Met with the head of cloud computing at a big 5 consulting firm recently

What an interesting meeting:

I met the head of Cloud offerings who also sets strategy globally (except Japan) for Cloud in one of the big five consulting firms the other day.

This was a discovery meeting, and he started out going through their offerings for cloud to set a context for the conversation - he broke these areas down into the following:

1) Intrastructure Services - Shared data centers and services, hardware, networks, storage - he summarised this area by calling it a Compute Grid or Compute resource (they don't use real grid)
2) Application Services - like email, etc
3) Content Services - he referred to this as an iTunes model where people could obtain content from the cloud on a subscription type model
4) Activity Services - he spoke about this as effectively outsources process (like payrole)

He was quite scathing of the term Cloud and said that it was just a new way of pricing and positioning hosting services - I found I agreed with him in many respects. He said that model 1 above was the most common cloud service for them and it really was just a managed service wrapped in a new commercial model.

The chap went on to describe the areas that they want to work and spoke about the levels of their data centers - I was not fully aware of these classifications - but looked it up after - he said that their data centers were classed as Tier 1, 2, 3 and 4 - if you ever talk to someone about Cloud it probably would be a good idea to look the below over:

The four levels are defined, and copyrighted, by the Uptime Institute, a Santa Fe, New Mexico-based think tank and professional services organization. The levels describe the availability of data from the hardware at a location. The higher the tier, the greater the accessibility. The levels are:

Tier Level	Requirements
1	Single non-redundant distribution path serving the IT equipments Non-redundant capacity components Basic site infrastructure guaranteeing 99.671% availability
2	Fulfils all Tier 1 requirements Redundant site infrastructure capacity components guaranteeing 99.741% availability
3	Fulfils all Tier 1 & Tier 2 requirements Multiple independent distribution paths serving the IT equipments All IT equipments must be dual-powered and fully compatible with the topology of a site's architecture Concurrently maintainable site  infrastructure guaranteeing 99.982% availability
4	Fulfils all Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 requirements All cooling equipment is independently dual-powered, including chillers and Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems Fault tolerant site infrastructure with electrical power storage and distribution facilities guaranteeing 99.995% availability

What interested me about this point was he said that almost no data centers were Tier 4, and most only ever got as good as T3. He said that Government clouds anywhere in the world should be at T3 or T4 - which would preclude many of the "public" type clouds like Google and Amazon. He said that they would not compete with these public clouds.

He said they used virtualisation software and were happy with that product expecially as they claimed to have solved the generic problem that most virtualisation software has with disk access.

We then discussed the financial model of Government Cloud and the lack of commercial models that he said made sense. He said that they charged one of three ways for cloud:

1) Capacity - simple model, you pay for what you use in terms of bandwidth, storage and processing power.
2) Service Charge - based on per transaction - this was very successful for their managed cloud offering - and one that they were finding was growing better than most.
3) Hosting charge - just a pure single cost hosted model.

Next we spoke more about government cloud projects globally and the general expectation that most would be a complete failure. There is such a lack of funding and lack of internal agreement between government departments in most countries that coupled with a general lack of vendor support for the model that this government wide cloud programmes would likely stall during 2011.

Next we talked about the European standards that are coming for data centres that were likely to be made law and disrupt all European government cloud projects.

We had much discussion about many areas after this not suitable for a blog, but at a certain point the topic prompted me to steer the conversation to GreenIT and whether he saw this as a better way to position cloud services - and he very much agreed and then gave an example of getting money for a project by classifying the savings in Tonnes of Carbon per Day

I was interested in this and we had a 15 minute conversation about software and cloud as green IT - he felt strongly that this was an interesting and useful way to work things.

Finally, based on all of the above I asked a blunt question - quote:

"Do you believe there is room for innovation in this space considering the current government cuts and confusion you have described over the last 45 minutes?"

He leapt on this question "absolutely there is!" - I then said if businesses managed to realise their cloud offering in government and that there was general agreement reached on data center standards (which included data sharing standards) - could he see a day where data analytics could be a service offered?

He got quite animated at this point and said "now wouldn't that be interesting" - I agreed and wondered out loud what certain government agencies (fraud and security) would be able to do with cross stream analysis of data from multiple departments hosted in parts of a Government Cloud? (I had Complex Event Processing in mind)

All in all a very valuable and insightful meeting - I wanted to share it on the blog.

Industry Average Day Rates and starting a business case

During a recent business planning session, I had to calculate the net benefit of our solution in rough - getting ready for me to create a formal board-ready business case that we can use in the programme.

