Information Playground

Medical Cloud Formations

The latest issue of ON Magazine describes use cases for three early "cloud adopters": the National Business Center, Hill Air Force Base, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC).

In particular I learned a lot from the BIDMC use case. John Halamka is the CIO at BIDMC and in the article he sheds a good deal of insight into the transition from a static and rigid medical data center into a more fluid and dynamic private cloud configuration.

The previous configurations at BIDMC were not virtualized; medical applications ran on servers that were directly connected to clustered storage. This configuration was becoming problematic due to the

".....strict ties between an application and the underlying servers and storage systems on which it runs".

The "strict ties" of medical applications to their data center infrastructure results in a fairly familiar set of problems:

• MDs experienced difficulties connecting to this infrastructure in an anytime, anywhere fashion.
• Upgrading the server infrastructure required application downtime and/or reduced server availability.
• Increasing clustered storage capacity and making it available across medical applications was labor-intensive and error-prone.
• etc.

BIMDC decided to build their own "medical software-as-a-service" private cloud infrastructure that uses the following building blocks:

• They deployed electronic medical records software from eClinicalWorks. Instead of doctors connecting directly into a physical server environment, they now securely connect into a cloud via their web-connected tablet PCs.
•  The centralized IT server infrastructure for their private cloud is provided by VMware. IT administrators can easily move, power up, and power down these VMs while being much more abstracted from the deployed server hardware.
• The server infrastructure sits on top of an EMC Storage Area Network (SAN).

When a new revision of eClinicalWorks came out that required more memory and storage, the IT department spent $30,000 on the upgrade, saving an estimated $270,000 in the process.

Public Cloud Futures

One of the more oft-advertised capabilities of private cloud is the ability to convert to a hybrid or public cloud model. BIMDC is not only well-positioned for this possibility, but they are anticipating that federal stimulus funding will drive their cloud to be more public very quickly:

"The Obama administration wants 90 percent of all clinicians and 70 percent of hospitals off of paper by 2011—and has designated $44 billion in stimulus dollars as a bit of encouragement."

“One of the things you’ll see coming out of the Obama administration is a real sense of urgency for sharing data—with patient consent, of course—doctor to doctor, doctor to public health agencies, to immunization agencies, to quality measurement organizations. So a lot of our work will be about building more connectivity so the data that’s in the cloud can be shared, clinical care coordinated, errors reduced, and—because public health will be involved—detection automated.”

By building their own private cloud and allowing internet accessibility to medical records, BIMDC is well positioned to not only share or merge their private cloud with trusted third parties (thus making their cloud more "public"), but their choice of VMware could allow them to VMotion portions of their infrastructure to another cloud.

Steve

http://stevetodd.typepad.com

Twitter: @SteveTodd

EMC Intrapreneur

Preserving Profiles in Courage

The digital preservation effort at the JFK Presidential Library and Museum keeps rolling on, one scanned document at a time.

All of President Kennedy's office files (POFs) have been scanned into the archive, and the digital curators at the museum are now focusing on digitally preserving President Kennedy's personal papers.

I have had the good fortune to personally see some of these documents, and for me the most interesting documents are those that contain the President's handwritten notes. In a previous post I wrote about his 1962 speech regarding the US Space Program, and how JFK scribbled notes on the first draft to highlight emphasis and relevance to the audience at Rice University.

Attached below is another example of a heavily edited document from President Kennedy's personal papers. This particular document is a draft of the book Profiles in Courage. The document, along with the handwritten notes, was probably typed and edited around 1953-54 (the book was published in 1955).

NOTE: The image above is PNG format; the curators at the JFK Library use TIFF. I converted to PNG because it's 30x smaller. The curators use TIFF format because they want the highest quality scan; every pencil scratch must be legible.

This is cool stuff. It highlights the importance of digital preservation efforts. As a software engineer working for a company (EMC) that builds information storage systems and workflow management software, it's also a great opportunity to try and build complete solutions that more fully address the needs of digital curators.

