Confessions of an eBiz Junkie

The Transforming Enterprise

Things have been a tad busy of late, and I've been neglecting my blogging duties - Sorry for that. If it's any excuse, I've been working all-out with a very talented bunch of folks to help deliver this, this and this. Which reminds, with this now in the past, I really have to start working on my presentation for this.

If you haven't been following, EMC, Cisco and VMware today announced the Virtual Computing Environment coalition. The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of activity, and have given me an opportunity to witness firsthand the transformation of the traditional enterprise.

Many definitions of Enterprise 2.0 focus on the software that enables extended collaboration within the corporate world. For me, it's as much about the re-engineering of traditional business processes as it is the enabling tools. The notion of opening traditional walls and enabling greater collaboration with customers, partners and prospects alike is among the most fascinating aspects to me.

I got the chance to witness this firsthand and it was fantastic.

Groups working together across different companies is not a new thing... But this whole effort felt very different. As I began working with new friends from Cisco and VMware, I realized that we weren't simply a bunch of independent teams plugging along to a project plan. Rather, it felt like one big passionate team firing on all cylinders. While we sat in varying facilities all over the world and had different logos on our badges, that's where the differences ended.

It was a really cool experience - watching legions of people put aside traditional thinking and processes in support of a common goal - to do right by the customer while transforming an industry.

It was certainly among the more humbling experiences of my career - and I applaud the brands for thinking different - and thinking big. It's exciting stuff.

I'll share a bit more in the coming days about this whole experience... Including the absolute disaster that happened midstream. But - you'll have to check back for that ;). 

Innovation Day at EMC

I have the absolute pleasure today of participating in EMC's Innovation Conference. It's hard to imagine a year has passed since our last event. As I type this, I sit in our Santa Clara facility (California) watching a live broadcast from Bangalore, India where EMC CTO Jeff Nick is opening the days ceremonies. Santa Clara is but one of 13 satellite sites across the globe participating in the days activities.

Breakthrough thinking, adding value to our customers, adding value to EMC, improving the industry at large and identifying ways to further encourage innovation are all among the criteria for idea submissions. This is a wonderful program that really helps highlight the incredible talent, thinking and creativity that thrives within our culture.

In 2007, this program generated about 400 ideas. This year, about 1500 submissions from across the globe made for a tough competition. Kudos to the team that invests the time to pull this together, those who submit ideas and to the culture that simply feeds on innovation.

As I sit here listening to Jeff review the 100 finalists, I'm struck by two things... Certainly the creativity and breadth of ideas is simply staggering. But the focus on the customer is the most impressive aspect to me. It's evident to me that improving our lives by advancing the digital world is among the core drivers for idea submitters and employees alike.

Also of note, just how much our social efforts are paying off. EMC|ONE is at the very hub of global collaboration for this program. Like any such offering, it connects people and effectively enables innovation on a global scale that was simply not possible a few short years ago.

I managed to spend a few minutes with Dan Campbell. Dan is Vice President of Sales for our Western Division, and is also the executive sponsor for the California based events taking place around the Innovation Conference. Dan provides his thoughts on the importance of innovation to EMC, and to our customers.

Are your ears burning?

Anyone every ask you if your ears were burning? If so, it means they were talking about you in some fashion or another. I often wonder in what context my name came up? Was it good or bad? Who else was in on the discussion?

Imagine if I could have a tool that let me know when such conversations were taking place... Letting me know when I'm being talked about and in what vein... I'd use it - you?

Readers of this blog know that we're focusing energy on driving awareness and subsequent proficiency within the 2.0 world across our global employee population. No small feat.

We've used channels like 'Lunch and Learn' events, monthly community meet-ups, internal Tweetups, etc; - All designed to drive awareness, comfort and proficiency within the social web.

I wanted to share another tool in the arsenal that we've just launched as it may be of value in your toolkit as well. The 'dashboard' below is running on a couple of large plasma screens within EMC campuses' with more being added soon. It pulls in near real-time tweets and photos tagged to our brand.

Friends who hung out at the Bloggers Lounge at EMC World will recall something very similar.

The bottom line - we're putting conversations about our brand front and center. We're using this to remind folks that conversations are taking place 24x7 - and we need to not only be aware, but be listening and engaged.

Will it drive awareness across the enterprise overnight? No... But, it will draw a crowd. It will have employees asking others "What's that? What's a Tweet? How can I participate?". In the midst of transformation, such questions are music to my ears.

Cool Opps at EMC

Two really cool opportunities still posted on EMC.com that are likely of interest to readers of this blog. Strangely, links to each results in 'cookies disabled' errors for some so I wanted to duplicate the content here. If interested, use the Requisition ID below to find the relevant opp and submit your credentials.

An Interview with EnterpriseLeadership.org

I'll be sure to tag this one with #ShamelessSelfPromotion ;)

The nice folks over at EnterpriseLeadership.org reached out some time ago and wanted to understand a bit more about our journey into the social realm - with focus on the internal side of the house. We ended up doing a brief video interview that I wanted to share.

