Steve Prentice's Blog, page 13

Moving Assets to the Cloud

Recently I was interviewed by writer extraordinaire Jen Clark for a story, published by San Francisco-based IT Experts FORTE Systems on the topic of data migration to the cloud. Her article included input from industry expert Daniel Steeves, senior IT analyst at Crisp Research René Büst, and technology lawyer Frank Jennings. Here is an excerpt (my part):

Although local storage seems like a sound concept, much like having a wall safe in the house, data that is restricted to a single physical area and may be more prone to external attack, physical disaster (fire and floods, for example) and premature aging of infrastructure. Private cloud technology protects a business’s mission-critical assets by distributing saved data across numerous servers in invisible locations. Cloud companies make it their business to ensure that security is up-to-the-second and reliable. They tend to use stronger encryption systems and have greater access to the experts and technology that will keep them competitive – which in turn means better protection for their customers.

To read the entire article, please go to the FORTE Systems blog here.

Technology for FOLO (the fear of losing out)

In addition to my own posts, I also write for CloudTweaks, an authority on cloud computing. My most recent post forcuses on the social condition known as “fear of losing out (FOLO)”, a direct consequence of being online all the time. The post covers a technology created by Gravy which adds a new dimension of immediacy to your social awareness and its corresponding calendar. Here is an excerpt:

A timely addition to the acronym-laden family tree of modern language, right up there with YOLO (you only live once), and many evolutionary steps beyond the great-grandparents OMG and ROTFL, comes the wonderful term FOLO. This stands for “fear of losing out,” and quite concisely reflects the attitude of many millions of busy and connected people of all ages, for whom 24/7 access to Internet-based information remains a necessity – multidimensional and ever-expanding, with data both incoming and outgoing across a range of social media platforms. For these types of people there exists an appetite for knowledge and awareness that cannot be satiated.

The need to know is a very human one, and hence FOLO, the fear of losing out, of not knowing about every activity or item of knowledge that is out there, is a natural outcome. This desire, at least on the entertainment and leisure side is being answered by increasingly sophisticated hyperlocal mobile apps such as Gravy, which shows its customers every event happening nearby, and which can find solutions for their entertainment wanderlust by using their phone’s geolocation features combined with a smart recommendation algorithm.

To read the full post, please visit CloudTweaks here.

My proposal to use the word “ford” as a leadership verb

For much of the past thousand years the term ford has been used either as a noun, referring to a shallow place in a river that is easy to wade through, thus not needing to build a bridge, or it has been used as a verb, describing the act of crossing a river at this same shallow place. In either case, one could project that it represents the conquest of a significant challenge by minimizing both work and planning, while leaving no structure in place to handle future needs.

This term comes so aptly to mind while observing the daily escapades of the current mayor of Toronto, who happens to have that word as his surname.

This blog is not intended to be an anti-Ford rant. It is intended instead to observe the curious action of avoiding the work of being accountable while holding a position of leadership; an act that a great many public figures, especially those on the political stage, display. In metaphorical terms, wading across a stream of challenge instead of building a bridge to address the problem.

For example, one of the most curious actions displayed by Mayor Ford is his constant trifecta of ignoring, avoiding and deflecting. Journalists who ask questions that he deems unwelcome are simply ignored. They are seldom greeted with a “no comment,” nor are they handed off to a press secretary or other spokesperson. They are simply ignored as if they had never been asked. When a press scrum becomes too unwieldy, the back-door is used for quick egress; and when a question is asked directly, as was the case on the now infamous Jimmy Kimmel appearance, the response takes the form of a deflection, as in:

Question: “Is there any validity to these accusations of domestic abuse, drunk driving, racism, homophobia and inability to tell the truth?”

Answer: “Is that all I got? I guess they don’t talk about all the money I’ve saved.”

Mr. Ford is by no means alone in his attempts to obfuscate through distraction and avoidance. One need only think back to President Clinton’s “Lewinsky moment” in which the term “sexual relations” was hastily redefined for the world, or the blatantly incorrect statements that were made by presidential candidate Romney and others during the 2012 debates – fact-checked and responded to in seconds, not days by the viewing audience – a concept that still seems to mystify politicians of every stripe.