I used a market trends website for job salary comparison in London/UK as below - working with the typical (and expected) understanding that cost to a business is approximately double the salary band of the employee - I worked out a table as below: (values in UK pounds)

Sub-sector	Salary/year	Cost to business
Desktop Support	£26,300	£52,600
Technical  Author	£35,250	£70,500
Project Manager	£44,000	£88,000
Developer	£31,825	£63,650
Consultant	£43,875	£87,750
Database  Administrator	£27,500	£55,000
Database  Developer	£31,000	£62,000
Helpdesk	£19,625	£39,250
Systems  Manager	£42,075	£84,150
Marketing	£34,750	£69,500
Network  Security	£42,220	£84,440
Software  Developer	£30,650	£61,300
Systems  Testing	£33,275	£66,550
Telecoms  Engineer	£32,275	£64,550

Next I needed the average working year in hours - in Western Europe  and the US, this is as below:

Full year (no leave)
Work hours -- 2,088
Work week -- 52.2
Work days --  261

Full year (with leave)
Work hours -- 1,928
Work  week -- 48.2
Work days -- 241

Combining the two, assuming a full time employee (FTE) you can calculate the following: (US $ rate to UK £ = x1.5)

Sub-sector	Salary/year	Cost to business	Day Rate Cost to Business	Day Rate Cost to Business ($)
Desktop   Support	£26,300	£52,600	£218.26	$331.75
Technical   Author	£35,250	£70,500	£292.53	$444.65
Project   Manager	£44,000	£88,000	£365.15	$555.02
Developer	£31,825	£63,650	£264.11	$401.44
Consultant	£43,875	£87,750	£364.11	$553.44
Database   Administrator	£27,500	£55,000	£228.22	$346.89
Database   Developer	£31,000	£62,000	£257.26	$391.04
Helpdesk	£19,625	£39,250	£162.86	$247.55
Systems   Manager	£42,075	£84,150	£349.17	$530.74
Marketing	£34,750	£69,500	£288.38	$438.34
Network   Security	£42,220	£84,440	£350.37	$532.57
Software   Developer	£30,650	£61,300	£254.36	$386.62
Systems   Testing	£33,275	£66,550	£276.14	$419.73
Telecoms   Engineer	£32,275	£64,550	£267.84	$407.12

From this you can start to prepare a business case - for example, in the project I was working on, we worked out that we can take 15 people per year out of the provisioning process - they are equivalent to system managers and engineers (about $500 per day) - average days per year = 241, so you get 15x$500 = $7500x241 = $1,807,500 per year in costs.

That is the start of a business case - next you need to start looking at hurdle rates and all that jazz!

Ok, so these calcs work off a year including leave - not everyone does that - you may need to work it out over a full year = 261 days. This will reduce the rates above, but we are trying to build a strong case so need  day rates that reflect reality - its your call with the business case, but make sure that the business managers agree.

After that you can start working on the real case if the above indicates that it might work for the company you are helping. Working a board ready business case is more complex and involves quite a bit more planning and work - I've spent a long time working with a team of people to create a full Business Discovery Methodology that allows you to create a board ready business case with evidence and science behind it.

Music to wake up to in your office first thing in the morning

When I get the chance - I have several dozen tracks that I pick just 1 track from to listen to in the morning to wake me up and get me feeling ready for the day.

I recently shared the talent of this guy with some friends that had not heard him play before - and I thought maybe I'd share it here - I listed to this performance as I flexed my mind ready for a day at work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VAkOhXIsI0

If only we all could express ourselves like this - the story behind the track above is that John left the stage shortly after because he was overwhelmed with emotion - the track he plays in this video was not the intended track - he played it adlib and much was made up as he went - I only hope this is true, because it adds to the magic. I hope you love it as much as I did this morning getting ready for work.

Crisis Management - an overview

I've found myself in the position of managing some crisis situations recently and I decided to do some research on the subject - various sources through Google, Wiki's etc have allowed me to collate the following - and I thought I'd share it to save you the struggle of trawling the web if you face the same situation:

Crisis management involves:

• Identifying a crisis
• Planning a response
• Responding to a sudden event that poses a significant threat to the firm
• Limiting the damage
• Selecting an individual and team to deal with the crisis
• Resolving a crisis

Stages of a crisis

Pre-crisis
Prior to the event

Warning
Indications that there is or may be or could be an event liable to cause a significant impact on the organisation

Crisis point
When the event begins to cause significant impact on the organisation

Recovery
The acute stage of crisis has passed and the organisation is able to focus on a return to normal operations

Post crisis
Evaluation of the effects
Repair to the organisation

Role of the crisis manager

• Crisis assessment
• Event tracking
• Managing human considerations
• Damage assessment
• Assessment or resources and options
• Development of contingencies
• Managing communications
• Co-ordination with external bodies
• Controlling information
• Controlling expectations
• Managing legal requirements

