Addressing the Most Common Security Risks in Data Center Virtualization Projects":
http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?ref=clientFriendlyUrl&id=1288115

Leadership and Management Lessons from "Undercover Boss"

I read this article by Meridith Levinson in CIO Magazine about the new CBS TV Show “Undercover Boss”. The show takes CEOs of very large companies and has them go in the field and work as a helper with the front line workers. There is something intrinsically funny about the CEO of a very large waste management company getting in the field cleaning bathrooms! The article has some youtube videos of segments from a couple of episodes of the show and they are great. I think the show is interesting and reveals great insight into how some policies cause pain. It also demonstrates how taking genuine interest and appreciation of employees goes a long way.

Link to the article:

http://www.cio.com/article/565064/Leadership_and_Management_Lessons_from_Undercover_Boss_

2010 Prediction

I sense an increase in business activity. Personally, I have noticed higher levels of activity at Nortec as well as in office real estate that I own. The stock market continues to show recovery. Everything I read is pointing to 2010 being a growth year. The growth is predicted to be increasing from one quarter to the next starting slowly – at least that is the prediction in information technology industry. The only area that I think has not turned the corner is residential real estate.

Overall attitude of most people should improve. Recruiting and retaining top professionals will get harder – not that that ever seemed to get easier. Overall businesses and individuals will do well.

This is long needed positive news. Although the wave is not entirely upon us, I can hear the rumble and see some foam in front of it.

Quote of the Day - On Staying Focused

This is a quote from Tim Cook at Apple, I found on Seth Godin’s Blog:

“This is the most focused company I know of, am aware of, or have any knowledge of... We say no to good ideas every day.” Cook then pointed out to analysts that every single product the company makes would fit on the single conference table in front of him. “And we had revenue last year of $40 billion."

Symantec State of Enterprise Security

Symantec released their “State of Enterprise Security” Report. It is clear that security will continue to be a high priority in most companies since 75% of enterprises have experienced cyber attacks and 41% say the attacks were effective. The study found all companies experienced some cyber loss either by theft or downtime. Not sure how 100% can have loss and only 75% say they were attacked but I will let that one go….

Here is the full Symantec Report:

http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/about/presskits/SES_report_Feb2010.pdf

Time to Upgrade to Windows 7

It is time to upgrade to Windows 7. I have been running Windows 7 ever since it was released and I am very happy with the performance – It is quick to boot and snappy. The adoption rate is twice what Vista’s adoption rate and is now used by 9% of all users. Most users are still using Windows XP and it is time for those users to adopt the next generation technology. If you are still running Vista it makes very little sense not to upgrade to Windows 7 since Windows 7 solves the sluggishness of Vista.


Here is an article in Computerworld: “Windows 7 early adoption beats Vista's 2 to 1 -
Five months after release, Microsoft's newest OS owns twice the share of Vista at the same point” by Gregg Keizer

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9160538/Windows_7_early_adoption_beats_Vista_s_2_to_1

Symantec State of SPAM and Phishing Report

According to the Symantec State of SPAM and Phishing Report there continues to be targeted attacks. Spammers like to take advantage of current affairs – Haiti disaster or Valentines. The next one to watch for will be scams around tax season. Clearly we will continue to be under attack so do not click on those suspicious links in emails or unknown attachments especially form social media sites.

Here is a link to the full Symantec Report:

http://eval.symantec.com/mktginfo/enterprise/other_resources/b-state_of_spam_and_phishing_report_02-2010.en-us.pdf

Understanding Microsoft Virtualization R2 Soluions

Microsoft Press has released a free 480 page ebook on Microsoft Virtualization - Here is the link:

http://blogs.msdn.com/microsoft_press/archive/2010/02/16/free-ebook-understanding-microsoft-virtualization-r2-solutions.aspx

Virtualization Adoption

Companies are virtualizing their infrastructure at a rapid rate primarily to save money by consolidating servers. The savings are reported to be 50% - 60% on capital expenditure and 25% on operational expenditure. The industry’s leading in virtualization are education and manufacturing and this speaks to the savings.

Currently 20% - 30% of servers are virtualized on average. Most businesses are trying to get to 70% to 80%. The hurdles are controlling the VM sprawl and virtualization skill set within the organizations. The VM sprawl can happen so fast that it frightens IT leaders. This highlights the need for a well planned managed approach to virtualization. The virtualization technology has been growing and changing so rapidly the experts with competent skills have been scarce. Most companies are investing in developing virtualization skills to better manage their new agile virtual infrastructure.

