Chuck's Blog

My War On Wallets

When I was seven, I received a men’s wallet as a birthday gift. 

My parents thought it an important milestone towards growing up, being more responsible, etc.  I guess I didn't get that memo, as I was hoping for a slingshot at the time. 

As I saw the wallet as completely useless, it sat in a drawer for many years gathering dust.

Today, I was buying gas. 

I reached into my wallet to pull out a credit card, and — dang!! — the entire contents fell into the Crevice Of No Return: that slim gap between the driver’s seat and the center console.   Down on my knees, fishing out small plastic cards, I became seriously exasperated.

And I was once again reminded of how utterly useless a men’s wallet should be in this day and age.

Digital Extortion

My blog has been off-the-air for the last six days or so.  Thousands of daily visitors would either get an error message, or perhaps a mangled version of text only.

My blog service provider -- TypePad -- successfully fended off a massive DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack, but it took them many days to do so.  Thousands of their customers could only watch helplessly, day after day, and hope for the best.

After all, our options were limited :)

While the final story has yet to come out, there is strong evidence that this was an extortion attempt.  Ransom was demanded -- and refused.  Several similar incidents have already occured, more are inevitable.

A couple of thoughts?

First, I realized just how highly dependent I had personally become regardling certain online services: the blog, my calendaring, sync-and-share, financial, travel, etc.  

Take any one of them away for a few days, and I'm in a world of hurt -- with no Plan B.  Worse, I don't have any good ideas on how to mitigate the risk going forward without serious complexity and cost.

Second, I had to wonder -- how many online services are prepared to respond to a similar extortion attempt?  I talk to many folks who are involved in disaster recovery and business continuity -- I'd be curious on just how many recognize this relatively new threat, and have succcessfully prepared themselves -- or have even tested their capabilities.

When information is the new wealth, we're all potential victims of digital extortion.

Digital Literacy For Business Leaders

It's happened more times than I care to count. 

I'm meeting with relatively senior business leader, not an IT person.  We're talking about what's going on in their world. 

I ask an open-ended question around, say, social or mobile or cloud, or maybe big data analytics, and I don't get the response I was expecting.

It's obvious I've committed some sort of faux pas.  There's a stiffening, a deer-in-the-headlights sort of look, followed by a quick referral to "someone in IT who's working on it". 

An awkward pause usually follows.

I bet if I asked a more familiar question around competition, or business strategy, or budgets or people or globalization -- I'd probably get a knowledgeable and engaged response.

I used to think it was my fault for bringing up the topic.  Not anymore.

When Business Leaders Own Their Information

The subject of this post came to me in a rather convoluted manner.

As I began to work more with organizations who are trying to achieve broad analytical proficiency, I started to notice something that at first appeared both unusual and unsettling.

One or more business leaders in the organization would begin to lay strong claims to "owning" their information.  

They were prepared to invest their cycles and resources towards acquiring more and improving the value of what they already had available.  They could be persuaded to share -- depending on circumstances.

While these leaders were moderately polite to others in the organization who were doing the same, they didn't want to be dependent on other groups (including, to a certain extent IT) as they went forward with their information ownership goals.

As I started to see more of this -- including in my own company -- I had to stop and think: is this a good thing, or a bad thing?

And I've come to the conclusion: it's a very good thing indeed.  It's precisely the right behavior, and should be encouraged.

Learning To Get Comfortable With Sensorship

No, that's not a typo.  

That's a twist of a clever phrase that our own Thom Lytle used to describe our increasing participation in sensor networks of all kinds.

In a world of big data analytics, what we think, what we do, how we behave -- are incredibly valuable inputs.  There's a powerfully strong incentive to capture our digital exhaust as we move through life.  

In so many of these models, there's no practical way anyone can opt out.  We're increasingly being sensored whether we approve or not.

Not to be overly negative, but there's scant chance of our legal systems ever hoping to catch up to where technology has so quickly brought us.

So I believe the topic of "sensorship" -- our willing and increasingly unwilling participation in data gathering exercises -- is going to be an important one.

