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!

Published over on the Rackspace Talent blog, this is a pretty honest and painful to write account of how I came to my current position at Rackspace. Bottom line – I failed first.

Why I am a Racker

I’m no Social Media pundit – there are thousands of them that describe themselves as such.  Just yesterday I was followed on Twitter by someone who had a bio of “Twitter Marketer Extraordinaire”. I have no clue what that means, but I won’t pay for it.  Won’t follow it either.  It seems like rubbish to me.

I have no such illusions or delusions about my ability to use, and find useful, this new tool-set we’ve been given.  Twitter is but a knife in a culinary set though.  It is not a full set of utensils.  We have an ever-growing set of tools and utensils.  And I don’t think the tools matter much – at least not as much as how we decide to use them.  A knife can be used to cut.  Or it can be used to butter a shared loaf of bread.

Yes, the tools change – but the way they are wielded has been unchanged for decades.

So let us ignore individual tools for now, since they are so varied, and they have a different level of usefulness depending on your company and industry.

The bigger question is, “Can Social Media Be Measured?”.  I ask a smaller question – “Should it be measured”?

I’ve effectively used social media in a number of ways.  But that doesn’t make it a replacement for meeting people face to face, or using more traditional methods to target a specific audience.

Social Media is a shotgun approach to meeting and conversing with those that you are interested in; or might be interested in you.  It is, if done well, an invitation – and that should be enough.  For me, and my company, it is enough.

But behind that invitation to a conversation you need real people – people that know your business, and your product – and that are empowered to affect  change.  Otherwise you are talking to a wall.

Social Media has been useful to me, and to the company I work for, because we don’t just listen and respond with useless banter.  We have a team of engineers behind us that actually CAN make change happen.  In fact – our entire Social Media Team IS engineers.  We have also been customers.  WE know what the pain points are – and this was done by design.

When you have that level of understanding of your customers – and what they really need – well, measurement takes on a new meaning.  A less significant one.  We use “social” to be helpful – with people empowered to help.

I am not overly concerned about “measuring” Social Media – as long as we keep it relevant.  If it is relevant to your business – as long as it causes conversations and resolves customer issues – well, I don’t think it needs to be measure more than that – today.  Over time measurement will become more important.

But if you work for a company now that is MOST concerned with measurement – and NOT as concerned with your impact – be afraid.

Focus on just making a difference.  The tools will catch up to us.  If you try to catch up to the tools you will take your eye off the prize – customer engagement.

So I have ONE measurement this year – only one.  How do my social media outreaches affect customers.  How involved are they where I post, with what I care about, and in a context that makes sense to me and my business?

Do they care about what I care about?  DO I care about what they care about?

If they respond in any way, I can measure social media.

If they do not respond, I can also measure social media

But I am not keeping score beyond, “Are we doing more good than bad”.

I think many are over-thinking this right now.

Are you talking to your customer or not? If you are – you can measure that – just by the number of conversations.  If you are not – don’t waste your time in measuring in.

But don’t focus on the numbers.  Focus on the conversations.  The REAL conversations you have with customers.

Rob

“Social Media” is amazing in how it lets you meet your customers – on their terms.  It has changed the way business is done.  There is no hiding from your flaws.    Everything is “open”.  Social media is very much the open sourcing of traditional PR and Marketing.

And as powerful as it is – you need to realize what it means.  If you want to “control your brand” then social media will scare the crap out of you.  If you want to understand your brand, it is invaluable.

When my employer suffers even a small failure in even a fraction of a percent of one of our data centers we see Tweets that say, “Rackspace is down”.  While this is often 99% untrue we realize that for that 1% it is 100% true.  So we treat it as if we are down.  1% isn’t acceptable and we don’t disagree with those that paint any outage as a significant outage.  Our goal is perfection.  We know we cannot achieve it, but we also realize we can most closely approach it by simply expecting it of ourselves.  And letting our customers demand it of us – even encouraging them to do so.

