LSQHA Blog Reviews

Yesterday, Hitachi took the wraps off their Unified Computing Platform by introducing its open data center platform. It is aimed at consolidating the enterprise functions of networking, storage, and compute into an orchestration layer. Virtualization is still guiding the evolution of the data center, in this case all the way to the physical form. If you like consolidating your systems into big iron with lots blinking lights, Hitachi has you covered. And if you like open systems that connect to your existing infrastructure, Hitachi believes that playing nice with others is in the domain of unified computing. Sponsor If you're interested in this idea, check out the video summary of the platform . The company shares us a deeper view of this product line and the problems it is intending to solve. Many of the opportunities targeted address budgets, for example, how to remove operating expense through the orchestration of resources. Orchestration is the Huddle on Third Down Orchestration merges network, system, and storage resources as a single unit to be managed and reported in. An analogy might be found in football. In the huddle, the quarterback might call "the slant 6" and all eleven members of the team interpret that play and perform their respective jobs. Orchestration, as Hitachi describes it behaves in a similar way. It will respond to plays like "scale up for product launch". All the members of the team (disk, server, and network) go to their respective places and do the jobs needed. And, if needed, adjust appropriately to the conditions on the field. Hitachi leverages a partnership with Microsoft's System Management tools to closely align the plan and reality to bring more intelligence into the equation. The Computing Stack is the Team This product is also about abstracting systems through software. The company is betting that the coordination of the tasks of operating systems, storage and networking within a single framework provides a lot of value to the business. Hitachi takes the point of view that it is best to harmonize existing assets though open standards and looks at computing as a utility to be shared in the organization. Some of the features the product contains make it easier for organizations to achieve scale across functions and environments. It is designed to support this modern data center principles: Multi-tenancy Charge back for resources Distributed physical data centers Public cloud resources through open APIs Hitachi Unified Compute Platform looks like an impressive physical device. It brings together resources normally held in separate racks and hosts them in a single location and reduces a lot of the work of wiring up data centers. As we unfold another chapter in computing, Hitachi is leveraging its strength in consolidation to meet the trend of massive growth of data. At a glance, there are a lot of reasons why IT managers might choose unified computing products: cost, ease, agility. Looking out a few years, it is easy to imagine growth in this category overall. Is Hitachi well positioned for aggregation of data center resources with its Unified Computing products? How will EMC, Cisco, IBM, and HP fare in the movement towards unified computing? Photo credit: idovermani Discuss

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Hitachi's Unified Compute Platform Goes for the Endzone

