The Real War in the Cloud (hint... it's not forking)

There is a war going on.
And we're all pretending otherwise.

There is a war going on.
And it's not just for the future of the Cloud - it's for its soul.

Right now there is an enormous amount of chatter among the so-called Cloud Experts about "the dangers of forking." Let me be blunt - this is just another beclouding effort in an ongoing war by proxy. And as long as we are distracted by this, and other such attempts, we are going to miss the real war.

There are two sides in this war - traditional IT one one side, developers on the other.
Each has a primary goal in the war - for IT is is security. For developers it is freedom.

We saw this war by proxy fought as the "polyglot vs single language" battle (freedom won that one). We're seeing it fought as the "public vs private cloud" battle (status quo seems to be leading on this one). And now we're seeing it fought through "forking FUD" (too early to call this one).

This is, of course, hardly a new battle. It is, in fact, the never ending war. It is the war between the forces of the status quo and the forces of change.

We saw this same war fought during the early days of the web - where developers saw an opportunity for democratization and new-found freedoms. The forces of the status quo won that time around. The revolutionaries were safely co-opted or put back in their boxes or set adrift on icebergs.

So who is going to win this time around?

That's up to all of us.

The forces of the status quo or organized. They are focused. They are directed.
They know what they want (no change), they know when they want it (forever and always) -- and most of all they know how to get it. With budget.

Vendors follow the money. Enterprise IT learned this a long time ago.

And developers, meanwhile, are too cheap to pay for any tools / services / software (despite riding around on a $1500 fixie).

So vendors position their businesses and their products to satisfy Enterprise IT. They pivot and message to communicate and offer protection, control, limits, constraints and most of all to guarantee a lack of change (or at least IT controlled change).

And then these are the systems mandated upon developers.
And the status quo is protected. The revolutionaries are safely corralled.

Is this time going to be different?
Will we see the revolutionary dreams of developers realized?

Until developers start understanding that the primary weapon in this war is budget - the status quo will be safe. DevOps, NoOps.... without budget and the leverage that provides these terms and the hopes and dreams that came with them are meaningless or at least purely academic.

I believe that the Cloud has the potential to change the world - and no, I don't consider reducing Enterprise IT CapEx budgets to be "world changing" thank you very much. But at present I'm not confident that this potential will be realized. As long as developers continue to ignore the political and financial realities of the business and instead argue technology philosophy - as long as developers continue to be seen as a worthless market due to their unwillingness to spend money on tools (other than those proposed on Kickstarter) - this war will be over before it begun.

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Garbage Miles

I used to be a competitive athlete - a paddler to be exact.

Paddling is a highly technical sport - but also one that requires enormous fitness and power.

When I decided to try to make the leap from being a competitive recreational paddler to being a nationally (or internationally) competitive paddler I was introduced to the concept of "Garbage Miles."

Most coaches running recreational programs (and sadly many running competitive ones as well) are unsophisticated. As a result, tons of them focus purely on the fitness side of paddling - or at best the combination of fitness and power - usually without a scientific understanding of modern physical and athletic performance training. This usually results in their paddlers spending most if not all their time training in manners that are non-productive or even counter-productive. Garbage Miles is one of the examples of this - where a paddler is spending hours and hours every single week, paddling for miles and miles either with the wrong technique or training in a manner that will not improve their end performance.

Garbage Miles are particularly hated by high-performance coaches (and their paddlers) as not only do they not help you improve performance - they take up time and effort that could be used to improve performance.

Garbage Miles are a great illustration of focusing on the wrong goal and the wrong metric. While the true goal is, and should be, to improve your performance in races (and measured over time and across races improve your results) - in this case it has been supplanted by a new (unstated) goal.... "paddle many miles / many hours."

I, personally, love applying sports lessons to work. And Garbage Miles do, in fact, have a great parallel in my world.

In marketing we are regularly given targets which we are measured against - our marketing metrics and KPIs. These targets are meant to be indicators of performance against the actual business goals. The problem is that, in many cases, these targets become treated as if they were the goals themselves.

For example, many marketers now have Social Media metrics that they track (and are measured against). These are intended to be used in conjunction with other metrics to make sure that marketing is doing what it needs to help meet company goals. But as a company starts to manage more and more frequently through these metrics - the tendency to define performance as success against these targets and to treat each target discretely grows.

I regularly see marketers falling into this trap. If you are spending your time working on "juicing your numbers" then you have fallen into this trap. If you are looking at each individual metric and building plans designed to "hit your number" for each metric alone, then you have fallen into this trap.