A few bits from the discussion:

• Brands who do not embrace internal social / collaborative tools now will face a significant challenge (not to mention security risks) as employees flock to freely available and easily deployed external tools.
• We discuss our inside - out approach to SM, and how developing internal proficiencies has dramatically improved out evolution beyond the confines of our firewall.
• Be wary of the ROI game. Productivity gains, breakdown of organizational silos, employee affinity, enabling global collaboration, etc; - These are soft benefits, but will transform your business. Don't underestimate them.

Being Social and Saving Cake with Telepresence

Earlier this year, we started doing 'Social Media Socials' - where like-minded folks come together to discuss a variety of topics in the social space. I need to give a shout out to Stu Miniman (Blog) and Jamie Pappas (Blog) for the vision and for sustaining this wonderful forum.

I've attended as many as possible, and the conversations are always top-notch. Today we chatted with the team behind the RSA Conference and learned how they're creatively leveraging Social Media to enhance the conference.

To give you a sense of other topics, we recently discussed "Twitter for Business", starting with the 100k foot definition of micro-blogging and quickly getting into details covering topics like listening, brand affiliation, and pro's and con's of reach. Fantastic conversations filled with 'ah-ha' moments... Ultimately strengthening our Enterprise 2.0 proficiency across the workforce.

It's a great program and clearly helps to drive awareness, build a stronger sense of community, and enable collaboration and innovation. Definitely something to consider if you're working to drive SM and E2.0 across your organization.

So what does this have to do with saving cake ($$$)?

We tried something new this go, leveraging our Telepresence infrastructure. If you're not familiar, Telepresence is a video conferencing solution from Cisco that enables high-quality video & audio connections between campuses. 

We have around 7 Telepresence 'rooms' in place today with another 20 or so on the way. So far this year, I'd guess I've avoided at least 3 trips thanks to this offering. No planes, hotels, rental cars, etc;. A brief jaunt down the hall and I'm sitting face to face with my peers in Massachusetts, Ireland and London.

You'll pardon the rough photo from my iPhone - but you're looking at the room I was in here in California. The folks in the left and right panels were in MA while the center screen is our very own StorageZilla all the way from Cork Ireland. 

As you can see, Telepresence offers a very intimate 'conference room' feel and, from my POV, changes the game with regards to long distance communication and collaboration.

Cool Opportunity @ EMC

I generally don't share such opportunities via my blog... After all, you can easily browse a plethora of current opportunities at EMC here. And as you already know, I think it can be a pretty cool place to make a career.

This particular opportunity hit too close to home and is likely very relevant to readers of this blog. Besides, the successful candidate will get a once in a lifetime chance to work with yours truly. We're still debating if that's a good thing or not... more soon.

Anyways, folks in the San Fransisco area who live and breathe the social web should give this opportunity a serious look.

Welcome New EMC Bloggers

But a little housekeeping first. Friends, May was a tough month. If I could only monetize the frequent flyer miles and hotel award points, I'd be blogging from my own private island in the Pacific.

With all of the activity last month, I'm taking a much needed week off next week and will be completely unplugged... Assuming I can actually handle being disconnected for any period of time. Let's see if I can do it.

On to more important topics...

I'm thrilled to introduce to you the latest additions to our EMC Blogging Corps. You can find the whole lot of us over at the Community Section on EMC.com.

Specifically, let me introduce you to Kathrin Winkler, Sr. Director, Corporate Sustainability at EMC. Her blog, Interconnected World, shares her experiences putting sustainability front and center at EMC.

Natalie Corridan-Gregg falls in the 'nicest people in the world' camp. She's a lead contributor to the Working Mother Experience Blog / Book and also manages her own blog, Natalie's Corner, discussing how she balances the demand of wife, mother and employee. She also has one heck of a cute kid...

Lastly, I'm so happy to introduce you to the nice folks over at Conchango, EMC's UK-based consulting practice. I've been on a few calls with the folks from this team, and they're thinking way ahead of the curve. It's a team blog and is simply chock full of rich and interesting content.

You'll want to bookmark all of these... There's a wealth of good information and conversation.

Enjoy our new blogging friends and we'll see you in a week... Or sooner ;)

EMC World - Day One 'Recup'

As Bloggers Lounge attendees will attest, I may have broken the record for number of espressos  consumed in a twelve-hour period. It got to the point where folks were strongly suggesting we shut down our exclusive espresso bar in the interest of my personal health. I think someone even mentioned a twelve-step program, but can't be sure as I was busy talking over them at auctioneer speed.

What a great day one! We met so many cool and interesting people in the lounge and across the event. Myself and many of my EMC Social Media aficionados were busy talking to interested folks about the value of 2.0 in the B2B world. We must have signed close to 100 new Tweeps up during the day... Love it!

Some great content coming from attendees so far. Check out the Twitter and Flickr streams, as well as these Day One recaps:

The Word of Pie shares several posts (And I drink to much coffee??)

