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

Unless you are just really, really lucky.

I am.

About ten months or so ago I took a position at Rackspace, in their Cloud Computing Division.  A LOT has changed in that division in that amount of time.  It has grown like crazy – both in the customer base and the headcount.  We’ve brought on some new roles, both technical and in management.  I went from being the Director of Software Development to the Director of Customer Development.

I’m in a better place now – for me AND for Rackspace.  Why?  Because I’ve always been a customer guy.  I’ve always talked to more customers than almost anyone else I have worked with.  Why?  I just love it.  I love hearing what customers are thinking, what they wish for, how we can make them more successful.

And I absolutely love to help.  I really get paid by helping people – meaning it is every bit as important to me as money.  I need money to eat – I need to help customers to truly live.  I know that sounds corny as hell.  But it is true.  A painter needs to paint.  A customer guy needs to help customers.

So why is Rackspace a great company to work for?  For me, the most important thing is that NOBODY argues with anyone who is trying to care for a customer.  It is just a given that if you are working a customer issue, you are doing the absolute most important thing you could be doing at that given moment.  This isn’t BS, or a marketing gimmick – I’ve worked in companies where it was.  At Rackspace it is ingrained in what everyone does every day. And since I spend a LOT of my time working customer issues, it is nice to know that the entire company is behind me – everyone wants me to succeed.  Everyone wants to win that customer satisfaction battle.  It is NOT BS.  It is what we strive to do.

I also love how Rackspace has let me experiment – even to lead them, in some ways.  Our Mosso Twitter account is extremely popular with customers, competitors and prospective customers.  You have a question at 9am on Sunday morning, it is very likely going to be answered quickly on Twitter – either by us, or by our cast of customers that love helping each other out.

I wanted to do something big at SxSW – and Rackspace made it happen.  I am NOT taking credit for that – it took a LOT of people to make that happen.  But the fact that we went from virtually no presence at SxSW last year to one of the best events at SxSW is amazing to me.  Our turnout was huge and the response to our “Mediterranean themed” party was wonderful.  If you have an idea, it won’t get swept under the rug here – people listen.

I’ve had some challenges at Rackspace – I’ve slipped a bit here and there while trying to find my footing.  I’ve had to prove myself and have had to prove things TO myself.  It hasn’t been a cake-walk.  But it has been a walk worth taking.

My senior leadership team has listened to me bitch, and whine, and moan, and perhaps even throw a temper tantrum or two.  But they stuck with me.  They believed that I added value and they, along with me, were convinced that we just needed to figure out the “where and how”.  Finding the right position is always difficult.  Finding it for someone like me, who is considerably difficult to work with, is a challenge.  I am pretty demanding.  Mostly of myself, but also very much so of my employer.  I need real work to do – meaningful work that actually benefits customers… or I quickly lose interest. Rackspace has worked hard with me to find that place.  That place that makes sense for both of us.

So Rack and I get along pretty well – we are both demanding.  We both expect customers to just be taken care of.  We expect to challenge and question each other – we expect to learn from each other.  And honestly, I am not sure we will ever be completely comfortable with each other (perhaps it is best if we never are).  But I think we both benefit from the challenge of finding how to work together – and to do so in the best way for our customers.

And finally, Rackspace is a very human company, which I appreciate a great deal.  Just a few weeks ago we lost our first Racker – in almost ten years the first active Racker passed away – in an auto accident.  I won’t go into details because it is a personal thing for Rackers, and his family.  But Rackspace stepped forward and did more than the right things.  For Rackers, and the family members.  Today I wear a wristband that speaks to that fact.

I don’t care where you host your website.  But if you are a customer advocate, and you want to work someplace where that trait is well-regarded – then look at Rackspace.  They really are Fanatical about their customers – and we love employees that push us to make that true, to keep it true, and to make it better every day.  We can always improve.

And I am living proof that Rackspace is always looking for new ways, new people, and new methods of thinking to make that a reality.

I am a Racker.  And I am quite happy about it.

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’ll be in Austin, TX for the next couple of days.  I am going to the Rackspace Cloud Event.  It should be fun, and we’ve all been working really hard on making it a reality.

I’ll write more about it after I’m allowed to talk more about it

But I encourage you to watch the live stream on Wed – the link is on the above URL.

Thanks!

Rob

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 helped build WiFi, and WAY BACK THEN (~6 years ago) my kids were young. I could walk with them through any electronics store – Best Buy, CompUSA, Radio Shack etc – and point at what I did. “Our chips are in that, and that, and that”. It was very cool, and I was a hero to my kids and their friends. Wireless was (and still is) some VERY cool stuff! If you love your WiFi, throw me, and a very talented group of engineers some love!

Now I do Cloud Computing – it is very hard to point at something and have my kids understand exactly what I build. I could not even bring them into our data center and point at a machine that one of my domains runs at. There is no “machine”. There are thousands of machines. (And even as the Director of Software Development I don;t have the credentials to get into our datacenters – I don’t need to be there).

What I build is hard to point at – much more difficult than a Wireless enabled laptop, or a WiFi Router.

But I am building something even larger than WiFi. Imagine that – larger than WiFi! Think of it – where were you last in a decent sized city and you couldn’t find free WiFi somewhere?