If you are mistaking your metrics for your goals - you are in this trap.

To illustrate, imagine that I am a marketing manager for a outdoor lifestyle retail brand focused on young working women. Imagine that one of my metrics is "total twitter followers." Now, imagine that it's half way through the month and I'm lagging behind where I should be on this metric.

What I should not do is go to one of the gray-market "twitter follower" vendors. Yes... this will allow me to "succeed" against this metric - but by diluting the value of my audience and reach. I'd be hitting my number - but not only without actually helping the business (or performing against my true goals), but also at the cost of spending time doing things that would help the business.

Spending your time focusing on the metrics rather than the goals is spending your time doing Garbage Miles. You're not helping your own performance or the business' results. You're wasting your time - and the company's money.

So...

Let's sum up.

1 - Never confuse results and performance. Your goal is performance. Good results are the likely outcome of good performance.

2 - Never confuse metrics and goals. Focus on the goals - measure progress by the metrics.

3 - Bad metrics are metrics not derived from your goals. It doesn't matter if they are "easy to achieve" - they're the wrong metrics. Change them.

4 - Metrics are a tool for management - not a method for management. Success should be measured against goals, not metrics.

5 - Garbage Miles are a waste of your time and energy. Be smarter than that.

Remember... this isn't a hobby. This isn't a game. This is real-life competition. There are no short-cuts and clever tricks and cons are just forms of cheating where you cheat both your employer and yourself. Don't be a loser.

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2013 Predictions

I never make predictions, preferring instead to develop likely scenarios. But this year I think I'll go for it. And in 12 months, we'll know just how wrong I've been!

My Predictions for 2013

1. People are going to learn how hard it is to run and operate cloud technologies

This prediction has two, independent, components within in. First, there are a lot of companies who will discover how hard it is to run fundamental cloud tech like PaaS at public cloud scale. It's no joke, and I'm guessing there are going to be a bunch of folks who are going to end the year with serious egg on their face. Secondly, there are also going to be a fair number of companies that are going to fail hard in private cloud as folks learn the challenges of operating in the semi-custom and often dated technology environments and highly political realities of the enterprise, not to mention the 99.99% realities of business critical systems. While the private cloud fails are likely to be less public in nature, they are going to be perhaps more damaging (for both the companies involved and the entire private cloud industry). The public cloud fails, meanwhile, will generate the usual hand-wringing and finger-pointing. This shaming is unlikely to fix the problems (as scaling cloud tech is, actually, hard). It is, however, likely to result in a new-found appreciation for AWS, and a fair amount of "perhaps we've been too hard on AWS in the past."

2. AWS will finally acknowledge issues with EBS

At this point the cat is out of the bag and the complaining has gone from behind closed doors, to within private groups and is now all over the internet. There are huge problems with EBS - and with the way many AWS services are architected with EBS as a single point of failure. At this point, AWS will have to accept that their is a problem and announce a planned solution. The alternative is to see a massive slow-down in adoption of all value-add AWS services that rely upon EBS.

3. Adoption of public cloud tech outside the US explodes

With the coming datacenters in various regions of the world (and in particular in Asia), the new frontier for customer adoption is likely to lie outside the US. This has profound implications for the industry as a whole.

4. Private cloud adoption will increase / stay flat

Let me explain what I mean.... Gartner etc reports will likely show dramatic increases in private cloud adoption in the Enterprise. And this is true. But this adoption is likely to be limited largely to Proofs of Concept and explorations rather than full, Enterprise-wide, adoption. As a result, while the percentage of large companies adopting core private cloud tech will increase significantly, the dollars will trail (but probably only by one year).

5. There will be a major security incident

This one is obvious, but it's going to be a bad one. I'm hoping for s simple hack of an IaaS provider or the like, rather than the discovery of a massive extra-national criminal syndicate leveraging cloud tech for their activities -- but only time will tell.

So now I guess I just cross my fingers and hope I'm right.

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A Shooting in Connecticut

I grew up in a small rural town on 1700 acres of heavily wooded hill and meadow. I learned to drive a pickup truck before a car. Many of my friends' families' diets consisted largely of government assistance food supplies augmented with venison and other game (often out of season). I'm a carnivore and an avid supporter of subsistance hunting. Later on, when I moved to the even more rural Eastern Sierra I bartered my culinary services to the local butcher in exchange for a percentage of the venison sausage I'd make for him. I know how to gut and hang a deer and how to set snares for rabbits.

I'm a country boy.

Given all of this - you would think that I should be an advocate for gun owners' rights.