• Documentum ECM 6.5 Architecture Overview
• EMC Documentum CenterStage - The New Standard for Extended Enterprise Collaboration
• Documentum Foundation Services (DFS) - Best Practices and Real World Examples

Bas Raayman gives us his thoughts of Day One activity over at Renegades Technical Diatribe

Devang Panchigar managed to get some time with the Storage Anarchist and is also showing off his fancy new Flip camera over at his Storage Nerve blog.

David came by for the espresso - but it cost him a blog post over at Hindsight is Always 50-50 ;)

Greg Schulz also has a cool new Flip camera and is testing out his rich media capabilities (while also giving an update on day one) over at the Storage I/O blog.

Chuck Hollis is on site and working a schedule that looks more like a phone book than anything else. Regardless, he managed to share his initial thoughts on EMC World 2009.

Our own Stu shares initial impressions of the event over at No Hype.

EMC Tweep David Spencer recaps day one activity over at Dave's Talk Shop.

Ed Saipetch talks about V-Max, benchmarking and his time i the bloggers lounge over at Breathing Data.

I'm sure I've missed some here and will be adding as I come across. If you're blogging and I missed you, ping me in the comments.

Now... On to Day 2!

EMC World Bloggers Lounge

I've been neglecting my blogging duties of late - Blame it on road trips. Fortunately, travel was for two great events - the Razorfish Client Summit and the Inbound Marketing Summit - Both were excellent. Of course I also managed to pick up the obligatory nasty cold during many hours at airports.

Down to business... Man am I getting excited for EMC World this year. It's not to late to grab a spot if you haven't already.

I'm most looking forward to the EMC World Blogger's Lounge, sponsored by our friends at ZDNet. It's a bit of an experiment, and we're very much open to hearing how we can tailor it to your needs. It's open to anyone who blogs (or microblogs)... All you have to do to get in is sign up in the comments section below... Tell us who you are and give a link to your blog, if you would.

Here are the folks who have been added to our 'members only' list:

Sam Diaz (Blog - Between The Lines)
Jason Hiner (Blog - TechRepublic)
Dennis Martin (Blog - Wikibon Blog)
Andrew Conry-Murray (Blog - InformationWeek)
Rich Bocchinfuso (Blog - GotITSolutions.org)
Jeff Jedras (Blog - varbose)
Apoorv Durga (Blog - PCM Blog)
Laurence Hart (Blog - Word of Pie)
Bas Raayman (Blog - Renegade's Tech. Diatribe)
Greg White (Blog - Inside Enterprise IT)
Vincent Santo
Chris Evans (Blog - The Storage Architect)
Eric Kiel (Blog - Network0)
Ed Saipetch (Blog - Gestalt IT)
Natalie Corridan-Gregg (Blog - Working Mother Experience)
Marty Glover (Marty - the 'bouncers' are going to be looking for a url before they let you in ;)
Inna Gordin (Blog - SharePoint Reviews)
Denny Cherry (Blog - IT Knowledge Exchange)
Marsha Glassner (Blog - WebSerf)
Charles Hood
Bob Muenster
Greg Schulz (Blog -The Green and Virtual Data Center & Storage IO Blog)
Devang Panchigar (Blog - Storage Nerve)
C Skornicka
Nabeel
Jeff Adam
Jon Tabar (Blog)
Han Solo (So far, no word from Chewbacca)
Nada Wheelock
Karl Owen
Charles Kronauer
Mike Fishman
Kelly Lavin
James Lally
Butch McCrackin

From the EMC Blogging Corps
Chuck Hollis (Blog - Chuck's Blog)
Barry Burke (Blog - The Storage Anarchist)
Mark Twomey (Blog - StorageZilla)
Dave Spencer (Blog - Dave Talks Shop)
Dave Graham (Blog - Dave Graham's Weblog)
Stu Miniman (Blog - NoHype)
Andrew Chapman (Blog - Never Talk When You Can Nod)
Ed Newman (Blog - Mr. Infrastructure)
Brian Henderson (Blog - Power Windows)
Steve Kenniston (Blog - Backup and Beyond)
Me (Blog - Confessions of an eBiz Junkie)

We'll have some special badge bling on day one... Stop by to pick it up as it's your 'key' to access the lounge throughout the event. Okay - we won't make you have it blinking ALL the time...

We'll be giving away a few Flip cameras with hopes that winners capture their EMC World experience and share it with us. Winners will be announced first thing Monday at EMC World and posted here as well (No employees on this one - sorry). Stop by, say hi and see if you are the proudowner of a shiny new Flip camera.

I said this was an experiment, right? Well, we're going to try crowdsourcing the weeks' activities. We'll have a white board in play - and if there are people, topics, etc that you'd like to discuss or meet, simply add it to the board and we'll do our best. So far you've expressed interest in meeting some of the EMC Bloggers - and we'll make that happen.

Lastly, we'd ask you folks to tag your world content with EMCWorld. At the end of the day, we look at this as an opportunity to better get to know one another... And how better than to ensure we're aware of the conversations?

Sign up if you haven't... Truly looking forward to meeting all of you!