In the digital world, expect your clients, new boss, and recruiters to review your online footprint.  In fact, a Microsoft study “showed that 70 percent of hiring managers have rejected candidates because of what they found on line. It’s not all bad news, though. 85 percent said they were influenced by positive online information.”  With stats like this, it’s important you develop a strategy. As more social tools appear, you are losing control over your online reputation Recently, I was briefed by the very controversial Unvarnished (in beta) , a website where people you’ve worked with can leave anonymous comments about working with you, both good –and bad. After my discussion with the CEO and founder, I learned that Unvarnished has a series of checks and balances, such as: FB connect to verify IDs, human vetting of those IDs, and the a series of programs that helps to identify if someone is coming in and trolling, or actually giving fair reviews to a variety of folks. One of the interesting features was that the tool would look for reciprocation of reviews, as those that come in and review others without getting reviewed themselves would be valued less.  Despite the checks and balances, the power has shifted away from you –and to those of your peers. Develop a strategy to build and manage your online career reputation Despite the well thought through checks and balances, Unvarnished and other online reputation tools everyone should be conscious of how their online reputation will impact their client work, future jobs, and ultimately your bank account. We’ve seen a variety of technologies emerge for commercial reputation like Amazon rankings, eBay account, to Rapleaf . Yet to best understand how to use the different tools at your disposal for your personal career, I’ve created this handy matrix which you can use to take advantage and minimize risks. Matrix: Building and Managing Your Online Career Reputation Tools Control Rating and Example Opportunities Risks What no one tells you Online Footprint You have a high degree of control. All the things you do online that are discoverable: persona blog, social media accounts (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter). Demonstrate your knowledge of your craft through thought leadership, and show how well you work with others Personal and off topic content could be misconstrued or even used against you. Those embarrassing college photos on frat row may come back to haunt you. Be proactive and develop a personal blog and own your SEO over your name –before someone else does. Reference Submissions You have a moderate degree of control. That third page on your resume that you submit to hiring manager and recruiters. Chances are, these are solid references you’ve worked with the past that will vouch for you over the phone or in writing Not fully believable, since these were vetted, coached and pre selected This is really used for confirmation that you’ve worked there. Savvy recruiters are able to find out areas of weakness, so work with your references in advance to align on where you should improve. LinkedIn References You have a high degree of control. Vetted references on your LinkedIn profile It’s always great to have confirmation that you’ve worked with others, and see where you’re really strong Believable, but filtered by you, so for many recruiters and hiring folks this is confirmation –not an unbiased review. Careful here, this can quickly become quid pro quo, and you should be selective of who gives your references. Do this too much and you’ll look like a suck up.   I’ve limited my usage of doing it. Unvarnished References You have a low degree of control. This controversial new site uses FB connect to verify identity but allows people to give unbiased anonymous reviews of your work. Finally, an platform for unbiased reviews, people can say what they really want about your strengths and weaknesses. Negative information will surface about you, and the more successful you are, the more likely this is to happen Unvarnished has a series of checks and balances setup to ensure reviewers are real people and have experience working with others. Google You have a variable degree of control. Google owns reputations, and what surfaces on the top few pages on your name are key. News articles, blog posts, and wikipedia pages that discuss you will score high. Recruiters will certainly seek to find out about you, and the chance to score high with positive content are high. If someone has trashed you online expect it to surface. Lack of control of what can surface. Develop an online personal brand strategy to ensure your top results are clean. In the worst case scenario consider a name change or hire a reputation firm to help, I’m sure they’ll leave comments below. Build a Career Strategy Around Your Online Reputation Don’t idly stand by  for someone else to own your online reputation develop a strategy now. Be proactive, you’re responsible for your own reputation. Change your mindset, you must be managing your online reputation if you choose not to participate.  Setup Google Alerts for your own namesake and that of your family members.  Recognize that there’s an incredible amount of your ‘private’ information already available through Zabasearch (which gleans public records you’ve used from mortgages, loans, and magazine subscriptions), combined with Google Maps of your home layout, and Zillow to find home value, an incredible amount of information is already out there.  For best results, use the matrix above to decide which toolset will best be used for your strategy. Develop an online career strategy –be decisive .  Every time you press a keyboard key  you’re leaving a digital snail trail online.  Recognize that every online and social interaction you make is forever leaving a mark online.  Those that do so in public forums may be haunted for years or as long as the internet is available.  Be sure to educate the millennials on the impacts that their online antics have to their future careers –likely they have no idea of the ramifications as they can’t see beyond next weekend. Develop tactics to minimize risk. No doubt those that climb the corporate ladder step on a few toes to get there, and those that want to develop a career or personal brand will act outlandish on occasion to get attention.  With those opportunities come risk, and those that are aggressive online will certainly have detractors.  Develop PR skills that professionals have, understand the basics of SEO, own your own namesake domain, and continue to publish on a blog for greatest results.   Those in reputation slump will likely look at online tools that defend reputations or try to clean up past mistakes, those in more dire situations will change their name . I hope this was helpful, both to corporate web strategists, but to all professionals.  Please leave your tips below in the comments.