The Inherent Difficulty Of Managing Data Growth

One of the most difficult questions I get asked by customers is painfully straightforward: how should we manage the explosive data growth going on in our organizations?

I wish I had a simple recipe.  Do these three ridiculously easy things, and you're set -- for example.  

No such luck.

You'd probably think that EMC would have some sort of semi-official position paper with deep insights on this thorny topic, but -- alas -- that's not the case either.  Truth be told, we tend to be somewhat divided amongst ourselves on the topic.

So, in an effort to be helpful, let me share with you how I'm answering the question when asked.

From CIO To Chief Digital Officer

In the new digital information economy, who leads the transformation from the previous business model to the new one?

In an interesting bit of serendipity, two powerful ideas have connected that give light to a fascinating new career pathway for the progressive CIO.

One world view comes from Russell Reynolds Associates, the industry benchmark in executive leadership talent. 

The other world view comes from Dr. Peter Weill, the Chairman and Chief Research Scientist at the Center for Information Research (CISR) at MIT's Sloan School of Management.

I think they're basically talking about the same thing, only from very different perspectives.

And, before long, I think we'll see many more compelling report-to-the-CEO-directly roles where a progressive CIO background might qualify you to be the best and first choice as the new CDO -- the Chief Digital Officer.

Big Data Hits The Big Time in Davos

If you're a rock musician, you know you've "made it" when you get inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

If you're a societal mega-trend, you know you've hit the big time when you've become the main show at the World Economic Forum being held in Davos.  

I suppose this is just another indication that big data analytics -- and its breathtaking transformative potential -- has officially hit the major leagues.  

Big data is now officially "big".

The profound societal implications of big data analytics has now overflowed the neat category of the  tech world, and is quickly spilling into pointed discussions around such weighty  topics as global health care, economic development, education, governance, agriculture, privacy, national security and more.

One useful observation is that information is becoming the "new currency".  We're seeing the early days of how aggregated information is becoming the new source of innovation and improvement, power and wealth.

And what better place to discuss this new "information economy" than at the World Economic Forum?

Analytically Enabling The Enterprise via BI As A Service

Many amazing things being done in our EMC IT group these days.

The original premise was that -- once we had made enough progress on transitioning to an ITaaS model -- the value-added strategic IT initiatives would start to come hard and fast.  Well, they are.

Why?  

Almost everything IT does now is based on variable, re-usable (and competitive!) services: IaaS, PaaS, SaaS etc.   IT friction is dramatically reduced as a result.

Business users are now marketed to, and not simply told what they can and can't have.  

A financial governance model based on price signals and an internal marketplace is now starting to optimize IT decisions.  

It's a very different IT game here at EMC than just a few short quarters ago.  Perceptions have changed; enthusiasm is everywhere.  And I get the privilege to share it with all of you ...

In a previous post (The Journey To Big Data Analytics), I outlined the process by which most companies we thought would likely acquire and leverage new analytical capabilities.  At a high level, we now feel prepared to start our own internal journey in earnest, much like we're simultaneously tackling the challenge of mobilizing our extended enterprise.

In this post, I'd like to begin to share with you how we're organizing for success around this particular topic.  Yes, we're using plenty of EMC technology (naturally!), but the real key to anything transformative is the organizational approach.

Clouds and Public Policy -- The Developing Economy View

A while back, I wrote a post recapping the work of the CLOUD2 advisory group, chartered with giving the US government a useful perspective on areas where US public policy can help -- or hurt -- in helping to capitalize on cloud models.

As a reasonably developed economy, the US example is illustrative, but what about developing economies?  How should they look at the potential opportunity from their perspective?

Having just returned from Dubai in the UAE, this was the one topic that seemed to bubble up in most of my conversations with the press, local analysts and many of the larger customers and partners -- how can public policy create new opportunities in the face of a shift to an information economy powered by clouds?

And I think my Dubai experience might be a useful model for other aggressively developing economies.