Chuck's Blog

Building Your IT Factory

Analogies can be powerful tools.  The good ones are descriptive: sort of an intellectual shortcut to a set of concepts and ideas.  They save time.

But I think the very best analogies can become predictive models: you can examine them at length and come up with all sorts of useful, forward-looking insights that can make you look eerily prescient.  

If you want to impress people with your crystal ball skills, have a good predictive model or two in your back pocket :)

Such is the case with IT's current transformation to becoming a competitive internal service provider.

In his landmark book "The Big Switch", Nicholas Carr uses the early days of the power generation and distribution industry as a powerful analogy for understanding what was beginning to happen with cloud computing.  

In many aspects, his analogy was a decent predictive model: you could examine how the power industry began, evolved and matured -- and make some interesting predictions about how similar things might happen in the cloud and IT world.

Even if you don't believe in cloud, Nick Carr (or anything else for that matter!) his recounting of the evolution of the power industry is fascinating and insightful.

However, it's been three long years since Nick published his book -- a veritable eternity in our industry -- and I think I can now suggest a better analogy that's proving to be far more powerful in its predictive power.

A modern, competitive factory.  Raw materials in; valuable products out.

Indeed, as I spend more and more time with customers talking about their current transformations, I find myself using factory-based analogies more often to describe concepts and principles.  It works.

And, since so many IT leaders I work with have to explain many things to the people in their world, I thought I'd take the time to expand the analogy.  

Hopefully it will work for them as well as it's worked for me.

Understanding The Big Data Analytics Mindset

I now have been in front of about a half-dozen executive audiences (usually sponsored by IT leadership!) to discuss what EMC might know about how to go about achieving big data analytics proficiency.  

They -- rightly so -- think there might be a powerful new tool at hand, and want to find out more.  I consider myself privileged to speak to them.

The basics of my discussion are fairly straightforward: here are the core concepts, here are why they are important, this is what an organizational model might look like, here are the key skills and roles, here are some examples of how leaders like you went about moving forward, here are some interesting case studies, and so on.  

Normal transformational fare, in my world.

Where it routinely gets sticky is when people struggle is between unlearning the familiar world of traditional BI and gaining an appreciation for the new world of data science.  I struggle to find an effective and repeatable technique -- I have yet to crack the code here.  

But it's important to do.  Unless business leaders realize what's now possible with a fresh approach, they'll only end up incrementally improving what they're already doing today, as opposed to taking that breathtaking quantum leap into a new realm.  

If that's the case, why bother?  So I consider myself less than successful unless I'm able to un-stick a significant portion of the audience from their old perceptions, and wrap them around a greater appreciation of newer concepts.  

I'm looking for that "aha!" moment.

It's The Big Launch Day For EMC IT's ITaaS

I consider it an article of faith that many enterprise IT organizations will need to learn to compete for their internal customers.

If you've been following this blog, you know I've been drawing heavily on the experiences of EMC's own IT organization as they progress through this inevitable transformation.

Today represents an interesting milestone of sorts: the formal internal launch of a "critical mass" of self-provisioned IT services that anyone at EMC can freely consume.  

Yes, they've had many of these internal services out there for a while, but now our EMC IT team has started to actively encourage consumption at scale.

I think this particular event serves as an excellent example of how the thinking changes when enterprise IT goes from being seen as a monopoly to being seen as an aggressive competitor.

If you work in an IT setting that's starting to go through some of these changes, I think you'll find the discussion here very enlightening.

EMC Atmos And The Challenge Of Doing Things Differently

There are two ways to bring a new technology to market.

One way is to give people a better product to do exactly what they're doing today: no process change required.

Another way is to give people a better way to do things: substantial process change required.

Meaningful breakthroughs in technology almost always involve process change.  The downside is that any substantive process change takes significant time and effort.  

There's no shortcut that I'm aware of.

In our world, EMC Atmos is an excellent example of innovative technology that demands both a mindset and process change.  The lessons we've learned about how to go about introducing new technology (and new process!) to large audiences is instructive -- not only to other technology companies like us, but to any IT organization looking to introduce new ways of doing things into their ranks.

As technologists, we obviously have to learn to get good at getting people to actually embrace what we come up with.  Otherwise, the stuff just sits on the shelf :)

EMC vLab: What Happens When You Point A Cloud At A Business Challenge

Clouds are exceptionally difficult to discuss in the abstract.  

They become much more real and tangible when you associate them with a particular business challenge.

As a result, I've started to collect various "cloud meets business" success stories.  They're all very cool, but they take some serious time to write up.

I thought I'd start with an internal one first: how EMC's vLab cloud is changing an important aspect of the way EMC does business.

Although there are aspects that are unique to EMC and our particular situation, I believe there are many useful lessons here that can be more broadly applied.

