If you haven’t yet tuned into the weekly podcast known as Infosmack on community site Storage Monkeys, you’re missing out. Every Monday, hosts Greg Knieriemen and Marc Farley bring on guests to dish about the latest storage industry news–and they do so in a very entertaining and informative way. This week’s show was particularly enjoyable, as they moved on from the usual format and turned the mirror around, so to speak–discussing social media such as blogging and Twitter, and how well big companies like EMC, HDS, IBM and HP are doing on that front.
The guests this week were Louis Gray and Mark Twomey–two guys who have made a serious mark on the social media landscape. Louis, who blogs daily at LouisGray.com is a recognized social media expert whose reputation extends far beyond the storage and networking industries. He is the co-founder of social media consulting firm Paladin Advisors and was at BlueArc for many years. He now advises such diverse clients as Emulex, My6Sense, Brazen Careerist, and Simler on social media strategy. I interviewed Louis on video recently–check out Part 1 and Part 2 to get his views on the latest social media debates.
Mark, who goes by the moniker Storagezilla, is a trailblazer at EMC with his controversial blog and Twitter persona. His blog, he explains on this week’s podcast, was originally written anonymously. He was then “outed” by someone at HDS. Meanwhile, within EMC there were forces that tried to suppress him. But nothing seems to stop this saurian storage monster from terrorizing anyone who shows the slightest sign of hypocrisy, ignorance or self-inflation. (Yes, even this blogger has been a target, but no worries, we’ll get ours back…)
Nowadays, EMC has embraced the new social landscape with a vengeance — in fact, the panelists agreed it’s doing social media better than almost any other big storage company. The secret: go ahead and let your employees blog and tweet to their heart’s content. Though they can be a liability, they’re also the best evangelists for your products and services. Storagezilla has had had his wrist slapped more than once for his NDA-breaking, irreverent blog posts. But he’s also a popular and well-known figure who brings the word of EMC to the masses. Other EMC bloggers like “The Storage Anarchist” Barry Burke are also controversial. And that, in many ways is a good thing. This is no blank, corporate face, but rather one that’s full of lively (sometimes, some might say too lively) discussion and debate.
As it happens, my own podcast TechnoGirlTalk takes up a similar topic on this week’s show. My guests and I discuss the fact that storage titan EMC may well have set the tone for the entire industry–one that is marked by aggressive, intense competitiveness. The Twitter smackdowns that are common among storage folks are easily found as they are rare in other communities. As ESG analyst and EMC alum Terri McClure explained, this is really the history of the storage industry. EMC started out as a tiny David taking on the Goliath known as IBM–a gamble that required it be tough as nails and not pull any punches. Another of the guests, Christina LeBlanc, elaborated on this. She’s on the front lines as an account executive at EMC, and gets “beaten up” out there every day.
When she first attended the EMC tour, she and the other new hires were told that EMC’s original gambit was to hire football players as salesmen. They figured that these guys would be too tough to back down, and wouldn’t know enough to realize how impossible it is to beat IBM. Christina explained that nowadays, sales folks have to know their stuff or they’ll be laughed out of the office. And while it’s still a tough, competitive job, she puts a greater emphasis on being sensitive to the customer’s needs and seeking to serve them.
Even though EMC has come a long way from its bull-headed beginnings, that reputation still hangs over the company like a miasma. As blogger Stephen Foskett writes in a post on Gestalt IT (and his own blog) this week, “I’ve known literally dozens of IT shops who refused to buy from EMC, even though the sleazy sales tactics that turned them off (and indeed the sales reps themselves) are reportedly long gone from the company.” But, he argues, today’s competitive landscape is so tough that EMC now just seems like one of the crowd. “With the market getting tougher, the tough guy doesn’t look so bad anymore,” he writes.
As Storagezilla and the others on the podcast noted, there’s been something of a detente among storage bloggers of late. The winds of peace might be blowing through the industry. Or, maybe everyone’s just tired from the holidays and will be back out in no time with guns blazing.
And speaking of healthy competition, if you like this blog, why not vote for it on Storage Monkeys this week? They’re once again running their contest for the Top 10 Storage Vendor Blogs and Online Storage Op is one of the finalists. You must be a member of Storage Monkeys to vote–so now’s your chance to sign up and join the conversation there if you haven’t already.