Steve

http://stevetodd.typepad.com

Twitter: @SteveTodd

EMC Intrapreneur

Innovation 2009

Today at EMC there will be a "global pause" as the worldwide technical community takes a breather to consider the ideas and technical directions that will propel the company into the future. The 3rd annual Innovation Showcase has taken on a much different feel this year. One thing, however, remained the same: employees from all geographies were encouraged to submit their ideas into a common contest.

This is my third year of active participation in this event. I'm a big fan of anything that introduces a bit of variety into the software engineering lifecycle that I participate in. I'd like to take a moment and discuss the ideas that I submitted. One of the big reasons for getting involved is that the three top ideas receive "instant funding". This funding is a guarantee that EMC will take the top ideas to the next level.

I jointly submitted two ideas this year. The first one was an Atmos-based idea which proposed some unique algorithms via the introduction of "green" keywords into Atmos meta-data. A co-worker and I were trying to come up with a "green DNS" approach to file-based carbon footprint and wattage reporting. Our idea made the first cut and resulted in a spot in the top 100, but we didn't get into the top 30 finalists. We've already received feedback that our idea was lacking in the "market impact" department. In other words it was a pretty cool idea but we hadn't fleshed out how exactly it would make money.

The second idea was also a joint effort between myself and Craig Randall. For several years I've been involved with digital preservation technology. Craig and I collaborated on an idea that would combine Documentum xCP technology with the growing market for Digital Curation. We made it into the top 100, and also made it into the finalist's round of 30.

The path to the final 30 was quite different this year.  As Stu points out, the popular vote had a much more important role to play than in previous years. In fact, when we posted our idea on EMC's internal social media network, the discussion it generated was fairly extensive.

What I found interesting was that the discussion surrounding our idea was not primarily coming from EMC's technical community. It was coming from the EMC Sales community. Craig and I had done some research on the potential sales opportunity for our idea; the interest from our co-workers in the field validated our sense of the market opportunity, and their comments played a huge role in our idea making the final cut. This year, more than ever, EMC is looking for ideas and proposals that can be monetized.

So today we'll await the final ruling of the judges. In years past all of the finalists were flown to Franklin, Ma for a "science-fair" poster pitch to a set of executives. This year each finalist had to create a set of slides, do a "voice-over" pitch, post their slides internally, and then do a tele-conference with a specific set of judges from around the world. The judges for Craig and I were from Documentum, Document Sciences, Decho, and Celerra.

So the pressure is off this year. There's no need to pitch my idea in person to an exec (so I'm not wearing a tie today). It's a day off to travel to a localized gathering and listen live to a broadcast from the CTO team that has traveled to the host facility in Bangalore, India. The day will also be filled with local speakers collaborating on the state of innovation in their specific region.  Localized gatherings are also occurring in Beijing, Shanghai, Tel Aviv, St. Petersburg (Russia), Rotterdam, Cork, Paris, North Carolina, California, New York, Seattle, Montreal, and Utah.

In addition to learning about some really cool ideas from my co-workers around the globe, for me the benefit is that the technology community has become a much smaller place. The inventors, Distinguished Engineers, Fellows, and technologists (not to mention the sales community!) are becoming more familiar to each other, no matter where they are on the globe.

Steve

http://stevetodd.typepad.com

Twitter: @SteveTodd

EMC Intrapreneur

World Business Forum 2009 Wrap-up #WBF09

Last week I attended the 2-day World Business Forum at Radio City Music Hall in New York. I was covering the event as part of the WBF Blogger's Hub. The list of guests at the event was impressive, and in summary the speakers provided the audience with advice and insight into the following different areas:

• Trends and directions in managing people within global corporations
• Must-have qualities for corporate leaders
• Trends and directions in corporate marketing
• Economic outlook from outside of the US
• A call to action by former US President Bill Clinton

New Management Paradigms

When it comes to the management of corporate employees, there are clear trends emerging. Traditional management techniques strive to increase productivity and intellect; the new direction includes a focus on increasing employee passion, creativity, and initiative. Bill Conaty's message on performance evaluation stressed that employees should be measured on their adherence to corporate values. If the corporation values passion, creativity, and initiative, then employees must be measured on these qualities.

