About a week ago the call came in. The IT leadership team at CAA had been reading my blog. They thought they were doing some very cool stuff. Would I be interested in learning more?
You bet!
Due to practical constraints in time and travel, I probably get to hear only a small fraction of the insanely great stories that are out there, waiting to be told. And -- thankfully -- they reached out to me. If you've ever wondered what a highly evolved IT organization might look like, you'll be interested in this.
And -- oh yes -- they're doing it all with Microsoft's Hyper-V.
A Bit About CAA
I've learned that you can't understand technology choices without understanding IT philosophy, which is in turn a product of overall business strategy and resulting corporate culture.
Said differently, to fully appreciate IT at CAA, you have to appreciate CAA itself.
You won't find much from their web site. However, if you've seen a movie or watched a sporting event, they are the largest and most successful agency that represents talent you’re watching -- talent behind the talent. They are privately held, wildly successful and rapidly moving into new areas.
In their world, there's CAA -- and then there's everyone else.
Their corporate culture is a direct result of their business strategy: to provide the world's best service to the world's best talent.
No titles appear on business cards -- everyone is expected to be an integral part of the CAA team. Everyone in the organization (including everyone in IT) must wear a suit and tie at all time: that's what their clients expect. Saying it’s a “flat” organization is probably an understatement.
In a world of revolving door careers, Michael Keithley -- the CIO -- has been there for 19 years. As a result, he is a walking embodiment of CAA's highly evolved corporate culture. He routinely offers up wonderful sound bites that illustrate the organization and its mission.
For example: "we value the assist more than the score". Think about that statement in the context of most people within organizations focusing more on their own achievements, rather than the teams.
Michael and his team can rattle off just about every big-name talent that they've met on one or more occasions. I was certainly impressed, but he wasn't -- it's just all part of his job.
How CAA Uses IT
If it's all about the client, then the game is to surround them with the team of the very best agent talent in the business, and then ultimately deliver the IT services that works the way the team works.
It's an elegantly simple strategy.
Client teams collaborate tightly, using tools and workflows of their choosing. Lightweight process and workflow exists in some areas, but it's always a result of how the team prefers to work -- and not some centrally-driven mandate. The tools reflect the needs of each team.
Given my intent focus on the emergence of a new cadre of mobile knowledge workers that make all the money for an organization of the future, this was a clear example of these principles in play. To say I was fascinated would be an understatement.
If you're part of a CAA client team, you need some basic things: what are we doing for our client? what's the next step? what else is going on that matters to my client? who at CAA can help me?
Simple to say, harder to do.
From my perspective, it's hyper-collaboration of some very intense and focused people with a singular goal.
The IT team is supposed to stand up whatever the business needs -- quickly -- and get out of the way. IT is measured entirely on speed and agility – and not so much on cost optimization.
Making Things More Interesting
CAA is opening up new locations at a rapid pace. On Monday, there's a decision to open up an office in, say, Abu Dhabi. And -- quite seriously -- it's expected that basic IT services will be available sometime on Tuesday.
As in “the next day Tuesday” and not “six months from next Tuesday”.
CAA is also getting into new businesses at a frantic pace. One striking example: as a result of the recent financial meltdown, they were able to pick up a team from an investment bank that does project financing for, say, blockbuster movies. All of the sudden, they're in an SEC-like world with all the prerequisite focus on regulation compliance. Just another day.
Which brings me to the topic of security, and their unique take. Their relationships are entirely built on trust -- and that includes confidentiality of their dealings with their clients. The team shared a story of a competitor had an unfortunate situation where the private details of many celebrities became fodder for the tabloids.
Add in the tight hyper-collaboration, shared-everything model, a propensity to use mobile devices of all manner that can get lost or stolen, and a general knowledge user irritation with IT-mandated security measures, and it's an interesting scenario to consider :-)
How CAA Runs IT
It's not just lip-service when they say "IT at CAA is an integral part of the business" -- it really is. So please forget that whole classical dialogue around improving relationships between IT and the business, etc. -- it's just not the case here. That's a good thing.
Michael and his team put it simply: speed and agility matter above all else. Cost containment doesn't even make the top three in their world. Widespread cross-training is the norm -- everyone is expected to be able to help out wherever they're needed -- as well as wear a suit and tie at all times :-)
Michael says he doesn't date his vendors, he marries them. His current three? Microsoft, Cisco and EMC. He gets a respectable amount of CEO-level attention from all three, and -- frankly -- deserves it. He expects the same level of service from his vendors as his organization delivers to his clients.
I see the Microsoft choice as an obvious reflection on the uber-prioritization of the needs of his high-value knowledge workers. The Cisco choice was obvious as well -- networking, real-time collaboration using video and voice -- it all makes sense. And EMC for, well, it's all about information -- the lifeblood of their business.
Information -- connectivity -- apps -- that's the essence of their IT model.
The Hyper-V-based CAA "Private Cloud"
They've built something very interesting -- what I would call a private cloud using Cisco's UCS, Hyper-V and Microsoft. Yes, you saw that right -- no VMware whatsoever. And at decent scale as well.
The business driver was simple in context: they needed a "pool of liquid assets" that they could deploy on brutally short notice when the Next Thing inevitably came up. It wasn't about steady-state IT, capex/opex efficiency, or any of the more pragmatic IT concerns -- it was solely about being more responsive to the business -- plain and simple.
Of course, I was intrigued by the Hyper-V choice, so I really wanted to understand their motivations.
Their entire app and OS stack was largely Microsoft based. Most of the management was being done with Microsoft's System Center and liberal use of powershell. Great integration of virtualization with everything else they were using. And they had a deep commitment to Microsoft as a partner.
Obvious, no?
They had it up and running (around 300 VMs, growing to 500 over time) and it was working well for them. It probably took more effort than they would have liked, but they had crossed the finish line, so to speak.
So, the real answer to "why Hyper-V" is simple: it worked the way they worked. To be absolutely clear, it wasn't about cost savings or anything else -- it was the best choice for them, and I saw nothing to argue about with their decision.
And -- just to be clear -- IT and the business alike saw the project as a good thing.
And Then We Started To Talk
They've been following what EMC has been doing around VMware integration (storage, management, security, etc.) and wanted to know what we were doing with Hyper-V and the Microsoft extended stack.
"A bunch" I said, and started to riff through a few things they hadn't heard about. OK, knowledge gap. Well, I can fix that by hooking them up with Brian Henderson and the rest of the extended Hyper-V crew. Lots to share both ways, I'm sure.
They were very intrigued by the Vblock concept, and -- of course -- would like to see something similar for their preferred choices. I can now understand why, but I couldn't really hold out any specific hopes based on what I know.
They also had some extremely articulate points of view on how we should best evolve various aspects of our storage-related offerings going forward. Pure gold. The good news is that we're working on just about everything they talked about -- and more -- so I'll be looking to connect them with our engineering teams for a set of deeper discussions.
Final Thoughts
I spend a lot of time with various IT groups. I pontificate about the need to structure IT around being more responsive to the business, and focusing on the new caste of mobile knowledge workers that will inevitably be the prime source of business value going forward.
I point to private cloud models, and the need to flatten and restructure IT roles around new requirements rather than old specialties. And -- ideally -- the lines between business and IT blur to the point where everyone is on the exact same team.
And then I get to meet an IT organization where all of this has happened, and more.
My heartfelt thanks to Michael Keithley, Rob Krumwiede, Cort Fritz and Jeff Blair for sharing their story with me. And thank you -- as always -- for being an EMC customer.
No, they probably won't want to come work for you -- they seem pretty happy where they are.
And for good reason :-)
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