The problem is that I grew up clearly understanding that owning a gun is actually not a right - but rather a privilege and a responsibility. I grew up understanding that guns have only one purpose - killing.

I've been wrestling with my anger and my sadness for 24 hours now. I've decided the only way I can deal with this is by writing my thoughts down.

There is a lot of discussion about the challenges of gun control. About how we need a discussion between the "two sides of the argument."

I'm going to put this very clearly - or at least as clearly as I can.

There are, in fact, two sides to this argument.
On the one side you have the NRA, the politicians they own, and destructive, selfish, amoral hate filled idiots. On the other side you have everyone else.
On the one side you have psychopaths who feel that the privilege of owning a gun comes with no responsibility and no accountability and without a doubt outweighs the tens of thousands of deaths a year that result. On the other side you have sane and rational and moral human beings.

Speaking as someone who does not hate guns - and who will strongly defend the need for some people to own some guns - there is absolutely no rational or moral argument for the civilian ownership of:

• Assault rifles
• Semi-automatic high power rifles
• Automatic rifles
• Sub-machine guns
• Handguns
• Extended capacity clips
• Bullet proof vests
• Armor piercing rounds.

Basically - there is absolutely no justifiable or morally supportable reason for the civilian ownership of any military weapons. Why? Because guns have one purpose - killing. And military weapons' purpose is simple - killing humans.

We need real, true gun control.
And it's not that complicated regardless of what anyone says.
Shotguns and hunting rifles should be available to those who pass the background check, get licensed and must be registered.
And that is it.
Full stop.

It's time for this country to take a long hard look at itself and to realize that there is no gray area. There is no middle ground. There is no debate.

Owning guns is a privilege not a right.
It's time to pick your side. Are you a selfish, deluded, amoral fantasist? Or are you a decent human.

I know that in the next election I will not vote for any candidate who has taken a single penny from the NRA. And I will not vote for a single candidate who has remained silent at this time. Hiding does not protect you from accountability.

Pick your side elected officials. Because this time.... this time we are going to have no choice but to assume that inaction means you have picked the wrong side.

The day of reckoning is coming. Count on it.

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Should I Join a Start-Up: A Guide for Managers

After my last post, a bunch of people got in touch to ask me for more general advice. All the folks who reached out had two commonalities. They were considering going from a Large company to a Start-up; and they were all managers.

So, to extend and augment the advice given in my prior post - here is my general advice for how to think about the decision to join a start-up if you are a manager.

Note: This is a series of questions, a decision flow, where each question is binary yes/no. If your answer at the end of a question is No - then you can and should stop considering a start-up and don't need to answer further questions. If you get through all questions, then by all means you should consider the entrepreneurial world!

Question One: Are you comfortable with the idea of being paid a salary equal to your cost of living?

The whole point of joining a start-up (as opposed to working at a Large company) is that you believe in the vision and goals and people of the company and believe that it is going to be a massive win (a success which translated to a liquidity event). If you do not believe in the company, then you should not join that particular start-up. Period. If on the other hand, you do believe in the company - then you should be okay with going "all in" and maximizing your upside. In other words, you should be completely comfortable with not saving a penny from your salary and trading it all for equity. Doing anything else would, in fact, be stupid.

So right now you're probably thinking one of a number of things.

1 - "I worked hard to get to the salary I'm at right now and damn it I'm worth the money and even a start-up should pay me!"
2 - "That sounds really risky. What if there is no liquidity event? I'd feel better if I were making a little cushion in salary."
3 - "Only a chump doesn't negotiate their salary!! You get what you can get."

So, point by point...

1 - Yes. You are worth the money. And that is why you should negotiate for a stock package that reflects your worth. Because, again, you are doing this for the upside. Hedging your bets is for people who don't work in start-ups.

2 - You shouldn't work at a start-up. Sorry. Start-ups are risky. And they are for people who are okay with risk. Joining a start-up is going to give you ulcers.

3 - Again, you negotiate on your upside, not your salary. Now... that said... the attitude of "I've got to get mine" is antithetical to a good start-up culture. You'll either need to adjust your attitude or you're going to fail.

So... after thinking it through... would you be okay with the idea of telling your employer your (true) cost of living and them paying you a salary that is equal to that? Yes/No.

Question Two: Does the risk of a bad decision you make costing people their jobs scare you LESS than not being able to stop someone else from making that kind of bad decision?

As a manager at a start-up, you will be making decisions. All the time. And not through consensus. There will be no "I'm going to get buy-in from stakeholders." There is no CYA. You just make the fucking decision.

