With tomorrow marking the start of our new home under the Dell Technologies umbrella, we got a lot of mileage today out of the joke, “Enjoy your last day at EMC!â€
The truth behind the laughs is that the feelings are bittersweet. When Data General was bought out by EMC, there were similar feelings – had we “won†or “lost†in being acquired? In this case, since Dell isn’t a competitor to EMC, it’s more clear cut. Fewer people feel we’ve “lost†(though some do – I don’t know what “win†they saw coming that nobody else saw).
I personally am a little sad to see EMC go, from the standpoint of a Massachusetts success story being folded into something bigger. But I’m glad to see such a clear vision for the future. I’m excited by the business leaders and their plans. People who aren’t in the industry ask me if this news makes me nervous or scared – I can honestly tell them “no.†Change is a constant fixture at EMC, and while this is change on an unprecedented level it is less nerve-racking to me personally than the dot-com crash or the 2008 recession.
The other side of this is that people who were paying attention were already nervous. I attended a session in the summer of 2015 about EMC and its place in the transforming IT landscape. The constant calls for EMC to split off VMware, or otherwise make drastic changes in response to shareholder pressure were a big part of the conversation. Discussions with my colleagues suggested that something “big†would have to happen in the fall of 2015 if EMC was going to remain recognizable in a few years.
Something big did happen, of course, that fall. And it’s finally completing tomorrow. And out of all the “big†things that might have happened, I think this one has something good in it for the employees, customers, partners, and shareholders. I’m on board.
Tomorrow I’ll be a Dell EMC employee. I’ll pause and reflect on all that made EMC unique and amazing. And then … back to work. Because we’ve got to help make Dell EMC unique and amazing. The battle continues!
Well, we did it again! It’s been an incredibly hectic couple months, but our little baby finally hit a milestone and we got version 1.5 of ProSphere out the door. You can read the official announcement at EMC’s site, and check out the marketing blog entry as well.
In 1996, I joined the CLARiiON team to work on a new Storage Resource Management product. It was a management software leap to go along with the leap forward from SCSI to Fibre Channel. We looked at everything that was “wrong†about the existing solutions, took into account new requirements based on the scalability of the new hardware, updated our products to use the leading edge technologies, and created something entirely new – Navisphere. It was a huge splash for CLARiiON, and helped define everything I think of as successful in a software project.
Fifteen years later, I’m writing about a new big splash for EMC in the SRM space – ProSphere 1.0. I’ll stop you right here and tell you that you need to go read Chuck’s post on the product. I can’t out-do his deep-dive into the industry angles and why it’s such a big deal, so I won’t even try.
What I will tell you is why working on this product was so different from any other product I’ve touched at EMC, and why I’m so proud to be able to announce it here. Just like fifteen years ago, it was a chance to take a look at everything “wrong†while also still looking in new directions at the same time the industry is making another scale leap with Cloud environments. This has been some of the hardest work I’ve done here at EMC. But seeing it get out the door is making it all worth it.
As I started this blog, I set up some mental rules.
One of them was something I learned from Steve Todd, way back in the day — always excel at your day job before you do anything else at work. Doing a great job in your primary responsibilities is what gives you the freedom to explore secondary responsibilities.
I’ve been eyeball-deep in work on EMC’s next offering for Storage Resource Management (what you may have heard referred to as “SRM7”). Never mind my days, it’s consumed my nights as well! So I’ve let this blog get a bit rusty.
There are some other rules I’ve set for myself, and it’s cool to see that the “social” folks at EMC have codified some of those rules into a little video that people here actually get training credit for watching. It’s short and sweet, and I was pleasantly surprised.
Check out Len’s post for more info — EMC is looking to hire an overall brand manager for their social presence.  Considering how huge EMC is, how organically our social presence has grown, and how crazy the social space can get, I can’t wait to see how it will go with a dedicated person trying to watch over it all.
I don’t know yet if I’ll be there, but I can tell you what will be there — a handful of sessions describing the new storage resource product that’s been occupying all my time of late. There’s even a hands-on!
I can’t yet tell you the product’s marketing name (pesky lawyers), but we’ve been calling it “SRM 7” internally for a while now, and we’re wrapping up the first round of beta sites and pushing full speed ahead for a coming general availability release.
If you’re a ControlCenter customer and want to see what’s coming soon, make sure to sign up for any/all of the “Beyond ControlCenter” sessions listed in the EMC World course catalog. Tell them Dave sent you :).
My first day at work, according to the EMC HR department, was January 7, 1996. Fifteen years ago today. I think the date is wrong, since that day is a Sunday. But the week is certainly right.
I remember the day very well … because it was my first day of “real work,†and it was a snow day.
The buzz at the office is reaching a high as last-second preparations for EMC World compete with people’s “real work” every hour of every day. I am sad to report I won’t be attending EMC World this year; I was really looking forward to the coffee at the Bloggers’ Lounge but I’m needed here in Hopkinton (the same reason my blog posts seem to be drying up of late …). But there are some exciting things happening within my organization that you might want to know about.
A while back I made kind of a big deal about getting back into the technical arena and putting away my manager hat.
Fortunately, I didn’t toss it too far aside.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in almost 15 years at EMC it’s that change isn’t disruptive to the status quo, it is the status quo.
Everything I said I was doing before, I’m still doing. I’m wearing a lot of hats right now. My small development team has grown as it takes on more responsibility, and I find myself playing the roles of Scrum Master, Technical Lead, and Development Manager. Somewhere in all that I’m trying to individually contribute technically as well, but that is at the bottom of the list.
The other thing that keeps falling off the list is contributing to “the conversation” (both internally at EMC and externally on twitter and in people’s blogs). I’m afraid that is going to be an uncomfortable reality while I try to wrap my arms around all these roles and make sure my own commitments aren’t being missed. Try not to do too much without me :).
It’s a great place to be, in the thick of the action, surrounded by good people. I’m never bored, I’ll say that much!
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I got a great email last week from my colleague Susan Shapiro, who works with the EMC Community Network. The EDN (EMC Developer Network) is organizing a coding challenge for EMC World 2010, with a respectable amount of prize money ($25K total split among several prizes) at stake. Being the self-centered guy I am, I immediately confirmed that EMC employees were eligible (they are, but only for one of the prizes) before letting myself get excited.
The concept: write a project where multiple EMC developer technologies can be used in a single program. Bonus points for incorporating other online technologies. Win money and fame and the adoration of the world.
I’m waiting for the detailed T&C, but you can read up more on it here. Innovation through contest is something EMC has tinkered with quite a bit, as you may have read on Steve Todd’s blog last year.
Definitely check out the link for more info. I’m hoping I can find some time in between all my “real work” to put a couple of these tools through their paces.
I have been with Dell EMC since 1996, developing the guts of various SRM products in both development and management capacities. My main focus is on thriving in today's workplace in the context of my experiences at Dell EMC, but I'll also write about other topics at times.
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This is my personal blog, and the opinions expressed here are my own, not Dell EMC's. My posts are not read in advance or approved by Dell EMC. Though I am employed by Dell EMC and Dell EMC is aware of this blog, I am not compensated by Dell EMC for my blog posts, and all costs associated with this blog are paid by me, not Dell EMC.