Sources: VMWare, ESG Strategies Cornerstones

Virtualization Top 10 Initiatives for 2010:

I attended VMWare Partner Exchange last week. Virtualization is the top priority for most companies followed by security and storage hardware. Here are the top 10 virtualization initiatives:

1. Consolidation
2. Improve backup and recovery
3. Expand applications into virtual infrastructure
4. Disaster recovery
5. Secure virtual infrastructure
6. Improve operational process
7. Move from test to production
8. Storage deployment
9. High availability
10. Management software integration

Source: ESG Strategies Cornerstones
http://www.enterprisestrategygroup.com/

Cloud Computing Shift in 2010

I read “CIOs See Big Cloud Computing Shifts In 2010” by Steven Burke. The shift is a result of the pressure from business leaders to reduce technology spending and drive profits. Peter Forte, CIO of Analog Devices had a good quote in the article:

“This is a matter of survival," Forte said. "In the last 20 years, I haven't seen this kind of dramatic cost cutting. Luckily, the good news here is technology has evolved to the point where it is helping us make this transition. We would never have been able to make a 25-30 percent budget reduction 10 years ago without an incredible fall off in service."

“CIOs See Big Cloud Computing Shifts In 2010” by Steven Burke:
http://tinyurl.com/yk8wryg

Working within a Team

I watched a documentary on Haskell Wexler an Oscar winning Cinematographer. He is highly regarded with multiple awards and worked on famous films such as American Graffiti. The interesting part to me was the dynamics and the egos of the teams producing movies. Mr. Wexler’s award winning success created challenges when he is working with directors. In the documentary, he basically says the directors usually don’t know what they are doing and he could do it better. Some directors described Haskell Wexler as having been a pain in the neck to work with and he was removed from working on “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” for his failure to get along.

Haskell Wexler is of course a tremendously successful person and his strong ego is paramount to his success. No matter how successful someone is there will always be this balance of control and keeping ego in check. There is a fine line to navigate - if you give up too much control you risk failure and if you try to take too much control no one will work with you! It is a conundrum – the yin and the yang.

Recent Google Hack

I read an interesting article on the recent hack into Google “Is Google hack an attack on cloud computing?” by Jon Brodkin, Network World. Google was hacked but the hack was through social engineering. The argument is that since the hack was through social engineering that this can happen anywhere. It is not really a hack on cloud computing. However, it does undermine cloud computing so it is a hack on cloud computing. It is also an attack on the use of the biggest supplier of a solution. Similar to the concept of most email attacks target Microsoft email because it is most widely used. If Google is the most widely used cloud provider it may be the biggest target for attacks on the cloud.

Article: “Is Google hack an attack on cloud computing?” by Jon Brodkin, Network World:

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/011510-google-hack-cloud-computing.html

Hosted Exchange Lessons Learned / Best Practices

We have been offering hosted exchange for a few years now. There are three key steps to ensuring an effective move to a hosted email environment:

1. CALCULATE YOUR BANDWIDTH
The first crucial step involves calculating user bandwidth requirements for your new hosted solution. Add this to the bandwidth you are currently using (call your ISP to find out the number). The result will let you know if you need to upgrade your internet service before implementation.

2. RIGHTSIZE YOUR MAILBOXES
Migrations are time consuming. Optimize your time by reducing the size of the mailboxes. Delete sent items, unused folders, and archive old date to a .PST file.

3. INCLUDE TRAINING IN YOUR PLAN
Users will have a new User Control Panel in the hosted environment. The User Control Panel allows everyone to customize their personal email settings. Training is the last step in a smooth transition to the hosted environment for your organization.

Intel Virtualization White Paper

Intel internal IT released a White Paper “Implementing and expanding a virtual environment” by Bill Sunderland and Steve Anderson. It is their experience implementing the virtual environment at Intel. The white paper states they are getting 10:1 ratio on their server consolidation and 15:1 on storage. They have only consolidated 10% - 20% of their environment with a goal of going to 70% - 80%. 10:1 Consolidation is actually low, many companies are now seeing 20:1 and 30:1 with the latest virtualization technology! It is a very detailed and technical document but I think worth reading. You realize even Intel has to do the same analysis and planning as everyone else.

http://communities.intel.com/docs/DOC-4724

Exchange 2010

Exchange 2010 has been out for a month now so it is time to take a closer look. Here are the key benefits:

1. Controlling Cost:
a. Improved performance with 90% reduction in Disk IO.
b. Lower cost of storage by leveraging DAS/JBOD with larger mailboxes
c. Simplified administration

2. Enabling Mobile Work Force:
a. Broad device support
b. Phone-base access to inbox
c. Great Outlook based experience to mailbox

3. Managing Risk:
a. Moderate, encrypt, and block sensitive data
b. Efficient data management by eliminating PSTs
c. Simplified compliance with granular retention policies and mailbox search

Microsoft Exchange 2010 free ebook:
http://ow.ly/YL6n

Cloud Computing Growth

Gartner recently predicted significant growth in cloud computing stating 20% of companies would be completely cloud based by 2010 and reach 11% of the market this year. The growth is primarily from companies that have already implemented cloud computing. The implication is that if you try it you will love it.