Ten Career Tips I've Learned The Hard Way

It's the holiday season, and I was wondering what sort of practical gift I might offer to my readers?  

My colleague Chad Sakac does great with his "Santa Chad" giveaways, but -- alas -- I don't have the budget for that sort of thing.  Besides, he's pretty good at it anyway.

After a bit of reflection, I thought I'd do what I could to share the not-so-obvious career lessons I've learned along the way.  Looking back, I wish someone had shared some of this thinking with me 30 years ago when I set out in the working world.  

Then again, I was so darn stubborn back then I probably wouldn't have listened to any of it anyway ...

Take this as unsolicited advice from someone who sees himself as moderately successful.  

Make of it what you will.

Why The Cloud Discussion Is So Polarizing

Over the years, you've probably learned that you don't talk about politics or religion at social gatherings.  

If you're in the IT industry, you'd probably add "cloud" to the list of topics you approach with some  caution, especially in larger settings.

I've often wondered what is it -- exactly -- that makes cloud such a divisive discussion?  

We've been collectively hacking away at the cloud debate for many years now, and -- although there's been some progress in a few areas -- we're nowhere near anything that approaches an industry consensus.  

James Urquhart does an admirable job of tackling this thought in his recent post "Why It's So Hard To Talk About Cloud", but -- after reading it -- I think there's something deeper going on: the incredibly wide swath of stakeholders inevitably leads to an incredibly wide range of divergent perspectives.

For those who are waiting for the debates to subside and a reasonable common ground to emerge, don't hold your breath: there's far too much at stake for all involved.  Smart IT leaders will have do what all leaders usually end up doing: listening to all the perspectives, and deciding their own path forward in the face of rampant and bitter industry arguments.  

And, since the potential benefits of cloud concepts are very great indeed, there's a strong incentive to plan a course of action sooner than later.

The Big Posts Of 2011

It's been an exceptionally busy year -- for the industry, for our customers and partners, and for EMC.  I, for one, will be looking forward to a bit of quiet time to refresh and regroup before diving into 2012.

In this blog, I do what I can to share the continual stream of thoughts and observations that arise as part of my day-to-day duties here at  EMC.  

If you're a regular reader, you realize that can result in a lot of long and often lengthy blog posts.

I thought it might be worthwhile to step back and highlight the big themes -- and the big posts -- of 2011.   My selections are strictly driven by observable impact: the handful of posts that generated the most views, discussion and interest from my readers.

Happy reading!

Greenplum UAP And Enabling Your Data Science Team

It must be Data Science Week here at EMC.  

I've already written about our latest findings from the EMC Data Science Survey, and shared how EMC Education is offering their first Data Science Associate coursework to support the increased demand for knowledgeable individuals.

It's almost inevitable that all of this would be leading up to an EMC product announcement, and -- yes -- that's the case.  

The new Greenplum UAP (unified analytics platform) is especially exciting to me because it appears to be the first integrated software suite that is precisely targeted at the newer style of data science teams.

Here's the pitch: in the new world of big data science analytics, all the value comes from the data science team.  Since it's pretty obvious that (a) knowledgeable data science professionals will be very scarce resources for the forseeable future, and (b) their time is extremely valuable, then ostensibly makes sense to build tailored software environments that maximize their productivity.

That, in a nutshell, is what makes Greenplum UAP so unique and compelling.

Big Data Analytics: The New Corporate "Six Sigma"?

If you've been around for a while, you'll remember how a giant wave of Six Sigma investments crashed over corporations around the world in an effort to improve competitiveness.

At EMC, we all went to Six Sigma class, and learned how to DMAIC key processes, and then DFSS.  My personal favorite was the statapult exercise -- big fun if you've never done it.  

Over time, an army of Six Sigma green belts were developed throughout EMC's ranks, augmented by the ultimate masters: the Six Sigma Black Belts.

Why did so many companies make such a large investment in Six Sigma?  

The answer is painfully simple: it quickly became the new competitive ante.  

You either invested in getting good at Six Sigma, or you had better be prepared to suffer at the hands of competitors who had wisely made that investment.

I think we're seeing the opening scenes of a similar movie: a need for investing in broad-based skills in big data analytics proficiency.  

The case for this particular observation is strengthed by recent results from EMC's Data Science survey -- practitioners point to the lack of these broad based skills as one of the major things holding them back.

This time around, the motivation is also simple: invest in learning to use multiple data sources and the newer tools to better predict the future, or be prepared to suffer at the hands of those who have made that investment.

And today, EMC is announcing a key component of our investments to help our customers and partners get better at this new and important skill set: an associate-level one week course and certification in big data analytics techniques.  

I think it's going to be popular :)