Does that get painful at times?  Certainly.  Do we sometimes feel as if we should be more defensive – absolutely.  It would be nice to minimize the concern to shareholders, employees, and customers when only a fraction of customers are affected by an issue.  But that also requires that we minimize the pain that affected customers feel – and we aren’t willing to make that trade.  There aren’t many successful companies that minimize or marginalize their customers.

Most of us at my office run our own websites – and we know how painful downtime is.  In fact, many of us were Rackspace customers before we came to work here – and we chose to work here because we know that the good far outweighs the bad.  Especially compared to the industry as a whole.  We are expected to be perfect in an imperfect technology.  Failure is in our future.  We know we can’t be perfect.  So we plan for when we aren’t.  But we are here because we love to help.  We feel most successful when we give others the ability to succeed.  And we can’t do that unless we know how and when we are failing them.  So we really appreciate that social media allows us to have those conversations early, and often.

But a failure is a failure – and they all hurt.  And social media may make that failure more apparent to more people – and frame things in context that sound ominous.  But we would rather hear about our failures than hide from them.

And social media makes damned sure that every failure is heard.  But it also makes sure that every success is shared.  So it is a double-edged sword.  Once you realize that you don’t wield the sword you start to think more pragmatically about things.

Then social media becomes what relationship management has always been about.  Add more value than noise.  Be genuinely concerned.  Do better.  Learn.  Get better.  Invest where your customers tell you to invest.

Be honest, and don’t be afraid.  Embrace the chaos.

I dismissed Twitter lists as a toy at first – something interesting that would be made useful later by Client Software.

I was wrong.  Twitter lists matter NOW– regardless of client support.  They are both searchable and subscribe-able.  That makes them important.

Why?  Because companies own and cultivate “brands” – a personae.  And Twitter Lists may just disrupt that in interesting ways.

Example – it is fairly easy for me to find “lists” of companies I use (or compete against, or admire – whatever).  The point is – there is no longer such a thing as a “Corporate Twitter Persona”.  It is now the total of the personas of all of your employees.  For good or bad.

Now I am not following the corporate entity alone – I am watching everyone associated with the entity.

Your corporate brand is now affected by every person subscribed to, or added to a LIST about your brand.

This is a bit of a game changer.

It’ll take a different mindset.  Not sure it can be “managed”, but pretty sure it needs to be acknowledged.

It’s been about 8 months that my primary role has been something “social media” related.  I make the role work for me, and that includes a lot of business development, social networking, and “social marketing”.  You need to find your own path.  As long as it is focused on customers, I imagine you can make it work.

But you have to start with loving to be “helpful”.  That is a powerful word that your customers will respect.

Anyway, here are some of my pointers:

• You are hyper-connected, and loving it that way.  You are “always” online, even when it isn’t really appropriate.
• You know your customers.  Better yet, you used to BE one of your companies customers!
• You know the customer community.
• You love fixing things.
• You don’t mind “being the bad guy/girl” if that’s what it takes to satisfy a customer.
• You are technical in the field you are supporting.  If it’s a writing site/company, you should be a writer.  Know your audience and you will have a respectable voice.
• Develop an online persona for yourself/company .  It can be your own, if that is appropriate.  It can be a merging of yours and your companies core values.  But it must be genuine, and it must be constant.
• Make friends with your customers.  Work for them more than you work for anyone else.
• Remember that you are also changing the way your company thinks/feels about customer outreach.  Don’t forget to reach within early and often.  Get advocates on your side.  Find those others that are already doing your role in an ad-hoc way, and embrace them.  Educate them.  Encourage them.  USE them

If you aren’t having fun – you are definitely not in the right position – get out of it quickly!

Wow – that title seems to be a mess, doesn’t it?

It actually is a mess.  Amazon, a company that doesn’t talk to their customers bought a company that is renowned for talking to their customers.

What?

Why would they?  Perhaps they know they have something to learn about being a “people business”.

Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon made that pretty clear to me with this blog post from several days ago.  Link is at the end of this post, excerpt is as follows:

Once a year however we take a moment to make sure that everyone who wants to give their input into the direction of the Amazon Web Services has the opportunity to do so.