Last year in April I posted an article on the growth rate of cloud computing: How much of the Market is Cloud Computing? At that time I calculated cloud computing to be about 2% of IT spending and that it would grow to 10% by 2019. Gartner's prediction of 20% of businesses will be completely using cloud computing is considerably higher than the information less than a year ago. It appears that cloud computing is growing more rapidly than expected!

It is time to take a closer look at using the cloud and creating a plan for your business.

This quote from Bill Gates sums it up:
"The next sea change is upon us."

CIO Magazine Article:
http://ow.ly/WraP


Article: “Cloud computing’s only for grown ups, survey says” by Carl Brooks: http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid201_gci1379117,00.html

Tech Spending Growth in 2010

Forrester released a prediction of global technology spending growth to be 8% in 2010 to 1.6 Trillion and US spending to grow 6.6 % to 568 Billion. This is close to the previous predictions in late 2009 by Goldman Sachs and Gartner. Forrester is predicting a slow start in 2010 with spending increasing through the end of the year. Paul Otellini, CEO Intel summed it up at the end of last year, "There is a very good chance corporate spending on PCs will improve significantly in 2010."

Article reporting Forester prediction:

http://www.thonline.com/article.cfm?id=270046

Should IT be run as a business?

I read an Article in CIO Magazine “Run IT as a business -- why that's a train wreck waiting to happen - Everything you've been told is wrong: What IT should do instead” by Bob Lewis. As I read the article I imagined the cheering from the IT professionals in data centers across the country. Their frustration with unrealistic users and business leaders is finally articulated.

Clearly Mr. Lewis makes some great points in his article and it is an interesting article to read. However, many of his points are the very reason businesses fail as well. What he is getting to is the importance of creating solutions that will solve the long term business needs as opposed to running around resolving point solutions and every user demand. The essence of where he is going is that internal IT professionals must operate more like consultants and not just turning wrenches. The key here is having solid IT strategic plan and trained IT team to work like consultants. The strategic plan should be short enough that the key leaders will read and buy into the plan. The IT Team needs the consulting skills to work with the business managers and users to deliver on the plan.

IT departments that do not treat the users and business manager as customers are on a slippery slope. A major challenge for IT leaders is getting their team to communicate and to not give attitude to the users. Good IT professionals are scarce and in high demand. They are constantly being pulled in multiple directions and this causes them frustration when dealing with less technical staff. This amplifies the challenge to develop IT professionals that are effective as consultants.

Oh, in case you are wondering – I say yes, IT should be run like a business. And why not – last I checked it is part of business and frankly you should treat everyone like a customer internally and externally. It is a mantra for me!

CIO Magazine Article by Bob Lewis:

http://www.cio.com/article/517879/Run_IT_As_a_Business_Why_That_s_a_Train_Wreck_Waiting_to_Happen?page=1&taxonomyId=3123

Virtualized Management

I have discussed the importance of management and planning in a virtualized environment. IDC Technologies is predicting 20% annual growth in virtualization management software going from $871 Million market to $2.3 Billion by 2013.

Management software has been around for many years but is often shelfware. The challenge with management software is that all too often businesses will purchase the software with little to no budget for getting the software installed and their team trained. The logic is that “this is just management software” and not critical to the operation! We can just have Joe the Network Administrator run with it. Joe agrees to take on the task but with little to no experience or training. The software is setup in a manner that is not according to best practices. Joe and the rest of the team find the management software is cumbersome to operate and monitor. No one uses the software or updates …. Shelfware! The conclusion: “This management software is no good!”

The key to having success with management software is five steps:

1. Take plenty of time to select the management application and then have the team commit
2. Senior leadership needs to be committed to implementing and using the application
3. Have a consultant implement the solution according to best practices
4. Have proper training for the internal owner of the application and the team
5. Have a consultant do some hand holding and follow-up … checking back to ensure that the application is being used correctly

In a virtualized environment management software will rise in importance for successful operation so get your arms around it and commit to your solution for success.

Source Article: Virtualization Management Software Market to Grow, IDC Says:

http://www.businessmanagement1.com/business-management/virtualization-management-software-market-to-grow-idc-says/

Being Relevant in 2010

Symantec CEO, Enrique Salem spoke of the importance of being relevant.

Relevant Pronunciation [rel-uh-vuh nt] –adjective
Bearing upon or connected with the matter in hand; pertinent: a relevant remark.

We are in a new era of so many media channels. Never mind that there are now a 1000 channels on television since there is a shift to social media and the billions of web sites on the internet. How does a business or a person be relevant in an environment that is very thin and infinitely wide? This is the 2010 question and we have had all of 2009 to think about it!

The key is to engage the right people with the right information in a very broad approach. Keep in mind this quote from Seth Godin a master at staying relevant in today’s environment:

“As in high school, the winners are the ones who don't take it too seriously and understand what they're trying to accomplish. Get stuck in the never ending drama (worrying about what irrelevant people think) and you'll never get anything done. The only thing worse than coming in second place in the race for student council president is... winning.”

Use your passion for technology to be relevant in 2010!