Chuck's Blog

IT Transformation: Does Your IT Group Fit The Profile?

I started writing in earnest about clouds and IT transformation back in January 2009 -- a little more than three years ago.

At the time, most IT groups would politely listen to me talk about the coming world of service catalogs, hybrid clouds, et. al., nod a bit -- and that would be that. 

Interesting, but not practical for them at that point.   Thank you for your time.

But, every so often, I'd meet an IT group that was intensely interested in the subject.   Their passion and enthusiasm stood in stark contrast to a vastly larger and vastly more passive crowd.

What made them different?  Why were they so interested, and everyone else wasn't?

I became very curious about these particular customers, and started to take the time to look deeper.  I began to construct profiles of the IT groups I was talking to, and looking for a correlation between their expressed enthusiasm (or lack thereof), and what I could discern externally. 

Over time, patterns repeated themselves, and an "ITaaS profile" (IT as a service) began to emerge.

During early 2011, I began to test my model.  I'd research a customer I was scheduled to talk to, score them using my profile, and attempt to predict the likelihood they'd be interested in the topic of IT transformation when I got in front of them.  I quickly discovered I had a very good predictor. 

It's sort of nice to know what's going to happen before you show up with a bunch of powerpoint :)

So, today, I thought I'd share with you what I've learned.

And, perhaps, figure out if your IT group fits the profile.

More On Mobilizing Your Enterprise

Just about every aspect of enterprise IT is in play these days, if you think about it.
 
One of the more challenging aspects is fully embracing the new endpoint for IT service consumption -- the ubiquitous mobile device.
 
To be clear, we're not simply talking about a BYOD (bring your own device) program, or re-hosting legacy apps on mobile devices via VDI -- although those are pieces of the bigger picture.
 
No, what we're really talking a fundamental re-thinking about how application experiences are built, distributed and consumed.  Mobile first, if you prefer.
 
And whether that new capability is pointed at your employees, your partners or your customers -- the changes are turning out to be very far reaching indeed.
 
EMC's own IT group is no stranger to these forces.  For the last few quarters, a small team has been working towards enabling mobility across our entire organization and business model.  I first introduced this story back in January of this year.
 
Now, five months later, I thought it would be good to circle back with the EMC IT team and get a status report: what have we done, and what have we learned?
 
Quite a bit, it turns out.

Welcome To The Information Age

In this blog, I get to selfishly write about what interests me.  That's what blogging (or at least *good* blogging) is supposed to be about. 

You can easily tell some of my stronger interests: what's going on here at EMC, information technology and the IT industry, customer and partner interactions, business and economics, psychology and organizational theory, even the occasional venture into topics like careers and life skills.

I'm also an armchair student of history.  Not the names-and-dates kind of history; more of a general fascination with the broader patterns and models of how humans evolve as a collective enterprise.

And, if you'll permit me, let me share a brief history of us.

Healthcare CIOs: At The Crossroads

In the course of my role here at EMC, I meet plenty of IT leadership teams that are in the throes of transformation.
 
But the CIOs of healthcare providers are clearly a breed apart: the transformational forces grinding upon them are truly exceptional to behold.
 
In geology, the only difference between a benign fault line and a massively destructive earthquake is simply about how fast things move.
 
And, for healthcare providers, things are starting to move very fast indeed.

My Take On ONTAP 8.1.1

This week, rumor has it that NetApp is going to make a big announcement around their new release: ONTAP 8.1.1
 
I work for EMC, so I'm expected to have an opinion, and not necessarily a positive one.  Despite my obvious affiliation, I'm also pretty deep into the storage industry overall (20 years!) and spend a lot of time with customers who use a lot of storage. 
 
And -- in a nutshell -- this announcement is not especially good news.  Particularly for their customers who've been waiting patiently for NetApp to close the gap against viable competitive alternatives.
 
Before long, I can see that many of these NetApp customers are going to have to make hard and difficult choices between whether they stick it out with their current vendor and hope for the situation to improve, or start to look at bringing in competitive alternatives.  And while we could sit here at EMC and perhaps gloat a bit, that's really not what this is all about in my mind.
 
Customer storage requirements and technologies are moving so fast that it's becoming more difficult for even a focused storage specialist like NetApp to keep up.

VMware's Project Serengeti And What It Means For Enterprise Hadoop

Virtualize something -- anything -- and you make it easier for everyone to consume: IT vendors, enterprise IT organizations -- and, most importantly, business users.  The vending machine analogy is a powerful and useful one.

At a macro level, cloud is transforming IT, and virtualization is playing a starring role.

Enterprise-enhanced flavors of Hadoop are starting to earn prized roles in an ever-growing variety of enterprise applications.  At a macro level, big data is transforming business, and Hadoop is playing an important role.

The two megatrends intersect nicely in VMware's recently announced Project Serengeti: an encapsulation of popular Hadoop distros that make big data analytics tools far easier to deploy and consume in enterprise -- or service provider -- settings.

And if you're interested in big data, virtualization, cloud et. al. -- you'll want to take a moment to get more familiar with what's going on here.

More From VCE At Cisco Live 2012

I make no apologies whatsoever for being an unabashed fan of VCE and Vblocks.

Converged infrastructure (and converged operations!) are turning out to be a compelling transformative tool for enterprises and IT service providers alike. 

Rarely in my career have I seen something change so much for so many people.

When VCE announced a number of enhancements at EMC World 2012 a few weeks back, I thought they were done for a while. 

Nope, as it turns out they've got even more interesting bits to share at this week's Cisco Live event. 

And, if you're going, you might want to make some time to chat with the VCE crew.

The Role Of The CIO In Big Data Analytics

I've now had the experience about a dozen times.

I'm in front of an IT leadership group.  We get to talking about big data analytics.

They stop me and say "We get it.  What the hell should we be doing?"

Fair question. 

Since I haven't seen any good advice on the subject to date, I thought I'd share what I've been telling them. 

Feel free to add your own thoughts in the comment sections, if you'd like.

Rewiring The Human Brain In The Era Of Big Data Analytics

Our poor, struggling brains.

Evolved for survival on the serengeti, we're now attempting to thrive in a digital world that we weren't programmed for.

Sure, we can adapt -- over time.  Through thoughtful reinforcement, we can learn to overcome many aspects of our evolutionary programming.

But being aware of the problem is half the challenge.

I've noticed that there's more and more conclusive evidence that we -- as a species -- weren't wired to work effectively with data.  It's something we learn to do, often despite ourselves.

And in the coming era of big data analytics, we're going to have to collectively get better at it.

Much, much better indeed.

A Partner Ahead: GreenPages Leans Forward Into The Future

I find myself spending more of my time with EMC's partners these days.  I can't help but study their businesses, their culture and their strategies.

Different partners have different approaches.  But I really get excited when I meet an EMC partner who is betting so heavily (and successfully!) on key transitions in the IT industry.
 
I think their story makes an excellent case study in how focused IT partners can move from reseller to integrator to trusted consultant.
 
Besides sharing their story with you, I personally wanted to know what areas their team was focusing on going forwards.
 
Why?  Because their past decisions have turned out pretty well :)