Once a year?  Really?  That is not a “people business”.  That isn’t really even trying.  That is a poor effort at outreach – even by Amazon standards.

How often does my employer measure engagement and or satisfaction?  After every chat, or call.  Or ticket.  By being active on Twitter – because our customers are there.  By providing real people to talk to 24/7 – people that can actually help.  People.

By answering the phone when our customers call.  By caring for each of them as if they were our largest customer.

We also bring a lot of customers to the Rackspace HQ every year to help us learn how to get better.  And our CEO puts his number out on Twitter.  People.

You can build a business on technology – I’ve learned that.  But you build a following through people.

Tony Hsieh knows that.  Perhaps Amazon is looking to learn something here.  Let’s hope!

Good luck, Zappos – you got a lot of educating to do!

“Feedback for Amazon Web Services“

I am the biggest pain in the ass employee on the planet.  I know this to be true.  It has pretty much always been true.  But it is perhaps most true now.  I am getting older, and I am pretty set in my ways.

I know what I want.  I want to amaze customers.  I know I need support, and when internal systems fail me, I bitch.  LOUDLY.

I know customers depend on me, and the promises I make.  I get pissed if we miss a promise. And I bitch.  LOUDLY.

I am trouble.  I do NOT apologize for it.

I know some of my leadership wonders just WTF they were thinking by hiring me.  But I take care of customers.  So I generally make them happy.  Making people happy is what I love more than anything.

I am trouble.  I don’t accept ANYTHING because that is “the way we do it” and the “norm” generally annoys me.  I don’t care “how we have always done it”.  I don’t want to hear about “rules” if they slow me down.  I want a superhighway – I want nothing in my way.  I want no stoplights.  I just want to help people do what they are best at doing.  Building a website, managing a server, etc.  Doesn’t matter, as long as we make it easy.

I am trouble.  I know this.  I warned my employer before they hired me.  I’m not trying to hide the fact.  I am actually proud of it.

I won’t settle.  I demand a lot.  From my employer, my coworkers; my customers, even.

I also bust my ass

So before you become Trouble, make sure your are worth the trouble.  Am I?  Every day is telling.  Every challenge is telling. Some days I am more trouble than I am worth, I am sure.  But most days – most days I kick ass and help customers.  Most days, I am worth the trouble.

So far, my employer is standing up pretty damned well, and standing behind me.

So if you are going to be Trouble. make sure you know what value you add.  And make sure you and your employer have some level of agreement.

But if you ever get the chance to be trouble, and get away with it – you can do some amazing things!

If you work really, really hard.

Really hard.

Otherwise trouble will get you fired.

Not something most people enjoy doing.  Most people don’t like talking to “angry” customers.  I actually do – because that is my absolute best chance to amaze them – to turn them around – to prove to them that we really are fanatical about support.  To prove I really do care about them.  To make myself feel good by making them feel better.

It’s not easy – and it shouldn’t be easy – you have let a customer down.  A process, or a promise, has broken.

So how do you “deal with” a really angry customer?

First off – you better really care about them, because if you don’t, you are screwed.  They will know it, and they won’t trust you.  Customers know when you are blowing smoke – even if you are REALLY good at blowing smoke.  Set your corporate and personal values high – and live up to them.

Second, it helps if you can put yourself in their shoes – particularly if you have actually been in their shoes.  I manage customer relations for a hosting company (although I am not technically IN support) – so it helps that I have been hosting web sites for well over a decade.  It helps even more that I was a customer of my employer for years before I became an employee.

Third – and most important.  Don’t lie.  Don’t EVER lie.  Customers can forgive a lot – but they will not forgive a liar.  When I can’t tell a customer something specific I just tell them that I can’t answer that.  Simple. And when I honestly don’t know something, I tell them that. No harm in not knowing every answer.  Extra credit if you know where and how to get the answers, and get back to the customer quickly.

