July 1st, 2009 — Social Media
“We fear change.”
Garth, Wayne’s World, 1992.
You can’t announce a font change on Facebook without the townspeople gathering their torches and pitchforks. Everyone loves Facebook, and wants it to remain exactly as it is today. And that’s been the story for years now. Of course, if Facebook listened to those users, it would be a little website for Harvard students and nobody else would use it. Clearly Facebook needs to know when to ignore their users and press bravely on. They’re doing a good job so far, and they’re about to take another step forward.
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June 29th, 2009 — Corporate
photo credit: dcJohn
Every once in a while, life gets busy and I completely neglect any attempt at professional education. The past few months have been like that for me, but I recently had a strong recommendation to attend a specific class here at EMC and did. In the process, I remembered why I enjoy them so much.
The trick is that it has nothing to do with the class. The material in the class is important in its own way, but there’s no shortage of information available to anyone who is looking for it. But these other benefits are much harder to come by: Continue reading →
June 25th, 2009 — Social Media
photo credit: freezelight
I saw a couple tweets this morning which brought back to the surface something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I won’t link the user but here is one line:
“I block most new followers”
Their next tweet was about Twitter’s “block” feature having trouble, and they had this long procedure for getting around the problem. They put a lot of work into just blocking a couple people. I felt bad for this person’s wasted energy.
Let’s go over what Twitter is and how it works, to understand what I’m talking about. I apologize for simplifying things, but this is close enough:
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June 22nd, 2009 — Corporate, Life, Social Media
Have you read my disclaimer? Over on the side of my page? These are not my employer’s opinions, I don’t speak for EMC, EMC doesn’t speak for me, and so on?
That might protect EMC if I were to go off the deep end legally. They might be able to fire me, disavow all knowledge of my actions, and prevent themselves from getting in too much trouble themselves. But if I were to do something legal but just plain stupid, do you think that disclaimer would prevent the EMC brand from being damaged in your eyes? Of course not.
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June 15th, 2009 — EMC
I got an interesting email last week from Rita Gildea-Bryant, part of the Thought Leadership Marketing group at EMC, about a series of webcasts they are going to be hosting soon. Traditionally, our webcasts consist of EMC telling potential (or current) customers what they should be doing with our products. This series is a bit different. We’re hosting these webcasts, but we’re not doing the talking.
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June 10th, 2009 — EMC
I sat down this morning to write a response to Scott Waterhouse’s post on the subject of why someone would want to be an EMC employee. I had a few paragraphs written before I scrapped it and started over. It’s not that I couldn’t write a nice lengthy post on the subject … it’s that I already have written several.
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June 8th, 2009 — EMC
As if working in high-tech wasn’t loaded with enough buzzwords, being exposed to the marketing and business end of things really ramps it up. You can’t throw a recycled can over your shoulder without hitting the word “green” or “sustainable,” so I imagine there might be a bit of green fatigue out there greeting EMC’s 2008 Sustainability Report. Still, I took some time this weekend to read the 61-page paper and came away even prouder of working here than I was before. Tucci’s quote of “People, planet, profit” is a nice way to remind us all that while we exist to make money, all the money in the world doesn’t mean anything on its own.
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June 1st, 2009 — Life
May 25, 1961: President John F. Kennedy tells the world that America will send a man to the moon within a decade. July 20, 1969: Man walks on the moon. Eight years.
The day after EMC World 2009 ended, I spent several hours touring Kennedy Space Center on Florida’s eastern coast. It’s easy to take our space program for granted, but as I walked among the incredible reminders of the challenges and victories of the Apollo Program I couldn’t help but be moved. The nation came together in pursuit of this Big Idea, thousands upon thousands of men and women combined their expertise and their passion and the result were honest-to-goodness human footprints on our moon.
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May 26th, 2009 — EMC
I ran into Natalie working the V-Max booth at EMC World last week, and it got me thinking. I have worked with Natalie several times over the past year, but it’s always been relating to her “other” job in the EMC Women’s Leadership Forum. Seeing her working so hard at EMC World (doing her “day job”) made me realize something about most of the people who were down there. Nobody was wearing just one hat.
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May 21st, 2009 — EMC World
I’m writing this from the Bloggers’ Lounge in an increasingly empty convention center. I’ve battered my feet to their limits, I got soaked in the rain, I’ve waited in long lines for mediocre coffee, and I’m mentally exhausted. And this is what we come here for.
It all comes together here in person for four crazy days. We “meet” people we’ve interacted with online for months. We learn about new products, or new directions for old products. We teach people, we learn from people, we laugh, we cry.
I can’t decide what the single best moment was. That first batch of feedback from our first hands-on session has to rank up there. We took a major risk and invested incredible effort into rearranging our approach, and it was a hit. But sitting in on Natalie’s Working Mothers Experience session was fulfilling in an entirely different way. And of course, getting to sit and talk with Steve Todd and his wife for the first time in a long time was worth flying down here for.
The best moment may have been seeing one of my co-workers getting off The Mummy indoor roller coaster at Universal. I won’t be forgetting that look of terror any time soon.
Now it’s time to pack up and depart Orlando, just as the sun is starting to come out. Thank you all; I can’t list everyone who helped make this a huge success for me. My co-workers, my managers, my online colleagues, our partners and customers, and of course the event staff. See you in Boston next year?