It is everywhere, And I am helping to build something even bigger, but different.

And struggling with how I explain it to people. Even my kids.

We went through this with Wireless – where people just didn’t get it – until they used it. Cloud computing is kinda like that. You don’t know that you want it (yet). In a year you will be pissed when you can’t get it.

I have added a disclosure policy page.

Read it and enjoy the goodness

And it isn’t me. Yoshi, my six year old Border Collie is not pleased.

Yoshi got very used to me being home – or me taking him with me when I left.

I know he will adjust, but the past two days he has ignored me for a while after I get home. Eventually he warms up – but he is making it very clear he isn’t pleased.

I guess if my dog isn’t happy with my new job I should at least make sure my developer’s are! 

We had a good first day – a “scrum call” (ten minute sync up meeting, a nice lunch, and some nice conversations.

Some very bright people – including “Naked Einstein” (sorry, inside joke, can’t share the details on this one!).

So far Mosso looks like the best place I could have ended up – there are a lot of things I’ve already been through that I can help with, and there is a TON I have never been exposed to that I can learn.

It doesn’t get any better than this!

 

Looking for a change of pace?  Want to love your work?  Know Python (or are you just really expert at some web technology?) – call me, let’s talk!

Rob

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.

OK. If you haven’t read my previous post where MOSSO blew my mind, go read it now.  Then be prepared to be REALLY blown away.

I said I could create one domain that runs Windows and another that runs Linux – all on the same account.

I said I could run Windows with MS SQL or with MySQL.

I said I could run Windows and Ruby on Rails, or Linux and Ruby on Rails.

All of that amazed me.

But I had NO IDEA that I could run, ON ONE DOMAIN .Net, PHP, MySQL, and MS SQL.  I didn’t realize that my .Net app could talk to my MySQL database AND my MS SQL database.  Or that my PHP app could talk to my MySQL and MS SQL databases.

That my Linux apps could talk to my Windows databases.  And vise-versa.

All on the same domain.

All on the same domain!

I didn’t realize how many choices I had, and how many ways I could serve my clients all on one box – regardless of the application, database, Operating System, etc.

I honestly need to sit and think for a while because I have no clue how all of this can be true.  Just thinking about the back end that serves this is making my head spin a little bit.  The front-end – the part *I* work with is just DROP DEAD EASY.

I’ve got a feeling the back end is a bit more complex

The back end is where the BMVS (Black Magic Voodoo Shit) happens.  And it is some serious magic.

In my F.A.Q. page I say DesqView X is my favorite software ever.  Because it was magic.

But I think I need to update my F.A.Q. now.  MOSSO is making my head spin.

It honestly seems impossible.

And if I would not have been lucky enough to just talk to one of the inventors of the technology I probably still wouldn’t believe it.

My brain must rest.

Amazing.  After being at Rackspace all day yesterday, and visiting their new site the day before, I was already wondering if I shouldn’t just go work for them.  Rackspace is an amazing company.

But now I know.  If I leave consulting, I am applying at MOSSO.

It is that freaking cool.

I opened an account on MOSSO today. It was VERY easy. Name, address, email, password, credit card number.

Bam! Everything just happens. I didn’t have to pick out a server configuration, a data plan, a firewall, anti-virus – none of that crap that is just a pain in the ass to keep up with.

In fact – I didn’t even have to decide if I wanted to run Windows or Linux — because I can make that decision for each domain I add. I am NOT bullshitting you! I “bought” one server. I created two domains. One runs LAMP and the other runs Windows Server. Really!

I can create another domain and run Ruby on Rails. I can run a domain on Windows with MySQL or MSSQL. I can run Linux with Ruby on Rails, or Linux with PHP/MySQL, etc. One box. One price. One login. One thing to manage. Very sweet!

All on the same “cloud” in the sky. All without worrying about updating anything, managing firewall ports, updating Anti-virus, etc.

Truly amazing technology! This is cloud computing without all of the pitfalls you get with other cloud computing platforms (you have to be a programmer, lightning can strike you at this altitude on some platforms, and the air gets thin up in the clouds).

But MOSSO protects you from ALL OF THAT. Really.

So far, so good. I still have some stuff to learn – and there are two things I don’t like – they aren’t big things, but sometimes it is the little things that bother me.

• First, I can’t pick the day of the month my credit card gets billed. I wish I could.
• Second, it costs $10.00 to transfer an existing domain. Sure, that gives you an extra year on your domain, but I think the first domain transfer should be free – as an incentive for me to move to MOSSO.

Like I said – these aren’t big issues, but they are areas I think MOSSO could improve on.

I won’t really put anything live on the new server until WordPress 2.5 comes out next week. No reason to do an install just to upgrade.

But the back end of this system must be VERY freaking cool. I must talk to them more about it!

And I’ll let the rest of you know more about MOSSO as I learn more.

So far I am more than impressed. I almost cannot believe they are doing what they are doing. It seems illogical!

And what would you expect to pay for this kind of power and flexibility? $1000/month? $500/month? No! It is only $100 a month to run a wide variety of sites on one platform that grows and expands dynamically – as you need it.

Really. Fucking. Amazing.