Fourth – don’t try to funnel customers into a “system” for support.  Support customers where and when you find them.  They may not like your systems.  They may prefer Skype, or Twitter, or comments on a blog post.  Don’t expect customers with issues to find you – you need to be looking for them – and talking to them wherever (and whenever) you find them wanting help.

Fifth – have a personality.  Be human.  Customers relate to real people.  Be open, and honest, share your contact info – make it VERY clear that you exist to talk to customers.  When you leave a blog comment, leave your entire title and phone number.  I “Tweet” my home phone number at least a dozen times a month.  I *want* customers to find me – taking care of them is my job.  Actually – it is more than a job – it is what I love doing.  And that leads us to #6.

Sixth – if customers annoy you, and you are in the service business – do us all a favor.  Get. Out. Now. I often have my waitstaff at restaurants replaced if they just don’t seem to like their jobs.  Sorry – I am paying for more than food – I am buying an experience – and if that includes listening to someone bitch about how much they hate serving me, I just get a manager to replace them.  I don’t feel bad about it.  If they get fired, they deserved it.  They aren’t suited for this line of work, and better they find out now.  I deserve the experience I am paying for. And that brings me to number 7.

Seventh – don’t put up with bad service.  When you allow a company – ANY company to give you bad service, and you don’t complain to correct, you are setting the new standard.  You are in actuality lowering that standard.  Demand more.  From everyone.  Don’t tolerate mediocrity.  Demand more, don’t settle.  Ever.

Finally – I know customer support can seem like an “expense”.  But when you look at the cost of customer acquisition – a good support representative – one that really “get’s it”, and loves it – they can be a gold mine for your company.

Avoid the burn of churn and support customers where, when and how they want support.  They will love you for it, and you will profit from it.

I work for a company built on people, even though the machines we employ outnumber us humans drastically.

We depend on a network, and so do all of our customers – so we employ multiple redundancies in that network.

But mostly, we are a people company.  That is why it didn’t surprise me a few weeks ago when I went to console a fellow Racker who lost a parent – and recognized several vehicles from coworkers that arrived before I did.  Another network.  A human one.  Again – with a lot of redundancies.

That is why our (now pretty damned frequent) birth announcements are always met with congratulations and words of wisdom, humor, and just plain support.

We are a young company – look out though – we are breeding like crazy!

I’ve worked for companies that pretended to feel this way about employees.  Said the right things.  Sometimes did the right things..  Usually didn’t.

Now I work for one that gets it.  Really.  It isn’t BS for investors, or a ploy for recruiters.  The care, concern and affection that exists here is real.  Nothing about it is fake.  These people look out for each other, and have each others backs.  And know each other.

And it is all about building a great community that makes a great place to work, and eventually a great business.  Many companies haven’t figured that out (yet).  They are trying to build great companies at the expense of employees and often even customers.  They have no legs.

That’s back-asswards.

Take care of your employees and let them build something great.  And they will take care of you, and your customers. And your business will grow, and it will grow stronger over time.

I’ve ridden every color of this pony there is, and I like the horse I am hitched to now.

Build by hiring caring people that are passionate about customers.  And let them show it.

And you will win – and you will have employees blogging about you – using their real names, because they are proud of where they work, and what they do.

Enlist them instead of enslaving them.

Rob

First, it’s all about the people.  From the Rackspace Chairman (Graham Weston), who I met long before I started working here, to the Racker I met in a fast food joint at lunch – there is an immediate sense of “family”.  We are Rackers.  We speak the same language.  What specific JOB we do isn’t really important.  We know we have the same customers – the same goals.  And we all understand the goals.

That is actually an interesting fact about Rackspace – every employee is treated as a trusted friend.  We see the books.  We know the numbers.  We know how we are doing, and how we depend on each other to get better, and to do better.

And we let people find what they are good at, and where they best fit in.

Think that is bullshit?

In 11 days I will have been at Rackspace for exactly one year.  After one year I’ll feel more comfortable calling myself a Racker.  I feel like one – just don’t feel as if I have “earned it” yet

I was hired in the Cloud division.  To manage developers.  I now work for Rackspace proper – doing something MUCH different then I was hired to do.  Many companies would not have worked with me to find that “sweet spot” – they would have parted ways with me before they put that effort into the relationship.