Gary Hamel was much more blunt. A new kind of productivity is embodied by the following employee statement: "I am working on exactly what I chose to work on, and I'm flat out"!  Note the emphasis on employee choice. This indicates that employees are not necessarily told what to do, but they choose what to to.  Hamel backed up this radical notion by citing real world examples of this type of management style. He cited the development of LINUX, as well as the management techniques of several other companies.

Corporate Leadership

Several speakers emphasized the importance of transparency, availability, and consistent messaging from the top leaders in a corporation. Bill George was one of the speakers that led the charge on this point. Corporate leaders not only must stay connected with the customers consuming their products, but they must also open up and act more transparently with their employees.

Pat Lencioni agreed with Bill, and augmented his thoughts with a specific set of to-do items for corporate executives (many of which are common sense). The executive leadership team must be cohesive, and a unified corporate vision must be over-communicated with absolute clarity. Pat's final point for the leadership team was to minimize bureaucracy in the HR system.

Corporate Marketing

On the afternoon of Day One of the World Business Forum, Kevin Roberts took the stage to discuss new trends in corporate marketing. As he built on the theme that the "consumer is boss", Roberts focused on the importance of making an emotional connection between a product's brand and the consumer. These brands must be purpose-inspired and benefits-driven. 

Today's marketing strategy has moved from an "attraction economy" to a "participation economy". Corporations must figure out how to get consumers to participate in the marketing of their products! Roberts mentioned the new ROI: Return On Involvement. The most successful brands were referred to as "lovemarks". These brands not only have the respect of their customers, but their love as well. See the "love-respect axis" shown above (taken from the Lovemarks.com Website).

Global Economic Outlook

From a purely domestic perspective, the view of the recovery from the economic crisis was grim. Furthermore, Jeffrey Sachs claimed that the lack of checks and balances that could have prevented the crisis (e.g. tighter Wall St. regulation) are still not in place today.

However, during the morning of Day Two a set of international speakers was brought in to provide a more global perspective of the world's economy. Their view of the economic crisis was much more optimistic:

• Francisco Gonzalez, Chairman and CEO of BBVA , described how BBVA was one of the world's five largest banks that did not require a government bailout, and how their emphasis on technological innovation has them well-positioned for growth.
• Peter Voser of Royal Dutch Shell optimistically pointed out Shell's focus on biofuels, and encouraged the US to continue to lead via "cap-and-trade" innovations (such as the acid rain legislation of the 90s).
• Morris Chang of Taiwan Semi-Conductor reported extremely positive job growth amongst engineers in the Taiwan region.
• Finally, Roger Agnelli of Cia Vale do Rio Doce S.A. in Brazil (second largest mining company in the world), reported on the huge economic opportunities his country is realizing. Agnelli reported on strong business ties with China and mentioned that he "prays for China every night".

Bill Clinton: Interdependence

Bill Clinton ended the World Business Forum by describing the framework through which he views the world. He chooses to use the word "inter-dependence" as opposed to "globalization" (which is largely an economic term). He views interdependence as the world's one hope and its greatest challenge.

Mr. Clinton summarized three main troubles in today's world:

• Unequal: 25 % of the world's population will die from diseases such as malaria, AIDS, and dysentery, even though the rest of the world has the resources to help and heal.
• Unstable: the ripple effect of the Wall-Street crisis, the speed of the swine flu virus, and the shared vulnerability to terrorism, all highlight that we live in an increasingly unstable world.
• Unsustainable: the world population's use of natural resources is outpacing the amount of available land, air, fossil fuels, and water. 

Mr. Clinton pointed out that the only way to solve these problems is to recognize and leverage our common humanity; the US cannot solve these problems on its own anymore. The world's citizens must not argue about "how much" to spend, but argue instead on "how to solve". He also pointed out that "sustainability is good for business".

A Well-Rounded Event

This was my first time attending the World Business Forum. Many thanks to HSM and in particular George Levy for the invitation to cover the event as a blogger. The business men and women attending the event were treated to a wide range of perspectives that should help them plan for change in their corporations.

