Rackspace Opens the Cloud (and I Couldn’t be More Proud)

July 19, 2010 By Rob 5 Comments
openstacklogo

A little over two years ago, as I was talking to Rackspace Hosting about joining their Cloud Computing Division, I told Rackspace that I wanted to change the world (again). I was involved with creating WiFi – and I wanted to again make that kind of change for the world.

More than I wanted a J.O.B. – I wanted to change the world.

And here I find myself, at 4am, not being able to sleep – even though I need to be on a flight to Boulder in 4 hours.  I’m too excited to sleep – oh, I tried!  But every few minutes I would find myself peeking once more at the OpenStack Twitter Account (@OpenStack) – wondering if the hits were still coming in (they are) – and assuring myself this is real (it is!).

We’ve been hard at work for the last several years – working towards that end. Today, I think we have helped change the world.

By open-sourcing the second most popular Cloud Computing platform on the planet, I think we’ve just changed the world. Hell, by partnering with NASA, we may actually be changing more than this world. (I can imagine OpenStack running on the Moon, and on Mars!)

The list of partners is impressive – go look at http://openstack.org. There are a lot of forward thinkers on that list – and they are company I am proud to be in.

Mostly though, I am proud of the company I work for. This is a bold move by a Leadership team that has demonstrated exceptional thought leadership in our space. In the two short years I have been with the company we have more than doubled our customer count, drastically increased the number of servers and data-centers we have, and made bold moves in many other areas.

I’m sure there will be a lot of discussions and a lot of questions about our decision (there were plenty of internal ones!) – but I am confident that at the end of the day, a truly open cloud that is already in production will better serve the world – a cloud that has proven its ability to scale and serve real customers.

It is a great day to be a Racker. I’m very proud of what we have done, and what we will continue to do to change the world – one (open) code drop at a time!

Come join us at OpenStack – change the world with us.  Change your world!

Filed Under: Community, Customers, Events, Ideas, Management, OpenStack, Rackspace

Ah – what an amazing opportunity. One that is embraced.

April 2, 2010 By Rob Leave a Comment

I am a pain in the ass employee.  You don’t get a title of “chief disruption officer” unless you cause problems.

I DO cause problems.  I question much, raise hell often, and bitch perhaps too often.

It is amazing I still even have a job.

That is part of why I love where I work – I KNOW I am difficult.  But I almost always raise hell for a customer.  So I almost always get a “pass” for being an ass.

And I don’t have any internal agenda except “I want to make customers happy”.

Almost always my company backs me and supports what I am trying to do.  But sometimes (gasp!) I am wrong.

And I love when they call me on that.  Nothing builds a functional group like honest communication does.  Nothing destroys it more quickly than NOT talking.

Confusion and disarray is the worst thing you can have in any company – and it gets worse in a public company,

I appreciate that I have thousands of Rackers all ready to call BS on me.  It keeps all of us honest.

It keeps me honest – and focused on customers.

Are your employees and customers helping keep you honest?  Or do they just not care?

Do YOU care anymore?

Filed Under: Community, Customers

Leaving Corporate America – starting my own “Social Media” firm.

March 31, 2010 By Rob 9 Comments

I’ve been really busy since SXSW.  Met some really great people there that convinced me to start my own SM “firm”.  I put that in quotes because I am not so sure just how firm it is.  But it feels firm.  Sometimes firm feels fake, but this firm feels real.  Firm but with flesh.  So kinda firm.  Fleshy-firm.

I’m going to start managing Social Media for third parties.  I’ve already obtained a lot of useful twitter handles that I think will drive business, like @comcastreallyreallyreallyfreakingcares and @buyafordbecausetheywontkillyoulikeToyotawill and @Ilovethefactthatwalmartletsmespendmoneyintheirstores

The really long twitter names are not an accident.  I really don’t want to work too hard on this stuff and really long names give me even less characters to “share” with your customers – who really don’t care who I am except for the value I add to you.  Besides – you pay me by the character so I am saving you a TON of money since I charge only 75% on the characters in the handle (LIMITED TIME OFFER!)!

I want a check and I am measuring my worth by dollars/character – so short conversations mean I make more – which adds value to you.  And if I make more I know my customers are happier.  Because that is what motivates them – making me happy.  And that is how your business wins, and gets to that next amazing level – of making me happy.