Instead, Rackspace let me go try something new (to us).  I took over our Cloud blog, and our Twitter account.  And it worked – pretty well.  They let me build an event for SXSW in Austin – which was amazing, and very well received.

And then they let me do something really out there – I hired Robert Scoble and Rocky Barbanica.  And then we built building43.com, which is yet another experiment.  One I have a lot of passion for.  One I truly believe in, and am passionate about.

And I think that’s the key that Rackspace has figured out – they let people follow their passion.  And they work with those employees to find a way to make that passion make sense.  For the Racker, for Rackspace, and for investors.

So I was hired to manage developers.  Instead I am managing emerging media, building a truly unique web property, and trying to find a completely new way to do both marketing and PR in a public company.

Not bad for the first year.  Wonder what they will let me try in the second?  Guess that depends on how these current projects work out!

But it is pretty damned cool to be able to TRY – to do something totally new.  To have the company see if it fails instead of demanding proof it will succeed before they even try.

If you think hosting companies are boring, you haven’t worked at Rackspace.  We are anything but boring – we are pushing the envelope in ways most companies aren’t.

And that’s why I love it here.

Join us   We’re hiring.

Always.

Rob

First, it is “building43″ one word, all lower case.

Second – we never had more than two full time people on this project – Robert and Rocky. The rest of us are passionate about B43, but we have other roles as well. Including some being contractors. No dedicated five person team.

Third – no – I cannot hire you for building43. We are getting enough offers of help from people that just want to help. Please don’t ask to get paid – we won’t do it. Better material comes from those that are just passionate, I think.

Fourth – I am not the “lead engineer”. Been a long time since I considered myself an engineer. Probably goes back to 2004 or so. I was the guy that tried to make sure we were all focused on the same goal – nothing more.

I hope you like building43.com. It took a lot of effort from a lot of people.

Rob

Below is a job posting from my employer.  I didn’t see it until it was already posted – and customers showed it to me.

We screwed this posting up in a couple of ways (at least).  We wrote it like we were hiring someone impersonal and or detached.  And we didn’t consult the people already doing this work.

We’ve made great strides in Social Media/ Customer relations over the last months – but this shows we have a bit to learn.  We don’t have an overall corporate strategy on social media (yet).  We haven’t driven the message internally on who “owns” this (yet).

These are the things I get to help with.  This is why I think I have one of the most awesome jobs ever.

This is why 100 hours a week doesn’t feel like work.

I work for a company that is letting me influence these things – and they are listening, and giving me not only a voice, but a mandate.

In fact, they think I am moving too slowly

How cool is that?

I send a lot of emails on Fridays.  On the one day I get the fewest emails.  But there is a reason I send so many on Fridays.

On Fridays, I work at home, and try to dedicate the day to talking to potential customers.  The rest of the week I dedicate to helping current customers.

But Fridays are different – on Fridays I try to talk to the people that can influence other buyers – basically trying to extend my reach.

So I learn a lot on Fridays.  And that causes me to send a lot of emails that I am sure my bosses wish waited until Monday.  But I write them as they come in, and send them as I can.  Which generally means a flurry of late-night Friday emails on a number of different ideas/prospects.

Sorry, bosses.  But Friday is a good day for this.  People are willing to talk more on Fridays.

I recently changed positions at work.  Instead of managing developers and QA I will be “managing” thousands of customers.  My new title is, “Director of Customer Development”.

While I will miss directly mentoring people, this does seem to be a role I have spent years preparing for.  From my years running a public dial-up BBS years ago, to managing global customer care during the development of WiFi, and finally the last 4+ years I have spent involved in what is now known as “social media” or “social networking”.

The most challenging aspect, and the one I look forward to the most, is the fact that this is something new for us as a company – so I’m getting to pioneer, at some level.  So how do you do that?