Steve

http://stevetodd.typepad.com

Twitter: @SteveTodd

EMC Intrapreneur

 

Gary Hamel: Slacker's Paradise #WBF09

At the World Business Forum today Gary Hamel presented new, innovative ways to manage an organization. This model is designed to specifically keep pace with exponential change in our industries and world. Here are some of the qualities of this new management style:

• employees do public performance reviews of their manager, and their manager's manager
• employees each year are required to rank 20 of their peers in order of "value to the company"
• there are no travel restrictions. Employees can travel anywhere they want, on any airline, eat what they want, and stay at any hotel they want. Their trip expense report is posted internally.
• employees with innovative ideas have access to instant funding on the order of several thousand dollars
• employees have the right to say "no" to any meeting request
• leadership is bestowed by calling a meeting where people actually attend because they want to

The visions presented by Gary go beyond "ideas". In fact there are large, multi-national, decades-old corporations that have rolled out these management strategies and are succeeding because of them. Gary's argument is that the command-and-control management structures of the last 100 years have "flattened" out in terms of new innovative management techniques. The rate of change in technology and global markets cannot be addressed any longer by "Management 1.0".

Here are the new challenges that these types of management techniques attempt to solve:

• How can you build an organization that can change as fast as change itself?
• How do you build an organization where innovation is everybody's job?
• How do you build an organization that INSPIRES extraordinary contributions?

The fear of rolling out this management style, of course, is that the corporation will turn into a "slacker's paradise". Employees could come to work each day and do whatever they want!

Hamel argues: not true. This type of management style assumes that as soon as a slacker's peers recognize that they are no longer adding value, the slackers will lose power, leadership, and compensation.

I've long felt that innovation belongs in the trenches, and employees desire to express their unique creativity daily. I've also encouraged my co-workers to run their own skunkworks as a matter of clandestine corporate improvement. Gary Hamel's vision brings this behavior out into the open.

Initiative, creativity, and passion are the desires of the up-and-coming workforce. They'll be looking for corporations that encourage those three things, and avoiding corporations that place excessive value on obedience, intelligence, and intellect.

Steve

http://stevetodd.typepad.com

Twitter: @SteveTodd

EMC Intrapreneur

Rubenstein and Sachs: Double Trouble at #WBF09

The first set of speakers at the World Innovation Forum this morning focused on leadership and strong teams. It was engaging and interesting. We walked out into the New York sunshine for lunch and strolled back into Radio City Music Hall about 1:45 PM. I was wondering when we were going to hear about the state of the economy.

Starting at 2PM we got a double dose of the cold, hard facts about the financial crisis. Several of the bloggers joked about hurling themselves off the third floor mezzanine after hearing such bad news!

It was a double-dose of economic reality from two speakers: David Rubenstein and Jeffrey Sachs.

David Rubenstien at the World Business Forum 

David Rubenstein's speech consisted of 30 minutes of painful economic data (it was an absolute blur of bad news). I stopped taking notes for fear of carpal tunnel. He ended, however, with some hopeful advice for how to go about living in this new reality:

• take risks
• improve your skills of persuasion
• stay out of debt
• join with partners who you trust
• think like a leader
• don't worry about making money in the longer term
• if you love what you do, money will flow.
• Regard your business activity as pleasure.
• If you don't love what you do, do something else.
• Involve yourself with China, India and Brazil.
• Be involved with your community

The upbeat ending was a temporary phase as Jeffrey Sachs took the stage and painted an extremely stark picture of the financial crisis and outlined the resulting new world order.

 
Jeffrey Sachs at the World Business Forum 

Sachs called the financial crisis a "Wall Street crisis", as opposed to a US or a World crisis. "Easy credit" was de-regulated under the watch of Presidents Clinton and Bush. Sachs stated that the financial regulations put in place under FDR after 1929-1933 were systematically dismantled by the US government via the efforts of financial lobbyists (estimated to have spent 3.7 billion dollars lobbying). Foreign nations that modeled their markets after Wall Street found themselves in a similar situation, resulting in a global problem.

