Why I am not attending Uptime Symposium 2012

The following is an explanation of why I am not attending Uptime Symposium 2012

Many people ask me what Data Center conferences to go to.  Everyone is a little different.  The list of conferences to look at and I have attended are 7x24 Exchange, DatacenterDynamics, Uptime Symposium, Gartner Data Center Conference and Data Center World.

I've been going to Uptime for the last 5 years in Orlando, New York and Santa Clara.  I've had a great time at the conferences.

One of my best memories is my first Uptime Symposium and some of my friends said there was a Google guy attending.  i asked if they had talked to him.  When they tried to have a conversation it didn't go far.  24 hrs later I caught up with my friends and told them I had talked to the Google guy.  For an hour and a half and we sat next to each other during a few presentations.  The Google guy's best compliment is you are one of the few who get what is going on.  I have stayed friends with the Google data center guy who no longer works for Google.  And, that is why events like Uptime Symposium are so great to meet new people.

But, after 5 years, I find I am not meeting the new people, and it is too easy to gravitate to the people you know almost like a  reunion.  This year I was on the fence whether to go to Uptime Symposium or not. Many of my data center friends where skipping Uptime Symposium this year, and we said we would all see each other at 7x24 Exchange in Orlando.

For the past 4 years I have attended as media and even spoke on a media panel discussion at Uptime with Kevin Heslin, Matt Stansberry, and Rich Miller.  But, I am not a full time media guy.  And, I don't want to be one.  And that is the thing that helped me make the decision.  The policy has changed this year and only full time media people get media passes to Uptime.  i could attend the free expo and see the vendors.  Or I could pay the conference fee.  yah that is what I need I need to do is.  Not.

i'll miss a few people's presentation, but the nice thing is they can shoot me their presentations  if they want to me write a blog post.  I can read the slides and figure out what they are presenting.

What about the stuff I learn from watching Uptime presentations?  The #1 thing I learn at data center conferences is how much further ahead I am vs. what is being presented.  How?  Working in the tech industry in product development for over 30 years is a great background to figure out tough problems.  The data center insiders I know and the research i do has me thinking of things years out.  I blog about things, including presentations I think my friends and clients would find interesting.  One of the best parts of running this blog is how quickly I can have conversations with people given they have been reading my posts.

What about The 451 Group and their expertise?  I have never had a conversation with an Uptime person other than Matt Stansberry.  So, not an issue.

i will be in SJ the week of Uptime Symposium  though and a bunch of us are getting together.  Some are attending Uptime, many are not.  Here is a blog post on the social event last year.

With my current plan to attend 7x24 Exchange twice a year, I think I am reaching the main people I want to.  I meet new people there all the time as there is much more time to socialize.  To meet new people I go to GigaOm events, not another data center event.

Uptime Symposium was great at its time to learn the data center vendor ecosystem.  Who has the marketing money and what messages they are presenting.

I totally understand Uptime Institute's change in policy. I would like to thank them for letting me attend in the past, and making it easier for me to get off the fence.

China's 2011 Server market exceeded 1 millions units in 2011

IDC released news on China regarding the server market.  The post is in Simplified Chinese, and thanks to Google translate here is some of the information.

General-purpose server market reached 1.0122 million units in 2011
http://www.idcps.com 2012-02-29 11:20:20 It168 The degree of concern ( 386 ) Forum
IDC Review February 29: Recently, the Ministry of National Electronic Information Industry Development Institute (CCID) officially released the 2010-2011 China's server market research report ". The report shows that the 2011 general-purpose server market reached 1.0122 million units, up 25.3 percent, three times the global average, the engine of growth of the worldwide server market. From the performance of various manufacturers, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, IBM breakdown of the top three markets, Hewlett-Packard to maintain share, Dell more than IBM, the second place, the tide of domestic brands continue to maintain domestic sales, the industry further consolidated. CCID report shows that the server market in 2011 generally showed healthy trend, the rapid growth of large servers in more than four of them become the biggest bright spot of the market.

The government and Internet was biggest growth areas.

The two industries of the Internet, the government contribution to the major increment in the market. The procurement of online video, online games, e-commerce and other Internet areas of strong growth, by its pull, telecommunications, the growth rate of 59% in 2011 the fastest growing industries

 

Is your memory as real as you think, looking at photos change it

To run a data center requires hundreds of things to be done correctly.  Mistakes are made, and an assumption in people just forget.

An interesting different explanation is your memory is malleable.  You forgot, but then you saw images that made it seem like you did the task correctly.

A Photo is Worth a Thousand Ways to Change Your Memory

Most of us realize that memory is fallible. We forget things all the time–car keys, passwords, whether we turned off the oven, etc.  But how many of us would admit that our memory is susceptible to change from the outside? That’s different from simply forgetting–something everyone does on their own–because someone else changing our memory requires “getting in our heads” so to speak, right?

If you forget to work on one area out of many.  It is possible that your correct execution of the tasks mask your error.

Participants were presented with a series of objects on a table, and for each object were asked to either perform an action or imagine performing an action (i.e. “crack the walnut”).  One week later, the same participants were brought back and randomly presented with a series of photos on a computer screen, each of a completed action (i.e. a cracked walnut), either one, two or three times. Other participants were not shown any photos.

One week later, they were brought back to complete a memory test in which they were presented with action phrases (i.e. “I cracked a walnut”) and asked to answer whether they had performed the action, imagined performing it, or neither, and rate their confidence level for each answer on a scale of one to four.

The results: the more times people were exposed to a photo of a completed action, the more often they thought they’d completed the action, even though they had really only imagined doing it.  Those shown a photo of a completed action once were twice as likely to erroneously think they’d completed the action than those not shown a photo at all.   People shown a photo three times were almost three times as likely as those not shown a photo.

Facebook moves to new Seattle office, 2 people in 2010, now 90

Facebook has moved into a new office in Seattle.

Facebook had an opening event at its new Seattle engineering office, offering a public glimpse into new digs where the company has sweeping views and room to nearly double the team.

It relocated April 2 from crowded space near Pike Place Market where the Seattle office opened with two employees in August 2010. It now has about 90 engineers.

...

NewImage

Here are the current openings in the office.

Seattle, WA

Located downtown in the metropolitan heart of the great Pacific Northwest, this office will house many of the brightest engineers at Facebook. If you're an experienced engineer in the Seattle area, our Seattle office offers you a local opportunity to help build the next generation of Facebook.
Pick Your Location

21 open positions

Product Management

Recruiting

Software Engineering

 

What the Startup pitch really means

Virgin Entrepreneur has a great post on what the startup pitch really means.

Startup says what? Here's an entrepreneur guest blog on common startup myths and how you can learn from them...They are the little white lies entrepreneur like to tell partners, investors, potential employees and their spouses. It's like a code. Every sentence can be translated from startup-speak to the English equivalent. I know I'm in for a long conversation, meeting or pitch when I hear any of these...

One of my favorite lines is.

Startup Says: "The product is ... a breakthrough, patented, innovative, yada-yada-yada"

Translation: "Lipstick is on the pig get ready to watch us make bacon"

When I hear these adjectives I'm prepared for a crappy demo or an unfinished product. My advice is to dispense with the adjectives. I want to know what the product does, who the target customer is and then I want a demo. In almost every case I'll be able to detect the secret sauce if it's there and I'll be more excited because it was my discovery. After the demo reiterate the opportunity and then just shut up. The questions will come.

 

 

Startup says what?By Chuck Russell - Apr 12, 2012