To me, it is easy – I asked my customers what they need/want from us.  I’ll focus on delivering that.  Hard to imagine failing if you give customers what they ask for!

The other aspect of the job that I know I will enjoy is the ever changing nature of the position.  I don’t do well with repetition.  This should be anything but repetitive!

So how did I start this new position?  Well, by doing a forum post where I gave the domain owners for nearly 100,000 websites both of my cell phone numbers – AND my home phone number.  Does that sound crazy?  Perhaps so. 

But I love talking to customers – always have.  And I never cringe when my phone rings and I recognize a customer is calling.  Even if they aren’t 100% happy – because my job is to make them happy!

So I am looking forward to this next stage of my journey through my professional career.  It is rare that you get the chance to get paid for what you absolutely love doing.  So I plan on making the most of this

I know I haven’t posted much lately. I’ve just been having a lot of fun learning about cloud computing, talking to customers, and working with employees.  I’ve missed that.  Especially the last part.

My kids are at the stage that they don’t really think I have anything to teach them anymore   The people I work with are older, and smarter, and believe that I do. So I have been having fun trying to lead them.

And I am finding new ways for us to talk to customers.  Twitter has been great, but a CampFireNow account has proven to be very useful – especially with Twitter.  I get a customer engaged on Twitter, and invite them to CampFireNow – where we can have a quicker, more intimate conversation.  We both win.

I’ve also been talking to more customers (and even competitors) 1:1.  Trying to help us all build a better cloud.

But I’m really having fun.  Talking to customers and trying to set an example to co-workers.

Work should be fun.  Or you shouold change jobs.

We had a team outing yesterday, on the Guadelupe River in New Braunfels (about 30 minutes from our offices).

Our host was none other than the Rackspace Chairman, Graham Weston, whom I have been lucky enough to know for about 6 months or so.

Graham fed us, we drank some of his beer (just a LITTLE BIT!) and we played on a pontoon boat, and with a Jet Ski.

I dressed “river casual” and wore my favorite shirt and hat   Michael (a member of my team) was nice enough to take a couple photos, including the one above.  Could a guy even get more relaxed!?

I also rode my motorcycle, which was great.  The temperatures are cooling off!

Great day for me personally, and a great experience for Team Mosso.  It takes a lot of work to keep 80,000 domains online, and we appreciated the chance to relax for a bit.

I have just accepted a position as Director of Software Development for Mosso.

Mosso is based in San Antonio, and is part of Rackspace.

So, why did I choose Mosso?  From the web site:

We started Mosso because we knew there were web developers who wanted a reliable platform for their applications and email–without being the ones responsible for all the technology.

Basically, Mosso does, on a much larger scale, what I have been doing as a consultant for the last few years – stripping as much of the technology details as possible out of the lives of people that have an idea and/or dream – they want to build the idea, not manage the server, or the databases.  They want to be able to focus on building what they envision.  I’ve helped people focus on that – Mosso lets thousands of people do the same.

That’s what Mosso does.  And more.  And in very cool ways.

Mosso also passed all of my test points:

• I need to build teams.
• I need to work with smart people.
• I need a voice.
• I need responsibility, accountability, AND authority.
• I need the security of a larger company with the atmosphere of a startup.
• I needed a company that is nimble – it can quickly adjust to change, and new ideas.
• My work must have value to me, and to others.
• The impact has to have a large footprint.  I like building big!

So, how did Mosso do on this list?  Extremely well.  I will not be building one team – but several teams.  I have met some of the smartest people – all in one company in downtown San Antonio.

My position is a senior one – I will eventually have a large team – and many of them I will need to hire.  That is important work that is important to the company, and to my new coworkers.  I’ll be allowed to run my teams and do my job – I’ll be helping grow/invent/implement some very cool technology.

The work environment is amazing – we have real humans at Mosso 24/7.  We have developers on call 24/7.  We work 24/7 (so you don’t have to!).  Developers build their own schedules for covering “on call” – they don’t need a “manager” – they are managing quite well right now   So I will focus on improving our processes and hiring more talented people (call me if you are interested – 210-845-4440).

