Facebook adds a smaller 3rd data center to Prineville site

ABC via AP Reuters via The Bend Bulletin report that Facebook is adding a 3rd smaller data center site in Prineville.

Facebook Plans Third, Smaller Oregon Data Center

 PRINEVILLE, Ore. August 14, 2012 (AP)

 

Facebook Inc. has filed plans for a third data center in the central Oregon city Prineville, but it won't bring additional jobs.

 

The social network company has a 334,000-square-foot facility up and running in Prineville and a twin under construction next door. The third facility would be smaller, about 62,000 square feet.


12 cameras remote controlled, moving images 10 seconds to editors

Taking pictures is a powerful concept.  If you have seen the hundreds of cameras scattered around the Olympics, there was big change where some of the best pictures were taken by remote control.  The below video show what Sports Illustrated did at the Olympics.

There were terabytes of generated each day.

What drove this change was the speed of what can be done.  This photographer had 12 cameras remote controlled, and could identify images within 10 seconds to send to his editors.

pre-IPO Video gives hints of Facebook's strategy

I was talking to my neighbors enjoying the evening breeze and she asked what I thought of the future of Facebook.  I told her the number 1 issue is Google is laser focused on beating Facebook, and that is Facebook's biggest challenge.  Why?  Because Facebook is Google's top competitor for Ad Dollars.

HBR has an interesting article on the right way to run an IPO show and of course chooses to poke at Facebook.

The Right Way to Run an IPO Road Show

by Peggy Klaus  |   8:00 AM August 9, 2012

Over the past 17 years I've worked with hundreds of executives to raise billions of dollars
— from private equity to hedge funds to IPOs. I've seen road shows done right, but I've also seen every mistake in the book.

One part that HBR digs in at Facebook is on pre IPO video.

Procrastinating creates not only a very stressful environment but ultimately a show that is not as well-conceived, customized to the audience, and polished as it must be. If you need proof just look at Facebook's stale video pitch, which was scrapped on the second day of its road show amidst widespread complaints from important institutional investors that it left them little time for their key questions, and was boring to boot.

I watched the video and found it was obvious why Facebook bought Instagram.

 

 

The data center related topic is brought up around the 27 minute mark.

NewImage

I don't know about you, but watching the video the easiest person to watch was Chris Cox, VP of Product.

Business Insider called Cox “a triple threat -- an engineer who can build company-defining products, an operator who can recruit and manage good people, and a long-term strategic thinker,” and named Cox number 2 on its list of 10 Rock Star Tech Execs You’ve Never Heard Of.[5] He is also known for his focus on bringing people and technology together. “Technology does not need to estrange us from one another,” Cox told Wired. “The physical reality comes alive with the human stories we have told there.”[6]

Cox envisions a future in which what your friends recommend on social networks plays a bigger role in what you buy, do, or watch on TV. He told The Wall Street Journal that he believes there will be a time “when you turn on the TV, and you see what your mom and friends are watching, and they can record stuff for you. Instead of 999 channels, you will see 999 recommendations from your friends."[1]

Qualities of a tough management job, US Olympic Basketball Coach Mike Krzyzewski

The US Olympic Basketball team has just won Gold at the London Olympics.  Talk about a tough job being the Coach Mike Krzyzewski.

HBR has a post on the picking of the coach to bring the Gold in 2008 and 2012.

Picking the Man Who'd Lead Basketball's Dream Team to Gold

by Jeffrey M. Cohn  |   9:00 AM August 12, 2012

I first met Jerry Colangelo in 2007, the then newly minted chairman of Team USA basketball, on a steamy summer day around the pool deck of the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas. After a string of embarrassing losses to countries including Argentina, Lithuania, and Puerto Rico(!) — Colangelo was hand-picked to stop the bleeding and bring the gold medal back home to the country that invented the sport. 

The product of a tough, close-knit family from Chicago's Hungry Hill suburb, Colangelo is a straight-talking pragmatist. Despite his low-profile, he is basketball royalty, known for delivering results. NBA commissioner David Stern chose Colangelo in 2005 to change the culture of the Team USA basketball organization, which meant creating a cohesive, winning team out of a group of egotistical, strong-willed, and free-wheeling players.

Part of why I enjoyed this post is it focused on the qualities of what people need to have to lead a talented team.

After some heated back and forth, a small handful of critical qualities emerged as priorities, including: integrity, passion, transparency, and empathy.

When I think of some of the great data center leaders they share these same qualities.  Does your management chain have these qualities?  If not, maybe it is time for a new coach to support the best in the players.

I asked Coach K how he felt when Colangelo offered him the job. "I wanted to jump through the phone I was so excited," he said. "Jerry and I started talking immediately about how to change the culture of this team. We weren't going to simply be another ad-hoc collection of All-Stars. We needed role players that could subsume their superstar egos. Jerry and I asked each player — including the name brand superstars like LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Carmelo Anthony — for a three-year commitment to the team, which was unprecedented.

China launches its Natural Gas Fracking, will they have enough water?

National Geographic has an article on China's fracking for natural gas.

Hills and water have shaped the story of Chongqing, in China's southwest. At the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers, the Sichuan Province city became China's first inland port open to foreign commerce in 1891. In the 1930s and '40s, Chongqing served as China's wartime capital, although the mountain ranges on all four sides provided less of a buffer than hoped against Japanese air raids.

Now a new chapter in Chongqing's history is being written, as hydraulic fracturing rigs assembled this summer in this undulating landscape to drill into one of China's first shale gas exploration sites.

Some get excited that natural gas replaces coal for power generation, but there is a huge impact on water supplies to support fracking.

Still, the water demand of fracking—requiring millions of gallons—presents a serious concern, says David Fridley, a staff scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy'sLawrence Berkeley lab in California. China's per capita water availability is only a quarter of the world average, according to the World Bank. And Sichuan, which produces 10 percent of China's grain, uses a great deal of its water resources for agriculture.