There seems to thrive in the heart of so many these public figures a hope or belief that one can exist moment by moment – hopping across a stream one rock at a time – relying on the short memory of the public to draw away lasting liabilities of what might have been said or inferred.

One may argue that this is sound political strategy, after all the public has been known to actually have a short memory. But this does not play out so well in a wired world, where everyone can communicate with each other and PR handlers are no longer in control of a politician’s total image and legacy. Memory is now supplanted by connection, and words and images now have a tendency to echo.

Toronto Mayor Ford in LA. Image credit: Mayors’ own Twitter page.

Take this image, for example. This photo shows the mayor of Toronto’s biggest city (and North America’s fourth or fifth largest, depending who you ask) standing meekly at the back of a room in the Los Angeles City Hall, where a council meeting was taking place. The Mayor, who had decided to drop in unannounced to City Hall was apparently unaware that his counterpart, Mayor Garcetti, was out of town on a trade mission of his own; Mayor Ford had apparently chosen not to set up appointments with Mr. Garcetti or with any of the film industry power-players, who would likely have given him a few minutes, given his status as leader of “Hollywood North.”

The photo is in many ways more damning that any of those from Mr. Kimmel’s program, because a certain degree of deer-in-the-headlights is to be expected when seated as a guest on any nationwide talk show.  But the City Hall photo shows something far worse than that. It shows a leader without status.

Leaders, both political and corporate, need status more than fame or notoriety. Status establishes credibility. It strengthens relationships, and delivers comfort and confidence to a population, to an employee base and to a customer base.  Without the credibility that comes from being able to answer a question with calm assurance, leadership vanishes, and the foundations start to crumble.

An answer does not have to be the desired one to have this effect; it simply has to be strong. In 1970, during the October Crisis, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau answered the question on how far he would go to suspend civil liberties by saying, “Just watch me.” Whether you agreed or not with Mr. Trudeau either then or now, the point remains that he maintained a position of leadership and confidence. He kept his status.

As I observe the Ford brothers’ daily act of ducking questions and responding with vitriol against the messenger or against a growing collection of perceived political foes, I see two people grasping the air as their feet slip on the rocks they chance to step upon. A person can feel sorry when observing such an act, but at the same time can wonder why they didn’t do more to build a more solid structure.

Any politician or public figure who prides him/herself on being a people-person, must take stock that to be a people-person requires more than just a love of the role. As the expression goes, if you wish to be spontaneous in life, plan to be spontaneous. To appear great, you have to figure out what greatness means. To show up without a plan means banking on the energy of the moment and condemning oneself to a legacy of doubt and mistrust in the hearts of the very people you seek to embrace.

A great many lessons can be learned from this new act of fording, in fact the Ford brothers’ greatest legacy might become the case study material they can provide through their actions, words and messages, on how not to lead. Anyone interested in taking over the helm of a department, a company or a political territory would do well to observe the overall results of fording and choose for themselves how much or how little they wish to use these techniques to win the hearts and minds of the people who exist there.

To extend the metaphor one last time, fording a stream only succeeds in getting your feet wet, and very few people will be truly willing to follow.

The Ancient and Future Art of Outsourcing and Collaboration

In addition to my own posts, I also write for ActionMint, an authority on cloud-based project management. Recently I posted an article on their blog concerning outsourcing and collaboration, and that it is an idea that goes back many centuries. Here is an excerpt:

Back in the age when the Romans ruled much of the world, there was a special place, located in what we now collectively call the Middle East, where three major roads met: the road leading northwest to Europe, the road leading south to Africa, and the road leading east to Asia. At the meeting place of these three roads was, so the story goes, a giant pole, upon which passers-by would post messages to other passers-by, in the hope and expectation that the private messages would be delivered to their destinations and that the public notices would be read and acted upon. Some people were looking for investors or business partners; others were selling goods from exotic places beyond the horizon. Others simply wished to leave messages about dangerous routes, commercial opportunities, distant tribes and peoples, and other information that was useful for travellers and traders at-large.

