Chuck's Blog

From Cost Center To Value Generator

I spend a lot of time with customers, partners and prospects.  Many of them represent the senior ranks of sizable IT organizations.

In turn, a lot internal EMC people (and our partners) sometimes turn to me to help them better understand -- what do senior IT leaders really want?

My answer is simple: they want to make a difference.  

Managing Your Skills Portfolio

I was fortunate enough to be invited to speak on a panel here at the "Everything Channel" event in Dallas.

Ostensibly, we were supposed to be talking about 2011 storage opportunities for resellers and solution providers.  But, somehow, we got into a number of far more interesting areas, including the strategic importance of the above topic.

We ran out of time, but the thought keeps rattling around in my head ...

From Presenting To Engaging

One of the thought bubbles that has been continually floating around the Twitter banter has been the importance of differentiating between simply presenting to an audience, as opposed to actually engaging with them.

More importantly, as we become progressively more online social creatures, simple presentation skills become almost quaint (remember shorthand?) and possessing a wide variety of engagement skills and behaviors becomes far more important.

The Innovator Within

Success in business is essentially based on differentiation: doing something faster / better / cheaper than the other guys who are competing for the same business.

It shouldn't be hard to see that one of the core strategies for achieving differentiation should involve some form of innovation.

Sure, we can hold the concept of innovation at arms length, and say "yup, that's important all right", but how many of us believe it's our individual responsibility to continually innovate at work?

Perhaps not enough, I'd argue.

Does Your Organization Invest In IT?

Sure, most every organization spends money on IT -- that much is obvious.

I want to know if your organization invests in IT much the same way an investor would think about it.

Why?  Because I believe that the answer to that simple question will tell me much about what kind of IT organization you are, what you expect from vendors like EMC, and -- ultimately -- what kind of IT organization you'll eventually be.

Careers In The Clouds

Everyone watches keynotes with varying degrees of interest, but when Sanjay Mirchandani took the stage at EMC World, and started sharing how EMC IT's move to private cloud was creating entirely new hard-to-fill roles in his organization, I could sense that the audience might be paying a bit more attention than usual.

And why not?  If you've made your career in IT, you know that it makes sense to invest in skills and roles ahead of market demand -- if at all possible.

So, how does that play out now?  And should you be thinking of making a career in the cloud?

Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time -- and a very long time ago -- there was a very successful storage company. 

It made a good product, sold it effectively to customers, and supported them well.  It made a lot of money, and was seen as successful.

However, the seeds of its success ultimately proved to be its eventual undoing.

The Real Rock Stars of EMC World: EMC IT

There's a veritable river of information, perspectives and opinions coming out of EMC World this week.  Not to mention about a bazillion tweets on the #EMCworld hashtag.

While all the keynotes were excellent, the one that I thought really stood out came from the EMC IT organization.  Sanjay Mirchandani and his team did an excellent job of bridging the gap between theory and practice while adding a healthy dose of pragmatism to the whole private cloud discussion.

Their team also did yeoman's duty manning a booth on the floor and meeting with literally dozens and dozens of customers during the show. 

They weren't really there to sell anything, just to share their experiences openly and honestly as one IT team to another.

In this post, I wanted to share the presentation along with my own personal commentary.  If you'd like to see the presentation as a video (complete with a few very cool demos), check this out.  There's also a download link for the complete set of slides I'm using here.

Serious Food For Thought

Today IDC and EMC released their annual study on the size, shape and structure of the "digital universe": the total amount of information we're collectively generating, storing and using.

Titled "A Digital Universe Decade: Are You Ready?", it goes beyond the usual really-big-number type of forecasts to provoke serious discussion on a number of topics.  

And if you're a big-picture type of person, you'll want to seriously contemplate some of these findings ...

The 10 Big Ideas That Are Shaping IT Infrastructure Today

Hi everyone.  I had the pleasure of jumping over to Paris to deliver a short keynote this week. 

When I do this, sometimes I use material I've used before.  Other times, I try and mix it up a bit and try something different. 

Such is the case here.

I wanted to make this presentation all about the big ideas that are going on in our industry today, especially as it applies to IT infrastructure, since it directly and indirectly impacts all other aspects of IT. 

I wanted to make a point to try and stay away from individual technologies (and their associated product incarnations), and focus instead on how technology is being built, deployed and consumed.

See if you agree with my choices ...