Entries from April 2009 ↓

If you’re clued in with twitter at all, you’ve heard of the “cisco fatty” meme.  A user tweets about whether to take a job at Cisco they will hate, and Cisco responds on twitter, reminding everyone that Twitter isn’t private unless you make it private.

Yesterday Cheezhead posted another example, a sales rep for CareerBuilder whose tweets include cheering on the Bulls, commenting on America’s Top Model, goofing off at work, and hating her clients.  By the contents of her tweets I’m guessing Miss Adriane doesn’t know she’s about to be used as an anti-pattern in effective Twitter use.

At EMC we’re throwing a meeting soon to talk informally about how we use Twitter, and help get those who are on the fence about using it to understand why we think it’s valuable.  Because right now, CareerBuilder’s brand is suffering from their employee’s actions, and the employee’s brand is suffering as well.  You spread enough negativity around and it will come back to you.

If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all (about your job … on the forever-archived always-searchable Internet).

I was very excited yesterday by the potential of yesterday’s Facebook announcement.  Why?  Because up until now, all the information from Facebook has been visible only within their walled garden.  Opening up the “news feed” API means that I can write an application which acts on my behalf, pulls down that information, and lets me do something interesting with it.

What do I mean by interesting?

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Doing more with less is hardly a new directive; we’ve all felt the pinch at work and I’m sure everyone reading this has a story to tell on that front.  With the recent news of EMC’s temporary 5% pay cut and temporary suspension of 401(k) matching, people are talking about ways to lessen the impact at home. I know a lot of you are probably in similar situations.

photo credit: pfala

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For most of Q1’09 I wasn’t sure if I’d be heading to EMC World in Orlando.  But the stars aligned correctly and I am going to be one of the ControlCenter representatives.  My primary duty will be similar to last year, working the daily ControlCenter Hands-On sessions.  I’ll also be spending some time with the ECN folks as well as the bloggers’ lounge. I should be spending some time with the ControlCenter Online Community members on Monday at 6:30 PM.  There’s more info on the community site.

I attended my first real prep meeting for the hands-on session Friday and I like the new direction they are taking with the session.  Last year we had detailed scenarios and walked users through them.  There was a lot of hand-holding.  This year it looks like we’re trying to be more exploratory, give the users some guidelines and talk it through with them in the lead.  It will be more challenging but it should feel more organic.  It will keep all of us on our feet working the crowd though.  Last year every session was full, so if history repeats itself I expect to be answering a lot of questions about the three deep-dive use cases we’re using this year.  So that means some time spent learning areas of ControlCenter I’m not very fluent in.  Nothing wrong with that!

Last year I remember the “EMC Twitter” crowd (made up of employees, analysts, and partners) comfortably fit at one lunch table.  I think the times are a wee bit different now.  It’ll be fascinating.

I’ll continue to write periodic posts as we prepare for EMC World, and of course the event will take over my blog in May.  Sneaking off to find time and space for quick blog posts last year is an enduring memory, but hopefully this year I’ll be better prepared!

We’ve all heard we should eat a balanced diet.  Of course, what that means is up for some debate.  For some people, a balanced diet means starving yourself on rice cakes for five days and binging on fried food and beer all weekend.  And while that may average out to a normal caloric intake, nobody really thinks that’s a healthy and balanced way to approach food.

photo credit: Joits

Many people approach their work/life balance similarly.  “Work hard, play hard,” brings to mind people overexerting throughout the workday, and then partying all night to compensate.  There’s also the approach that says “I do as little work as I can without getting fired.  The company works me as hard as they can for as little money as possible without me quitting.”  Sure, that’s a kind of balance.  But surely there’s a better way?

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Last time I wrote about the self-appraisal process, I was giving out last-minute tips.  At the time I said that there were ways to invest year-round to make the process less painful.  As Q1 comes to a close and we start Q2, I figured it was about time to elaborate on that, and perhaps take a bit of my own advice.

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When my blog was young and I was hungry for topics, I was hit by a bolt of inspiration — I wanted to dig a bit deeper into the EMC that signed my paycheck as compared to the EMC I was reading about on the web, specifically in the areas of equality and inclusion.  I ended up writing a series of six posts last summer dealing with the subject.  That was about nine months ago, and I’m still glad I did it.  I periodically drop back in to the subject as there are some compelling stories just waiting to be told and because I’m proud of the changes in culture that have happened at EMC over the years.

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