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Matrix: Building and Managing Your Online Career Reputation (Unvarnished, LinkedIn, Blogs, and More)

In an effort to recognize the changes in the social media space, I’ve started this post series ( see archives ) to both track and congratulate folks who get promoted, move, or accept new exciting positions. Please help me congratulate the following folks: Also, my submission form has changed to a new URL, the former Google form was giving me problems, so please use this one going forward .  Lots of movement in the social business category, including a few key hires at firms that get the social business landscape and quite a few submissions continuing to come in on the form. Bruce Tempkin , top blogger at Forrester and Analyst departs Forrester, you can find his blog announcement . I’ve admired Bruce’s commitment and quality of work as a fellow colleague, and wish him luck on his next ventures. He really is one of the Star Analysts out there, be sure to connect with him and clinch his sage advice early before he gets totally booked. Dr Natalie Petouhoff “Dr Nat”, is a former colleague at Forrester covering the customer experience and knows the Social CRM landscape and social support. She’s also moved on, you can find her blog , and you should connect with her as she launches her consulting career. Dion Hinchcliffe joins the Dachis Group, one of the leading consulting firms that gets social business. The Dachis Group is poised to become the next system integrator vendor and consulting firm, and I expect them to give the ‘big’ consulting firms a run for their money as they continue to hire talent, thought leaders, and stay nimble and flexible. Steve Gillmor, famed Techcrunch IT editor (and former colleague of mine at PodTech) j oins Salesforce in the strategy team . This is an extremely smart move for Benioff as Salesforce knows success of the chatter and appxchange platform is to connect with the web startups. Steve is a direct and indirect influencer over the startup ecosystem and this lays a big bridge down for Salesforce to take marketshare in the developer ecosystem. Mona Nomura joins MySpace as a social media marketing manager , her online presence will match with the youthful and active MySpace community, a key hire in the regrowth and build of MySpace. Sanjay Dholakia former CMO at Lithium is now heading up Crowd Factory as the CEO , I’ve worked closely with Sanjay and am looking forward to see the next successes he does in the future. Uwe Hook launches BatesHook focusing on business transformation agency by integrating Social Media initiatives. Maria Ogneva joins Biz360 as Director of Social Media Propel and manage online buzz for Biz360, a social media monitoring and measurement platform. Greg Hollings joins FreshNetworks as Head of Community Management Manages and heads up the community management team at busy social media agency. Glenn Conradt joins CoreMedia as Vice President of North American Marketing, Sales and Operations. Dean McBeth joins Wieden + Kennedy as the Old Spice Community Manager focused on using social media to maximize the positive perception of the brand and the effectiveness of campaigns. Ryan Turner joins ZAAZ as Director, Social Media Lead the social media practice at ZAAZ, part of the WPP network. Brett Goodwin joins MyWebGrocer as Senior Account Director focused on sales. Sabrina Suares joins MyWebGrocer as Director, Eastern Sales Talented Bob Garfield joins Fizz as Consultant in Residence, I look forward to the work he does, find his announcement blog post . Ben Grossman joins Oxford Communications as Interactive Strategist Launch concerted social communications group and serve as interactive strategy lead for digital projects from an integrated standpoint. Ariel Sasso joins DataXu as Marketing Communications Manager Growing DataXu’s reputation and presence with integrated marketing, communications and social media initiatives. Tom Edwards joins Red Urban as VP, Digital Strategy & Emerging Technology Digital & Social Media Strategy How to connect with others (or get a job): Several people have been hired because of this blog post series, here’s how you can too: Submit an announcement If you know folks that are moving up in the social media industry, submit to this form Seeking Social Media Professionals? If you’re seeking to connect with community advocates and community managers there are few resources This list, which started with just 8 names continues to grow as folks submit to it. List of Social Computing Strategists and Community Managers for Enterprise Corporations 2008 –Social Media Professionals . Job Resources in the Social Media and Web Industry Web Strategy Jobs powered by Job o Matic (Post a job there and be seen by these blog readers, these affiliate fees pay for my hosting) Read Write Web keeps announcements flowing at Jobwire , although is broader than just social media jobs Facebook group for community manager group in Facebook Jake McKee’s community portal for jobs Chris Heuer’s Social Media Jobs SimplyHired aggregates job listings, as does Indeed ForumOne Jobs for Social Media and Community Teresa has a few jobs, some around community New Media hire has an extensive job database Social Media Headhunter Social media jobs Jobs in social media Altimeter Group’s list of social media consultants and agencies Social Media Strategists and Community Managers for 2010 Hiring? Leave a comment If you’re seeking candidates in the social media industry, many of them are within arms reach, feel free to leave a link to a job description (but not the whole job description, please)