The information that was posted on this fabled pole became the common knowledge of those who needed to know. The place where the pole stood, at the junction of these three roads was called, in Latin, the Tre Via (the three roads), a word that through the ages became rounded down to trivia, and which has come to represent “common knowledge to the point of redundancy.”

The Tre Via could be seen as an early prototype of group communication and collaboration technology. There was no Internet back then, of course, no phones and no reliable mail service. Instead, this open pillar of knowledge stood accessible to all, and opportunities and synergies derived from its presence. The knowledge was not “unnecessary” as today’s definition of trivia might suggest, but simply available to many.

To read the full article, please visit the ActionMint blog here.

US Government Agencies move to the cloud

In addition to my own posts, I also write for CloudTweaks, an authority on cloud computing. My most recent post focuses on a fascinating report published by the analayst firm Meritalk, on the progress being made by numerous US Federal agencies who were challenged by the Obama administration to move to the cloud. The report demonstrates come of the significant improvements and cost-savings that have been achieved. Here is an excerpt:

Skepticism as to actual cost savings was a recurrent theme among many agencies at the start of the project, but many clear examples of tangible improvements were later recorded, whether the migration focused solely on email management, as was the case with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), or more complex Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) migration, as performed by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board (RATB). Agency heads were able to identify benefits in both cost savings and cost avoidance.

The agencies discovered that cloud migration was not merely a cost-saving opportunity, but that there was significant opportunity for innovation, both in terms of deployment as well as the economics of maintenance. As MeriTalk puts it, “cloud delivered cost savings plus a new level of agility in meeting mission demands,” specifically in areas such as reliability, accountability, mission focus and flexibility. Interesting developments in this area included NASA, who opted for cloud-based disaster recovery options to “geographically expand its resilience without paying for independent infrastructure,” and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which saw a benefit in using a “pay-as-you-go model” in place of a more traditional investment-return scheme.

To read the full article, please visit CloudTweaks here.

The Power of Custom Metrics in Cloud Server Monitoring

In addition to my own posts, I also write for CloudTweaks, an authority on cloud computing. My most recent post focuses on the need for IT managers to use custom dashboards in order to see through the morass of information in front of them, in order to predict and avoid damaging issues such as slow page-load speeds, or to easily track and rectify the source of the problem. Here is an excerpt:

Have you ever watched an auction? Whether people are seeking to buy fine art, cars or livestock, they will spend time at an auction house, in order to place their bids and hopefully snag a deal. A well-run auction is a fascinating event to watch, and most interesting of all is the person who calls out the prices and acknowledges the bids. The auctioneer uses a keen eye to identify the most subtle of gestures from the audience: the flick of a single index finger, a raised eyebrow, or a gesture of the head is all that is needed to read the intentions of the bidding floor and move the process ever upwards.

Wouldn’t it be great if that same subtle ability existed for IT managers? To be able to look over a collection of dashboards and readouts and immediately detect a subtle spike or an errant digit that signifies trouble ahead? Granted, there are some people who are able to do just this – usually after many years of constant practice and daily experience – but for companies struggling with continued growth as well as modifications and upgrades to their systems as well as a highly volatile marketplace, the capacity to notice subtle warning signs just can’t keep pace.

To read the full article, please visit CloudTweaks here.

 

Time Management and the Power of Focus

I write for Time Management for iPad Magazine, an authority on Time Management. This link takes you to the February 2014 issue, which includes an article I wrote on the importance of focus. Here is an excerpt:

Focus is not a natural human activity; it must be learned and perfected, inside and out. For example, anyone who has ever asked a four-year-old child to sit still for five minutes knows that this is a virtually impossible task. The body and mind need to move, and young children, not yet yoked by the social obligations that come with maturity, express their desire to shift and fidget with great predictability.