Advice on handling a crisis

• Appoint a crisis manager
• Recognise that the crisis manager is likely to adopt a more authoritarian style than is normal
• Do an objective assessment of the cause (s) of the crisis
• Determine whether the cause (s) will have a long term effect or whether it will be a short term phenomenon
• Project the most likely cause of events
• Focus on activities that will mitigate or eliminate the problem
• “Look for the silver lining”- opportunities in the aftermath
• Act to guard cash flow

Dealing with the financial aspects of a crisis

• Accelerate accounts receivable (payment by debtor)- by offering a discount if necessary.
• Slow up payment to creditors where possible.
• Increase short term, sales
• Reduces expenses - especially “non mission critical” expenses
• Outsource non mission critical operations.
• Re-schedule loans

Dealing with the “people” aspects of a crisis

• Form a crisis team
• Designate one person only to speak about the crisis to the outside world
• Act to prevent or counter the spread of negative information
• Make use of the media to provide a counter argument
• Do not tell untruths - trying to manipulate or distort the information will backfire

Good luck!

Powerpoint - the 10/20/30 rule - does powerpoint suck for business presentation?

I was keenly reminded last week about the painful powerpoint. I was on the receiving end of a powerpoint presentation from a person who wanted to explain their company and IT programme to me.

Four hours...

Seriously - four hours of powerpoint (non-stop) - and as we progressed throught the slides, the point size of the font decreased to allow for more text to get onto the slides. I was reminded of one of the guys I work with (Jeff) favorite phrase during a power point "If you can read that, you are in the wrong job - you should be a sniper" Apart from the fact that powerpoint is one of the most poorly conceived tools for presentation, the way you use it can either make or break a presentation.

I've a rule for myself that I try to stick to - I call it the 10/20/30 rule:

• 10 slides per presentation maximum
• 20 minutes on a slide deck maximum
• 30 point font on a slide as a minimum

Now, if you need more material, then fine - have a different presentation on a different topic - but keep the presentation singlular in focus - humans have a terrible retention rate and remembering more than 1 concept thread in a presentation is asking a lot of an audience - particularly if it is a mixed audience of technical and non-technical.

Personally I use the whiteboard for almost everything - where I need more formality, I tend to use mind-maps. I prefer mind mapping as a technique because it allows for non-linear presentation, where I can go with the flow of the conversation and work with the people I'm speaking to. If they indicate a topic is more interesting through their body language or questions - I can quickly move diffent parts of the mind-map to address those areas - of course I've build lots of maps to help me - as a last resort, I'll use a powerpoint - a short powerpoint - with pictures and large font text - oh, and gothic fonts apparently (so research shows) carry more "weight" than arial as a font - non serif fonts convey a more "friendly" tone.

So, stick to the 10/20/30 rule and try to make things non-linear but with a single coherant thread or message to your presentation (three at most) and maybe we can train our business community that four hour eye tests are not the way to win friends and influence people!

So, no - powerpoint doesn't suck, what we do with it though - can leave a lot to be desired.

Why do I use a fountain pen while presenting on an iPad?

I was presenting at a prospect last week and one of their managers in the audience was impressed with the performance of my iPad tablet displaying through their projector from my drop-box account sync'ed pdf presentations. He commented that it looked good and showed him what was being done with mobile technology.

He then watched as I took out my silver Viceroy fountain pen and opened a Rhodia high-clay content notepad and started taking notes.

"Why on earth are you using a fountain pen when you have an iPad?" he asked.

What an interesting question to get in a prospect meeting - how should I answer? Would my answer colour his judgement of me, and therefore Progress by association - you always have to think before answering anything - as I've said before, "Perception is nine tenths the truth."

I thought about the question and realised that the answer was simple for me - it's all about the experience. I find that in all products I have ever purchased, the user experience is the number 1 driver for myself. This is from the services I buy, the products I use, the restraunts I visit, the work I deliver and the things I expect in life. Quality is very important to me - but more the quality of the experience.

If you have ever used a finely crafted fountain pen on paper that was designed specifically for the ink that you placed in that pen then you know what I mean - if you have not, then I encourage you all to have a go - I enjoy my tablet computer because I like the tactile nature of the device and it's simplicity - you don't get much more simple than pen and paper. But if you are going to write something down, make sure it is for a reason, and then write in something and with something that attaches importance to what you write. The written word is a very powerful thing and one worth doing with care in my opinion. I explained this and the manager listened much more intently than I expected, it seems I passed some sort of test when I finished speaking.

Ten minutes later, he told me who the competition was - even down to the names of their pre-sales people!

Oh, and a victorian fountain pen makes a GREAT talking point in a meeting when you are developing relationships with a customer - there is nothing like handing the above pen to someone to "have a go" compared to anything else - its like giving a gift for a brief moment or two.