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People on the Move in the Social Business Industry: April 18, 2010

When people talk about managing communities in this new online world, one name is mentioned more often and with more respect than any other: Heather Champ of Flickr . Today Champ announced that after nearly 5 years and more than 4 billion photos uploaded, she is leaving Flickr to start a community management consultancy called Fertile Medium . Flickr went from a Canadian social gaming company in 2004 to a photo sharing service to a Yahoo! acquisition in 2005. 3 years ago next month, Yahoo! shut down its giant Yahoo! Photos service and moved everyone over to Flickr instead. Sponsor Champ put her work in perspective on a blog post that included the following: "How do you take a community the size of small town to the size of a nation? How do you grow a site that began in one region and make it truly global by adding languages and localizing in what's now 25 countries? How do you apply a content filtering system to a living site to ensure that members can be respectful of one another but still share the greatest variety of content? These are some of the big hairy challenges." Just as most of Yahoo! has, Flickr has seen budget challenges as well. A substantial number of the Flickr team members were laid off one year ago this month . Facebook has long been larger and now sees almost an entire Flickr's-worth of photos (3 billion) uploaded to that social network every month. As Facebook pushes its users more and more public with their content, it would be well served by paying attention to what Champ did at Flickr. The succinct and oft-learned from community guidelines at Flickr are among the work that Champ says she has been most proud of. Those challenges were experienced at Flickr in some of the earliest days of what's now called "social media" and Champ helped forge best practices that have served as a foundation for communities all over the web ever since. Photo by Beth Kanter. Discuss

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Flickr's Community Manager Says Goodbye

Back in January, a healthy comment discussion followed a post in which we looked at the topic of "spec work," or freelance work done for a client before an agreement of compensation is formed. One of the most vocal opponents to spec work is Andrew Hyde of TechStars and StartupWeekend fame, whose blunt opinions sparked a debate over how a marketplace for freelance work should properly function. Today, Hyde and a few friends are launching Pick , a marketplace and directory that connects clients with freelancers. Sponsor Freelancers in fields like design, development, photography, copywriting, marketing and management can sign into Pick and create a profile to share their portfolio and contact information. More importantly, however, Pick asks freelancers to list their work availability and a price range. This allows clients to narrow their search to find freelancers in the specialty they need based on location, availability and price. "The [freelance] process is a mess. There are a ton of freelancer sites out there, but freelancers never promote them because they largely exploit the community. I thought there had to be a better way," Hyde told ReadWriteWeb. "I wrote my solution and said someone should build it, and nobody did, so here we are." Through the creation of Pick and the growth of its community, Hyde hopes to put a dent in other marketplaces which he says are providing platforms for what he calls " exploitsourcing ." With a 2008 post titled "Spec Work Is Evil / Why I Hate CrowdSpring ," and in 2009's " An Open Letter to 99designs ," Hyde has become a leading voice in the movement against spec work and the services he believes promote it. "It is a major ethical flaw of both parties," said Hyde of spec work in 2008. "Some designers I have talked to have escalated this lack of ethics to be on par with some very serious crimes, while other see it as dumping oil down a rain drain. A lot of people don't take this lightly at all." On the bright side of the negativity surrounding spec work, Hyde has channeled his passion against the practice into a new place for clients and freelancers to meet without the worry of exploitation. For startups that need design, copywriting or other freelance services, Pick could soon become an excellent alternative to the more common marketplaces. Having just launched, the service is a bit of a ghost town and is currently invite-only, but Hyde hopes to see around 1,000 users by week's end. Freelancers can request an invite and clients can currently visit the site and browse the available profiles. Discuss

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TechStars' Andrew Hyde Launches Freelance Marketplace Startup