We may all grow older, but that internal desire to fidget and move still remains. It is an offshoot of the primordial need to be aware of and reactive to our environment, to be able to avoid danger and pounce upon opportunity as needed. Focus is too narrow to be of use as a survival tool.

This is bad news for harried professionals, desperately seeking a few moments of focus in the midst of a busy day. If by some chance quiet descends upon the workplace, we know it will not last long, for soon another email will arrive, another colleague or customer will come to call, or another issue will make its presence known. The tasks that require total concentration will get put off once again, resulting in a decrease in overall productivity and a corresponding dip in morale.

To read more, please click here.

The Importance of Paperwork in Project Management

In addition to my own posts, I also write for ActionMint, an authority on cloud-based project management. Recently I posted an article  on their blog concerning the importance of keeping up with the paperwork while running a project. Here is an excerpt:

Project managers are often mystified by the amount of “paperwork” that the average project requires. Even if handled on computer without a single sheet of actual paper being touched, there seems to be an inordinate amount of writing standing between a project manager and the perceived reality of actually doing things. The temptation is great to bypass all of this bureaucratic writing, or at least put it off to the end of the project, but such thoughts are very dangerous. A project without a paper skeleton becomes a shapeless, uncontrollable thing. Without the right types of documentation, stakeholders and team members alike can lose track of the mission of a project, its actual deliverable, or worse, where the money is going (or has gone). It is extremely easy to lose track of details during the intense day-to-day operation of a project, but without these details a project cannot succeed.

To read the full article, please visit the ActionMint blog here.

 

I Don’t Know What I Don’t Know

In addition to my own posts, I also write for CloudTweaks, an authority on cloud computing. My most recent post focuses on another common IT issue: not being able to locate a problem due to outdated or inadequate monitoring software. The bottom line is it is seconds, not hours, that are required to root out danger quickly, or better yet, before it happens. The article features solutions provided by Austin, TX-based CopperEgg. Here is an excerpt:

What happens when the IT person doesn’t know where the source of a system failure is? What happens when that same IT person has to go and explain to an executive that the source of the problem cannot be found quickly, due to an organically-evolved legacy system or diagnostic tools that cannot reveal what is truly happening under the hood? What kind of answer can be given when the boss asks why we didn’t see this coming?

Such scenarios are enough to make most IT managers wake up at 3 a.m. in a cold sweat.

Minutes count, but seconds count even more. A sudden surge in social media activity for example, might place greater demand on a system which, if properly balanced and prepared, would likely be able to handle the increased load. But if a monitoring system is slow, outdated, or vague, or if it does not provide alerts in advance – based on current needs and past performance – then the crash comes first and frenzied diagnosis must follow afterwards.

To read the full article, please visit CloudTweaks here.

An Antidote To Overprovisioning

In addition to my own posts, I also write for CloudTweaks, an authority on cloud computing. My most recent post focuses on a common IT issue: overprovisioning as a means to outpace demands on a dynamic and growing cloud server system. The article features solutions provided by Austin, TX-based CopperEgg. Here is an excerpt:

There are many situations in this world – both the virtual world of computing, and the real world, where preparedness means having more than you need. Stocking up on food, medicines, or printer paper and toner makes it easy to get things done in a timely fashion rather than having to run back out to the store.

But this preparedness comes with a price. Materials that sit on shelves waiting to be used occupy space and devour available funds. They must have great and tangible value to justify their existence, which is why so many large manufacturers rely instead on just-in-time delivery and lean techniques to ensure a smooth flow of supplies without the costly overhead.

These same efficiencies are also essential in maintaining virtual systems, but this still feels uncomfortable to administrators charged with the responsibility of keeping systems both functional and up-to-date. In the days when much of a network depended on hard physical assets such as servers and memory, it was common for admins to over-purchase as a practical alternative to the cost in labor, time and funds to buy and install upgrades on spec, or the danger involved in keeping extra parts on the shelf. It was much easier to simply buy more than needed and install it all at once…

To read the full article, please visit CloudTweaks here.