But it is all about the customer – so I hope I get a couple.  Especially some with money, because they rock.

I want to help you sell more stuff to your customers.  I have Twitter bots, spambots, robots, and ding-bats all ready to help me help you help your business grow!

I’m an online social media expert. I am a wizard at talking to your customers.  I will make you millions and take only about half of it. Sometimes I take less than more than half.  Call me – I am open to almost anything that moves money from you to me!

That is just the way I guru it.

Together we are twice as good as I am without your money!

Please feel free to contact me with proposals that gain me more than 50% of your company – but sorry – I don’t accept debt anymore.  I’m so beyond that!  So make sure you at least make enough money to pay me enough to make you look amazing and make me feel marvelous.  If you underpay me you will be perceived as weak.  And in some cultures with a small penis.  Go big or stay home.

And if you just don’t have time to talk to me, but want the benefits of working with me, just send some money to kr8tr on PayPal and we’ll both be happier. And your investors will be amazed by what you have accomplished!

And don’t forget - I don’t make money unless I take money from you.  Really! 

I guarantee it!

This should be an amazing new stage in my career – and in your business.  Prove it to yourself – take that first step now.  SEND ME MONEY.  The results won’t be measurable but they are guaranteed.

BTW – I am currently offering a 1% discount (on pseudo-services only) to anyone that gets me an iPad before 05APR10.

Filed Under: Community, Memes, Personal, WTF?

Competing with a cause

January 20, 2010 By Rob Leave a Comment

Go do a Google search for hostingforhaiti (go ahead – it will open in a new tab/window).

There are, as I write this, over 330 results.  This morning there were ten – and all related to “did you mean ‘hosting for haiti’?”

No, I meant hostingforhaiti, or the twitter hash-tag “#hostingforhaiti” – over 325 results.

Ten hours CAN make a difference.  In ten hours we got 15 hosting companies (my industry – and full disclosure, I work for Rackspace) together for a great cause.

Each company is donating in their own way – and at a level they can tolerate – but is also blogging about this, Tweeting about it – posting on Facebook and other sites, and getting both customers and employees involved.  How big will it get?  I don’t know.  Bigger than it is now, I hope – yet I am still happy with what it is now.  That is a LOT of money in Haiti and the Red Cross will spend it well.

And that is just pretty damn cool.

We’ve raised thousands and thousands of dollars and we have barely started.

And now that we all know each other – who knows what we can do next?

I like to imagine a lot.  I like the good in people.

Check the site out.  Give a little, gain a lot.

Filed Under: Community

Why Twitter needs business accounts – and why I will pay for one.

December 20, 2009 By Rob 2 Comments

I’ve had great success with Twitter – both with finding new people and places and times to talk to them – customers, potential customers – and more importantly talking to customers when they are feeling pain.

I’ve also met great friends – and had great fun along the way.  Twitter is a Petri dish – you can feed in an idea and in seconds you can see if it is growing, or ignored.  If it is growing, nurture it – otherwise butcher it. :)

That was Twitter just six months ago.  Recently Twitter spam-bots are killing the effectiveness of customer communication on Twitter – they generate too much noise.  They also distort the conversation by gaming the “trending topics”.

I want Twitter to solve these problems, and I am willing to pay them to do so.  As someone that helps manage a “brand” I need Twitter to take my money, and help me.

Simple business model for Twitter. Hard for them to do, I think – it doesn’t seem to be their focus.  But if Twitter could help companies manage their brands – fairly – by killing the spam-bots and enabling real conversation – well, companies will pay for that.

But guess what, Twitter – if you want corporate dollars, you have to add tools to help us manage the message.  Quickly.

Even if that is as simple as killing the trending topics bots – which I think you MUST do anyway to survive.  I can’t believe anyone enjoys that crap filling their feeds.  We just don’t have time for it.  And if you can’t contain it – we won’t have time for Twitter.

Twitter needs to build me something I feel good buying.  And if that is a business level product that quickly kills spam-bots, highlights conversations about the brand I care about and gives me back the ability to join a relevant conversation – then I’ll pay for it.

Filed Under: Community, Customers
« Older Posts
MySQL query error