Looking forward to another 7x24 Exchange Conference

I admit that I was a late attendee to 7x24 Exchange. I had been attending Uptime Symposium, Data Center Dynamics, Data Center World, Gartner Conferences, IBM, Open Compute, and some other conferences. And thanks to Lee Kirby who suggested I attend 7x24 Exchange I decided to look a bit at the conference. Then I met David Schirmacher who is the President of 7x24 Exchange. Lee Kirby is the President of Uptime Institute. So based on two smart people telling me to attend 7x24 Exchange I started and now I attend both the Fall and Spring event and I always find it is time well spent.

I checked out the attendee list to see who is going who I know and to check out who is attending who I should look to meet. This is part of being an open Conference that supports the interaction of its attendees. 

I am looking forward to see Robbie Bach’s keynote. Being ex-Microsoft and Robbie is too. Will be interesting what words of wisdom he has. 

See many of you at 7x24. I’ll be there. 

Pictures of Verne Global's Mechanical System

I had posted about Verne Global's latest data center status and here are pictures of these systems.

Comparing Washington DC vs. Silicon Valley Technology Perspectives

There is a huge gap between how Washington DC views technology and Silicon Valley. If you are interested in the differences check out Stacey Higginbotham's post on her experience visiting a Washington DC conference.

This is a good summary of the difference.

“All tech policy seems to boil down into a debate about states rights versus federal control. It’s like the debates over the Affordable Health Care Act with people in the halls and onstage lamenting the patchwork of state laws around privacy, internet taxation, data breach disclosure laws and more. Republican Senator Rand Paul, for example, got onstage to call out the government for imposing social standards on states at the federal level (a problem in his mind). Fellow Republican Senator John Thune apparently wants no government regulatory involvement in tech, including issues such as network neutrality or ensuring that the IP transition leaves people with some form of voice phone access. Whereas in Silicon Valley the axis might be around one company versus another (ie. Google v. Facebook or ISPs v. Netflix ) or legacy equipment versus new infrastructure, the framework in D.C. is decidedly different.

The tool of choice is paper, not a computer. I can scan the rows of people at our Structure conference and see the lids of many a MacBook or the glow of tablets, but here, while there were some folks typing in their notes, more were jotting things down on paper. And in conversations with people, only one ever pulled out a phone; and that was because someone was calling her. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler even told me after an onstage interview that people are more productive wearing a watch than using their phones to check the time because the phones then distract them. People clearly have smart phones, but they aren’t using them like they are a tether to a more interesting world.”

What i would add is Silicon Valley will be much more interested in what the technology does and how it works. Washington DC is more interested in the impact of technology which can be much harder to articulate and fits in their perspective of how to regulate the use of technology.

Creating a better operations environment by thinking abstractly, using agency

I am watching Gabe Newell again in his talk to LBJ school. I owe much of my career change as if it wasn't for Gabe I would not have left Apple to go to Microsoft in 1992. Now some of you may say that if I had stayed at Apple in 1992 i would be better off than going to Microsoft, but the chances of my staying at Apple after 1992 were slim.

And one of the nuggets is how does Valve make decisions on what to do to make better games. at the 28m mark is where Gabe shares Valves insight.

Below is written explanation.

This idea is powerful, because it is a good abstraction. i plan on using this.

“Economics is really human behavior/psychology dressed up in fancy technical language. A lot of it is actually fairly common-sense, once you get past the language.

Here, specifically, “agency costs” refers to the principal-agent problem, aka, the agency problem.

In common terms, the principal-agent problem is, how do you (the principal) get someone (the agent) to do something that you want, instead of something that they want.

So if you (the principal) own a business and hire an employee (agent), how do you get the employee to do things to advance your company’s interests rather than their own? For example, you can try to reward someone with power and responsibility to motivate them to do well (that’s in your interest), but if you structure it wrong, they can play the system so that they look good and get the reward while doing things that hurt the company. An example of this would be the bonuses paid to bankers—in theory, they are supposed to reward people for doing good for the company and align their interests with that of ours, but because of the messed-up way performance is measured (and also the lack of a disincentive to not do bad things), it just ends up encouraging people to do shady and risky things that ultimately bankrupt the company while they walk away with huge bonuses.

The agency problem is everywhere. The classic textbook example is of the real estate agent. In theory, by giving them a percentage commission on the sale, you are encouraging them to get as good of a price as possible since the better the price, the better their commission. But after a certain point, they’ll decide that it’s no longer worth spending an extra month of their time to get a small percent of a somewhat better selling price, at which point, their interests (in getting the sale over with, because they have better things to do) supersede your interest (in getting the best possible price).

And it’s in politics, too, where politicians are (supposed to be) the agents of citizens. I don’t think I need to explain this one—it is clearly one area where the agency problem is... quite severe.

Anyway, a good manager is one that’s able to identify and analyze the agency problem and find a good solution to it (there usually isn’t a perfect solution—you try to find the solution with the best balance of upside vs. downside). And many people don’t have a good grasp of this (again, look at the BS that goes on in the financial markets—the principals are almost always getting screwed).”

— https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/2zxcyy/gabe_newell_responds_to_email_asking_about/

The Power of Images and Apple Workflow, communicating status

I have been meaning to play with Apple Workflow. https://workflow.is/

“You’re in control. For the first time.

Build your own workflows with a simple drag-and-drop interface. Mix & match hundreds of actions to create quick shortcuts, manage your media, share content, and much more.

It’s like making your own apps. But a million times easier.”

Apple bought the company earlier this year and I have been meaning to spend time getting my head wrapped about using it. 

My wife is traveling and I wanted to let her know making breakfast and the dog (Bea) is in the kitchen with me.  Below is gif created so fast it was maybe 15 seconds. 

Taking three pictures seems like the right amount to show information and communicate so much. 

After I shared this gif, I cut and pasted and sent it to two of my technical friends I met with earlier in the week who know i like to cook, have been to my house, and know I have a dog.

What was little surprise is one friend asked what the red thing is in the pan with the eggs. It is a temperature sensor for telling you when the eggs are soft, medium, hard. This image gave the status of cooking the eggs. Then my head started spinning what could be done in communicating operations with three pictures. 

Time to experiment with others using this feature. 

Yes my dog did get some of the bacon. :-)