Confessions of an eBiz Junkie

We ARE Big Data

At EMC World last week, ten-thousand of us got together in person to discuss what happens when cloud meets big data. Through the wonders of Social Media, we were able to extend that conversation well beyond the physical confines of the event, to hundreds of thousands more.

It was simply awesome to watch.

As we've done in recent years, we had a really cool 'buzzboard' running on plasma screens throughout the event (See screenshot below). Somewhat par for the course, our buzzboard scrolled tweets and images tagged #EMCWorld in real time. It's a good reminder of the digital discussions that take place alongside the physical.

During his opening keynote, EMC CEO Joe Tucci shared that in 2010, the digital universe was 1.2 zetabytes. By end of decade, it's projected to be 35 zetabytes. That's 44x growth. WOW!

To that end, we added a new twist to our buzzboard this year - The 'Big Data Meter'. Here's a screengrab from the counter on our EMC World Facebook page.

 

 

We set out to project the amount of digital information generated during an event such as EMC World. To get there, we looked at social activity from last years event and made some assumptions based on audience growth.

We then turned our attention to the logistics of this years show... How many keynotes, how many breakout sessions, how many hours of live broadcast, etc;.

The net net here - Between tweets, blogs, images, breakout presentations, keynote videos, live broadcasts and the like, roughly 100 terabytes of information a day was created and added to the digital universe during EMC World.

And, as we watched it all unfold in real-time, I'm convinced that our assumptions going in were rather conservative.

My takeaway - big data is not merely an interesting theme on the horizon. It's not a phenomenon specific to big companies. Rather, it's here, it's now, and it's all of us...

More information on our exploding digital universe over here.

Preserving Information - The EMC Heritage Trust Project

Consider for a moment the explosive growth of our digital universe. Between now and 2020, the amount of digital information created will grow to a staggering 35 trillion gigabytes! If you haven't already, be sure to check out the EMC / IDC Digital Universe report for a real provocative look into this expanding universe.

Now consider all of the information created BEFORE the arrival of the digital revolution - and the means in which it's 'stored'.  Consider the photographs, historical records, ancient writings, visual arts, etc - that all remain captured only in fragile forms such as paper.

EMC's Heritage Trust Project looks to help digitize such priceless information. Through this program, EMC works with initiative partners to provide hardware, software, expertise, financial assistance, and recognition to those who use digital tools to preserve the world's heritage and make it available via the Internet for research and education.

EMC is calling for nominations for the 2011 Heritage Trust Project. The project provides cash grants betwen $5,000 - $15,000 to organizations that seek to pursue digital archive initiatives.

This is an incredibly valuable program and I'm proud to be a part of the company behind it. Protecting and remembering our past is key, and digitizing historical information is of great value to our and future generations. Please help spread the word on this... Much more information on the program itself and the process for submitting nominations is available on EMC.com.

 

Experimenting with Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

For a gadget geek, working in high-tech can offer up a pseudo candy-store like experience. When visiting HQ, I always do my best to run through our main data-center. It's staggering to see first-hand just how much technology has advanced in just a few short years. Long gone are the days of the MV8000 and countless racks of tapes.

So the interesting technology of the week? VDI, or virtual desktop infrastructure.

Staying Connected with EMC World - Let me Count the Ways...

 

Here we are. Luggage is packed, schedules are finalized, and technologists and industry pundits from across the globe will soon converge on the Boston Convention Center for EMC World 2010.

Whether you're joining us in person or participating from afar, there's no shortage of ways for you to connect, engage and be a part of this exciting event. Here are a few ways you can keep up with the action...

EMC World 2010 is (almost) Here!

With EMC World 2010 just around the corner, there's an unmistakable excitement in the air across our campuses. Folks are working feverishly to wrap up their presentations, finalize demos and polish off some really cool technology - all to ensure attendees have a rewarding and memorable experience.

We have much in store this year, but I wanted to take a few minutes to review some of the basics, and also share a couple of cool things taking place.

Where You @?

Greetings from my first visit to SxSW. Talk about a whirlwind of activities, conversations and provocative technology. I'll definitely be back.

As impressive as the collective intelligence assembled for the event is, the feat or actually pulling off something of this magnitude is equally incredible. Show organizers deserve considerable credit, as does the enormous army of volunteers who apparently assemble from across the globe to make the event a success out of sheer passion.

A view from the SxSW Bloggers Lounge

Among the things that I'll take away is the widespread use of geo locating apps like FourSquare and Gowalla to connect attendees. I've found myself using Twitter a bit less than expected, and rather have leaned more on geo based apps to find local trends, where my peers are, sentiment on sessions, etc;. Twitter recently added location support for Tweets and Facebook is expected to do the same in the near future.