New employees get their choice of computers.  You want a Windows desktop? – no problem.  One monitor, or two?  You want a 17” MacBook Pro (I Do!) – that’s cool as well.  One monitor, or two?  It’s really up to you.  Since we are building computing for the cloud, the systems we personally choose don’t really matter (except for where you feel most productive!).

Like any startup, you have a lot to do – your job description might as well read, “Succeed”.  I like that.  But we’re also backed by Rackspace – a very strong company (and a very cool company to work at in their own right – they’ve won a lot of awards for being a cool place to work).

I first met the Mosso crew when I invited Robert Scoble to come to San Antonio – I was just introduced to a couple of them – I didn’t get a chance to talk to them.  But a few weeks later I looked into what they were doing.  I became a customer.  I was (and am even more so now) impressed.  Those blog posts started a conversation that eventually led to here.  It was not planned.

But I am very pleased to be in an exciting position at Mosso – and am very happy to be part of the Rackspace family.  I am a Racker, and already proud of it

I won’t be able to talk much about what I am doing for a while.  But once I can, I’ll be sure to share my experience with you.

But as I learn more about Mosso, and what my teams look like – I’ll share that with you. 

Because I wouldn’t go to work for a company that didn’t excite me   And challenge me.

This one does.

It has been about four years since I first decided to step into the consulting lifestyle.  In that time one of my “children” has completed High School, and then his first year of college.  Next year my daughter will finish High School as well.

It has been an amazing four years for me – I have been able to spend time with my kids as required – but mostly I have been able to spend an inordinate amount of time learning.  Ten years ago I learned by reading books – today I learn more by surfing the Internet – it is still reading, but it is so much faster, and so much more available (and “find-able!”.

One of the things my time in consulting has taught me is that I miss people.  I miss the challenge of building teams – not just hiring people, but building functional groups that work well together to build more than any single persons could have done.

So, taking stock of my life, as I am often wanton to do, I asked myself, “What is next”?  In a year I will have two kids in college, and perhaps neither of them left at home.

It was time for me to answer the question, “What does Rob want?”.

So I looked back in my life experiences and tried to zero in on what made me the most happy – what did I love to do so much that I could do it for the rest of my life?  Raising children certainly tops my list – but I can’t raise them forever – in fact, I am already being outsourced in that position – by my children themselves.

Raising children is like building good teams – the end goal is that eventually they won’t need depend on you anymore.

I decided I needed to go back to work with people – preferably young, energetic people, and certainly people smarter than I am.  I have always been lucky in surrounding myself with people smarter than I am (and please – PAUL! – no comments that this should be easy – it isn’t).

This realization came over a several month period – I didn’t wake up one day having come to this “epiphany”.

I missed building teams.  I need to work with smart people.  I MUST work for a company that understands that I am a unique person – I am opinionated, passionate, determined, outspoken, opinionated, and outspoken.  And I am sorry if I repeated myself.  And I am sorry if I repeated myself.

I need a company that doesn’t exist outside of startups – I needed security, because I will have two kids in college.  It must be nimble.  It must be willing to listen, and learn – even as it teaches.  But I also needed the excitement that keeps me engaged.  I need to constantly invent.  I need to work with smart people that will make me smarter.  I needed to be someplace that allows me to make a difference every day.  I needed to build something that affects a lot of people, because after helping build WiFi – it takes a big project to be a “big deal”.

And most of all – I need to be able to help.  My work must have value – to me, and to the people I work with.  And to the customers – who I never shy away from or refuse a conversation with.

In the next day or two I hope to share with you the company that is all of that, and more.  How much more is something I expect to find out soon – and something I hope to grow over time.

But don’t worry – I won’t change my blogging style/habits.  I wouldn’t work for a company that thought they could control my freedom of expression outside the office.

The list of companies I wouldn’t work for is rather large.  So I’ll save you that and instead share with you in the next couple days who I would work for – and I will tell you exactly why I made that choice.