The financial problems are not easy to solve, because Sachs believes there are three very difficult and complex situations occurring at the same time:

1. The world population is bursting at the seams. Simple mathematics show that there are not enough resources to consume. The lack of water will present an economic impact (as well as a health impact). Economic planning is not consistent with the nature of the bursting world problem. There's not enough land for crops and feed grain. The countries that are growing are ready to enjoy the "good times" that the US has enjoyed for years; this will likely result in ecological damage.
2. There has been a fundamental readjustment of global politics. The sense of US predominance is fading. Sachs stopped short of comparing it to the "fall of Rome", but he did say the gap in income level and technological development is rapidly closing. This is a one-way street. The financial crisis accelerated the closing of this gap; it may have happened eventually in 15-25 years. Now it is happening today.
3. The US government of the last 25-30 years has been inefficient to say the least. Sachs cited governement efficiency on health care, physical infrastructure (bridges/roads), the inability to respond to crises (New Orleans/Katrina), and two wars that Sachs believed were poorly rolled out and executed, and one (Iraq) started for fictitious reasons.

Sachs commentary In a word: scathing.

What to do?  Job #1 from Sachs point of view: we must have a basic change in financial politics. The debates on most issues are a sideshow. The real issues are getting decided behind the stage door, in back-rooms. Wall Street is still negotiating with the House, campaign contributions continue to roll in.

His job #2 is to recognize that the US must solve the problems as a member of a global community. The US can no longer call the shots, and must work closely with all nations on the scale and sustainability issues resulting from the skyrocketing population. The top country to work with is China. China is now the banker of the world.

Steve

http://stevetodd.typepad.com

Twitter: @SteveTodd

EMC Intrapreneur

Pat Lencioni: Healthy is Smarter #WBF09

Pat Lencioni took the stage at the World Business Forum today with an interesting thesis: every company is "smart".  Every company knows that in order to be smart they need to execute on things such as technology, finance, marketing, and strategy. 

So how do smart companies differentiate from each other? Pat's answer is corporate health.

Pat's thesis is that the health of a company has a multiplicative effect on its "smartness" (thus multiplying competitive advantage). The health of a company starts at the very top: the executive team. There are four behaviors on the executive team that reflect corporate health:

1. Build an maintain a cohesive leadership team.
2. Create organizational clarity (leaders must have EXACT same vision in their heads)
3. After #1 and #2 are achieved, OVERCOMMUNICATE the clarity
4. Implement basic human systems for hiring/firing/manage/reward. Minimize bureaucracy.

Pat then went on to identify the top dysfunctions on teams and how leaders should overcome them:

• "absence of trust" can be overcome by making statements such as "I don't know the answer", or "you're smarter than I am". "Buck-naked vulnerability" can build powerful, dynamic teams.
• "fear of conflict" can be overcome by encouraging passionate debate. Be particularly sensitive to geographical attitudes towards conflict (e.g. NY vs California) in order to spur debate.
• "lack of commitment" can be overcome on teams by touching base with everyone who weighed in during a conflict, and telling them why their option was or wasn't chosen.
• "lack of enforcing peer behavioral accountability" can be overcome by pressuring team members to behave more appropriately. Behaviors precede results, so identify inappropriate behaviors right away and communicate to the team. "Don't be a wuss!"
• "inattention to results" can be overcome by looking at the team's output, making sure they are all holding each other accountable, making sure they are all committed, making sure they are engaged in passionate debate, and making sure they trust each other.

Pat actually described this technique as a ministry that improves and impacts the lives of your teammates and everyone that comes across them down the road.

Steve

Bill Conaty: Key Elements of a Performance Culture #WBF09

In a large corporation, which employees are the most valued?