Legitimate privacy issues aside, this is more than just the latest trend. It's yet another step in adding important contextual information to conversations. From a business POV, imagine being able to track where your teams are - understanding things like support staff deployment, and your ability to deploy resources to customer issues more efficiently based on their location? Wow.

If you haven't already, grab your flavor of geo based apps from your favorite app store and start exploring. It's likely to spawn all sorts of legitimate business use cases for you. And while you're exploring, feel free to connect with me (LenD) on both FourSquare and Gowalla.

Update: Kudos to Microsoft and Paypal. $.25 to charity for every geo checkin during SxSW. They just hit the $15k mark. Impressive. More info at CheckinforCharity.com.

The Contextual Web

January is full of pithy posts around possible trends in the year(s) ahead, including mine yesterday. That post triggered a chat on Twitter between myself and EMC pal Irsan Widarto.

Irsan suggests that we're entering a period of 'mass personalization', and I couldn't agree more.

I've been considering the seemingly untapped opportunities in this space for some time. Despite the fact that there is SO much business intelligence readily available about each of us, the web remains a large and somewhat unwelcoming pool of information and conversation... For search engines, this is a great thing. But does it have to be this way?

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 ;). 

Changing Behaviors

Can you teach Social Media skills? There's a great blog post and subsequent discussion happening over at Adam Cohen's blog.

I land squarely in the 'absolutely yes' camp - But perhaps with a bit of a twist.

I believe we have two crowds in the workforce today. Those who have grown up online, and consider communicating via text messages as routine as eating food, and those who haven't. For the latter, the notion of sharing and collaborating to the degree we do online often seems foreign and perhaps even ludicrous.

From a business perspective, there is one common denominator. You have to set the ground rules.

Regardless if you're a power blogger or if you're first Tweet was a lifetime event for you, there needs to be common rules of the road. First and foremost, establish your over-arching guidelines for acceptable and desired behavior.

So back to training... In a business environment, I'm all about establishing proficiency across the employee population.

I see this as different from training around Social Media (hence the twist). Yes there is a need to understand the tools at hand and how to leverage... To me, it's more about the fundamental shift in the way we were taught to operate. I compare the business world today to that of the mid 90's - It's a completely different playing field.

As we go through our journey at EMC embracing E2.0, I see walls breaking down. I see dramatic shifts in the way we communicate internally and externally. I see new management styles being employed - with far more matrixed collaboration than ever before... The list goes on and on.

We are operating in a fundamentally different way than we have in years past - and have only scratched the surface.

To expedite and get the most of this transformation, I believe foundational training in enterprise 2.0 techniques and behaviors is absolutely crucial. I see Social Media training as a component of this, but would want to re-introduce employees to the new ways to engage and interact behaviorally in a 2.0 world first.

Thanks Adam, for spinning up this discussion. I'd like to think that some type of E2.0 education will be common place in the business world in the very near future.

The Digital Universe set for its own Big Bang

Greetings from EMC World. Things are in full swing here in Orlando, FLA... An amazing show last night from the Gin Blossoms, our bloggers lounge is full of activity and Joe is about to take the stage to formally kick off the week.

No doubt you'll be seeing plenty of activity coming out of EMC World this week, but I couldn't resist mentioning this IDC white paper on the Digital Universe. It's an update to a similar piece from last year, but the numbers this go are all the more staggering.

Some highlights :

• 487 billion gigabytes of information were added to the Digital Universe in 2008.
• In 2012, there will be five times as many bits created or captured and added to the Digital Universe as in 2008.
• For all the information we create as individuals - taking pictures, updating our Facebook profile, sending emails, watching HDTV programs - an amount greater than that is created or captured about us in the Digital Universe.

I found the paper numbing. It talks about the impact of the economic crisis on the growth of the Digital Universe. Turns out - there hasn't been one. By that, even more information was generated in 2008 than predicted (by a factor of 3%).

While the Digital Universe is expected to grow by a factor of almost 5 during the next four years, IT budgets are only expected to grow by a factor of 1.2. (Note - warning flag should go up here...)

So, we're generating tons of information - and ease of producing and publishing information becomes easier each and every day.

The need for security and information management techniques will be key to organizing, managing and CONSUMING all of this information in the days to come, and the demand put on IT organizations will be enormous.

It's a provocative and well written piece... Definitely take some time to give it a read. And don't forget, you can monitor your own contributions to the Digital Universe with this nifty Digital Footprint Calculator.

That's all for now. Standby as we'll be doing our part to contribute to the growth of the Digital Universe from down here at EMC World.