And a lot of the time, you're making the decision with nowhere near the amount of time or data that you need to make a really good decision that you are confident in. But you have to make the decision none the less.

And if you make the wrong decision - it will be 100% on you.

And as a manager, your bad decisions can cost people their jobs; can cost the company business and funding; and could cost the founders and employees and investors their company, dreams and upside.

This should scare you. It is scary.
But is it more scary than being powerless to stop execs doing dumb Yahoo-esque things?

So would you be more afraid of this pressure than of being helpless to watch a manager make bad business critical decisions? Yes/No.

Question Three: Do you view corporate management politics as a tool for getting ahead?

As with everyone who advanced to an executive position within a Large company (in my case a publicly traded one), I was a high adept of the organizational martial arts known as "corporate politics." To be a manager much less an exec in these companies you have to play the game. To win at the game, you have to enjoy it.

But these behaviors are seen (rightly) by most start-up cultures as cancerous - and the organization will expel you if you engage in them.

So can you put this aside? Can you stop playing the game? Can you be honest and transparent and focus on the goals and interests of the company over your own goals and interests?

If the best thing for the company is for you to be demoted and a new manager hired in over you - can you do that?

You must be honest about this one. It's easy to lie to yourself. But trust me - it will not only work out poorly for you, it will work out poorly for the company and for your reputation and career.

So are you able to place the interest of the company over your own self-interest? Yes/No.


And a final bonus point (not a question but rather a statement).

You'll need to put your ego aside. Management is not seen as the High and Mighty Priests of the company in a start-up. Management is seen as something between a necessary evil and a burden. It doesn't matter what your career accomplishments are or where you got your MBA from or how many times you've been mentioned in the WSJ.

Each and every day you will need to prove your worth.

Are you ready for it?

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Social Business Capital and the Start-up Employee

As someone who has migrated from large enterprise jobs, early stage start-ups and agencies (and back again) I get asked quite frequently for advice from folks who are moving into a start-up role for the first time.

Most of the folks who ask me for this sort of advice are taking management jobs at these start-ups.

Given the commonality of these requests for advice, I thought I would try and sum up my primary piece of advice and share it with the world. So without further ado...

My Theory of Social Business Capital and the Start-up Employee

Each employee of a start-up has a perceived value by the aggregate culture of the business (social value).
This perceived value changes over time based upon the employee's actions within the social context of the business.
As a new manager, your goal should be to quickly get the perceived value above 0 and keep it above 0. (aka neutral).

This perceived value can be described as "Social Business Capital" in the sense that it is a type of (earned, expendable and investable) capital that is derived from the Social Business.

Within the usual baseline start-up culture, this Social Business Capital is derived by a combination of various behaviors, norms and attributes and actions - but the single most powerful scoring element is Getting Shit Done.

As a new manager for a start-up, you should assume that you come into the business with a Social Business Capital score that is actually below 0. This is not only a safe and smart bet to make, it's likely true (start-ups tend to be highly skeptical of new managers' value).

So when coming into the business as a new manager, your immediate short term goal needs to be getting this score above 0. And the best way to do this is to Get Shit Done.

Now, and here is where the Social Business Capital idea should become more clear, there are a lot of things that you (as a manager) can and in fact often have to do that are counter to Getting Shit Done for everyone around you. And anything you do that results not only in you getting less shit done - but causes others to get less shit done is going to decrease your Social Business Capital score.

The obvious example is multi-person informational meetings. These only provide value to you at this point, and decrease the velocity and effectiveness of all you pull into a meeting. There are millions of other examples, but I'll assume you can figure these out easily enough. Basically, anything that is counter to Getting Shit Done will cost you Social Business Capital.

So, as a new manager - what you need to do is spend a period of time getting as much shit done as you possibly can - while doing as little as you can to slow other people down and negatively impact their ability to get shit done.

This will result in your Social Business Capital increasing over time.

Once your Social Business Capital has become net positive, you can start making conscious decisions to expend this capital on things like meetings, requests that others do stuff for you or that makes your job easier, etc. But keep in mind that each expense of Social Business Capital will need to be offset by your earning replacement capital.

Finally, the biggest bump in Social Business Capital will always come from you doing things that result in multiple other employees getting more Shit Done. In other words, as new manager, you need to look for opportunities to make things easier for a larger number of co-workers through your own actions.

Good luck and remember... Decisions Rock; Meetings Suck.

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forced analogy of the day

Data is like a bullet.
Without the right tool it is useless.
With the right tool but without the needed skills it is potentially fatal.
But with the right tool and the required skill you can use it to change the world.

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