Category: General

General, Recommendations, Technology

Steve Yegge on Presenting to Jeff Bezos

Steve Yegge over in his Google+ feed has a post I just found about his experience presenting to Jeff Bezos. His description of the experience and his approach was great. The entire post is interesting but my favorite part is the second to last paragraph.

You have to understand: most people were scared around Bezos because they were waaaay too worried about trying to keep their jobs. People in high-level positions sometimes have a little too much personal self-esteem invested in their success. Can you imagine how annoying it must be for him to be around timid people all day long? But me — well, I thought I was going to get fired every single day. So fuck timid. Might as well aim high and go out in a ball of flame.

We all have seen the timid presentation, that’s why I like the last lines so very much (my emphasis added).  Read the whole post you will enjoy it.

General

Cloud in a Box, Please.

I recently attended Summit on Dynamic Infrastructure offered by a vendor. This vendor is large and sells all the pieces to offer a turnkey, on premises Cloud computing solution, but they don’t. They could package the hardware, storage, software and services to offer a complete turnkey cloud solution. In my role at my current employer I see value in offering Cloud services to my internal customers and the ability to stand-up a working computing environment to support research and development is valuable. The drawback with 3rd party cloud services is tied directly to the type of data to be placed into the cloud. The more private or proprietary the data the less likely the data will be moved into the cloud until cloud security has been proven and accepted.

General

Who’s got your back, Jim Cartwright and it made all the difference

As I read Who’s Got Your Back: The Breakthrough Program to Build Deep, Trusting Relationships That Create Success–and Won’t Let You Fail I have thought about those that have enabled my success. As I have thought about it, one key driver of my success was my career as a wrestler. I have many thank you notes that have been long overdue and one will go to Jim Cartwright my high school wrestling coach.

Jim Cartwright invested may hours in my success, an investment that has delivered to me returns in multiples I am unable to measure. Like most teenagers, I failed to understand the value of his investment when it was being made. I will never forget how far his loyalty extended, I was in my last full year in collage when my father passed away suddenly without warning. I was in St. Louis and had to fly back to Chicago, who was there to pick me up 4 years after I had wrestled for him Jim Cartwright and Fred Arkin. I will never forget that small but meaningful gesture, it meant a great deal to me. For the time, effort, training, prodding, swearing, and advise, I owe more than I know to Jim Cartwright.

Without Jim Cartwright having my back I would not be where I am today.

General

The value that lurks below

Over the past 5 years more and more companies have found value in the data already in their possession. Companies like Walmart have used data collected to create a competitive advantage, enabling them to dominate their industry. Google is a business founded on the value of data and clearly has set the standard for monetization of data. Even with the data revolution sweeping the business world many business fail to understand the opportunity that sits locked in the applications that run their businesses. Even more disturbing is the data that is never collected due to the limited view of what constitutes a valuable company asset.

In simple terms companies without a comprehensive data collection and monetization strategy will continue to underperform competitors with more forward looking data strategies. Companies without a data collection and monetization strategy will typically view their data in silos, like pricing, supply chain, customer and marketing. Companies without a data collection and monetization strategy may also lose data due to aggressive data retention policies, born of fear and risk management. As the cognitive economy becomes a reality, companies with their silo views will not be competitive and hemorrhage market share to their more informed competitors.

General, Lists, question

What would I tell my 15 year-old self, if I could?

This exercise was put forth over at Gapers Block. I found the comments very interesting seeing a mix of shared insight, missed opportunity and painful regret. So I thought really hard what I would tell myself, and I realized I wouldn’t focus on any one event. I find my missed opportunities and my past transgressions make me and I prefer to live in the present.
But if I could, I would tell the 15 year old me:

  • Put more at risk.
  • Always look for the good in people.
  • When you commit to something give yourself completely.
  • Breath, be still and don’t worry so much.
  • (okay one specific event)Go to the Nirvana Concert!!!!!!!!

More importantly,
If I really could I would tell the 10 year old me, don’t play king of the dumpster, don’t push your sister.

General

Happy 4th of July

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dsc01139_edited, originally uploaded by TomC.

May you have a wonderful 4th and survive with all your fingers.

General

Sunday Favorite: hdr: moo

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hdr: moo, originally uploaded by txd.

I don’t know I just like this picture. HDR does wonders for clouds.

General, tomcarroll.org

Tom the Architect in the Simpsons

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Tom the Architect in the Simpsons, originally uploaded by TomC.

I created my own Simpsons Avatar. This is Tom the Architect in Springfield. I can’t say I did a great job, but its close. Get your own Simpsons Avatar here.

General

Sxore gone

If you haven’t noticed comments were disabled for the last 8 posts. This happened when I removed Sxore as my comments engine. I liked Sxore, but it never took off. So I plugged in Akismet and Spam Karma. In all the configuration changes I must have disabled commenting. Oops. I have fixed the issue, so Ron have at it.