Bill Conaty, veteran of generating world-class talent for decades at GE, took the stage at the World Business Forum to discuss the creation of a corporate performance culture. He described a framework for employee evaluation which attempts to categorize employees into three buckets:

• Top Talent
• Highly Valued
• Less Effective

Bill laid out two methods of employee evaluation: (1) how well does the employee represent the corporate values, and (2) how well does the employee perform. These two categories create a 2x2 matrix for evaluating employees:

Ideally, a corporation should strive to move the majority of their employees to the upper-right quadrant. Bill stated that any corporation wishing to create a culture where this systematically occurs should have the following qualities:

• The CEO must be committed to this performance culture, and needs to be the arbiter that actively decides who moves up and who moves out in an organization.
• The corporate values must be clearly understood so that employees know what to shoot for! Employees must be aware of what it will take to succeed as well as what it will take to fail.
• Performance goals and measurements must be regularly communicated with candor and trust.

Therefore, a corporation must focus on the employees that meet the values of the corporation while performing. What about the employees that meet the values but don't perform? Work to improve their performance. How about the employees that perform but don't embody the values of the corporation? Get rid of them!  Bill called them the "bullies of the organization".

Bill ended by revealing a typical ratio that is often seen for percentages of employees that fall into one of the three buckets:

Top Talent: 30%

Highly Valued: 60%

Less Effective: 10%

Steve

http://stevetodd.typepad.com

Twitter: @SteveTodd

EMC Intrapreneur

Bill George: Get Down on the Playing Field #WBF09

Bill George opened the World Business Forum this morning with an overview of his "7 Lessons for   Leading in Crisis" book. His talk was particularly relevant given the business climate; he felt that the true leaders that emerge in a crisis are the ones that "get down onto the playing field".

Bill gave two examples of people who, in his opinion, got down into the trenches and became leaders during the financial crisis: Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson. In both cases Bill sighted the need for both of them to make hard decisions given a very limited set of options. They made decisions that allowed the economy to "pass through the eye of the storm".

However, like Hurricane Katrina, the aftermath of the storm requires a significant cleanup. In the United States the aftermath is the jobs crisis. Americans need innovation and creativity to create new jobs through entrepreneurs and venture capital (as opposed to spending money on saving existing jobs).

But don't wait around for government to do this funding. The leaders that will emerge at this point in time are the ones that find ways to clearly and transparently tell the truth and follow up by communicating a long-term strategy and vision to the troops that are slogging it out in the trenches. Why are leaders hesitant to communicate bad news? Because it is akin to admitting failure. Bill commented on this phenomena by saying "It's better to have a bad day than a bad life".

Bill gave an example of a leader who told the truth, took some lumps, and then communicated a vision to employees and customers. David Neeleman, the founder of JetBlue, personally apologized to JetBlue customers when an ice storm caused the cancellation of over 1700 flights, resulting in severe customer dissatisfaction. David could have easily "blamed the weather", but instead he issued a personal apology and followed it up with a new strategy: "The JetBlue Customer Bill of Rights". How did the JetBlue executive board appreciate his transparency?  They ousted him. But he kept his integrity throughout the JetBlue crisis (and has started a new company in Brazil).

Bill ended his speech by encouraging the attendees to make a difference and help America navigate through the jobs crisis; it could be their defining moment. His strategy is simple: be transparent to your team, admit mistakes, and present the new vision.

Steve

http://stevetodd.typepad.com

Twitter: @SteveTodd

EMC Intrapreneur

Taking Care of Business In NYC

This week I'm taking a break from blogging about high-tech innovation and will focus instead on the latest thinking on business and the world economy.

Blog Stu and I have been asked to join the blogger's hub at the World Business Forum at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Why ask two high-tech guys to cover a world business forum?  Certainly technology plays a huge role in the world economy, and it's important to have a group of tech bloggers report on that angle.

In fact, HSM, the sponsor of the event, seems to have every angle covered, inviting bloggers specializing in technology, business  news, innovation, leadership, sustainability, entrepreneurship, marketing, psychology, economics, women in business, and workforce/career. Friend and co-blogger Andrea Meyer has written a great post describing the HSM social media strategy for the event. Her post lists all of the bloggers by category.

The list of speakers is quite impressive, with the keynote coming at the end of the second day: President Clinton will address thousands of executives in the crowd. Below is a slideshow with pictures from last year's event.

Steve

http://stevetodd.typepad.com

Twitter: @SteveTodd

EMC Intrapreneur