Amongst the Madness

“It was madness. And, as Finan had said, sometimes madness works.”
― Bernard Cornwell

I have just returned from five days working a convention in Las Vegas, Nevada. Yes, the city also known as Sin City or Lost Wages. A day or night overload of ones senses. A constant ingest of sounds, lights and visual madness. It was also a chance to conduct EMCWorld 2015, showcasing some of the world's greatest data storage technology.

It was connecting with people.

When you put on a convention in a city such as Las Vegas, the risk of what grabs a person's attention is constantly at play. One has to decide the importance of a new virtual storage system discussion over the ringing and dinging of a slot machine. It is called a vVNX if you are interested in checking it out.

It was also connecting with people.

What I find most interesting about Las Vegas are the people. I am not speaking of the residents of Las Vegas outside of "The Strip" where all the bells and whistles are. I am pretty sure Las Vegas is like any other city outside of the 4-mile strip of madness and the residents are as well. But walk through the casinos, the buffet lines, the shoppes and the convention halls; this is the interesting piece of being in Las Vegas.

It was constant connections with people.

Over the course of four days, I participated in over thirty customer meetings, there were breakout sessions to attend and the impromptu hallway meetings. I met old friends and created new friendships. There was a lot of information sharing but there was a lot of information learning from listening to people. It was not simply the noise of a Las Vegas game of chance.

It was about connecting with people.

Sure, everyone had fun in a lot of different ways. After a long year of relative peace and quiet, Las Vegas lends itself to the short term visitor offering many forms of madness. But within the madness are the people and that is what works.

Stay inspired my friends.

EMC World 2014 - The Day Begins

“No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride...and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well...maybe chalk it off to forced conscious expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.” - Hunter S. Thompson

Here it is, Monday, May 5th in Las Vegas, Nevada; entertainment capital of the world. And it is the start to EMC World 2014, a much anticipated event each year by those in the IT industry. As data growth explodes, EMC creates the infrastructure that enables you to manage your business and your career. EMC World is where you get to mingle with the top engineers and thought leaders in the IT world.

You also get to meet, greet and spend time with your peers in the industry. A time to see how others are doing their job and life. Reconnecting with old friends and making new friends. In a crowd that can be nearly 15,000 in size, you are bound to run into something old and something new.

There are a lot of folks at EMC and within our sponsors who want to welcome you and make this a productive and fun time. As Hunter Thompson said, you "buy the ticket, take the ride..." which is our industry. It can get bumpy at times but we are here to help make that ride a little smoother.

Enjoy the ride and let me know how the experience was. You can comment on my blog post or tweet something out to @jprimm on Twitter. Enjoy the week everyone.

And stay inspired my friends!

Crisis Averted: EMCWorld 2013 - Day Three

"When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity." -John F. Kennedy

For each of the attendees to this year's EMCWorld, at some point in the day, week, month or year, a crisis will likely occur. While each of us in attendance are enjoying meeting new people, learning of new technologies and getting to test the newest gadgets, the business of our life continues.

There will be those issues back at work which draw you away from your temporary enjoyment of the conference. For me, there are those things that come up and I thoroughly enjoy jumping into the fire with my customers to help them get it resolved. This gives them the opportunity to get back to the conference and the enjoyment of it. I have had my share this week and to in the larger crowd of people the crisis may not seem such a big deal, but to the individual it is.

Your crisis might be deemed small or huge. It might involve keeping or losing your job. It might be a relationship or possibly mean life and death. Whatever the case, crisis will enter your life. How you deal with it determines your outcome on the other side. Some people do not handle it well and end up in worse condition while others are stronger and much better for the experience.

As you walk the convention halls of EMCWorld or even the halls of your life back home, know that there is hope, opportunity and greatness to be achieved through crisis. Come out on the other side renewed and greater for the experience.

Stay inspired my friends.

Connected Dots: EMCWorld 2013 - Day Two

"Make it a habit to tell people thank you. To express your appreciation, sincerely and without the expectation of anything in return. Truly appreciate those around you, and you'll soon find many others around you. Truly appreciate life, and you'll find that you have more of it." -Ralph Marston

An impressive first day that truly didn't disappoint myself or any one of the nearly 15,000 people in attendance. I always develop certain expectations of what these days are going to be like. Am I going to run into someone that I haven't seen in a long time? Will I remember their name? Will they remember me?

What I have come to the conclusion is that of all those connections made over the years are lasting if I have committed to the relationship without expectation of something in return.

That means if we develop friendships, help other people and do all of this without a requirement of getting something in return, the connection is much stronger. This is what happens in the business world and can work for you in your own life. At EMCWorld and in our every day business, EMC personnel work hard at developing the relationship. If we build a business trust with each other first, the rest is rather easy.

You can attain the same type of relationships in your own business and personal life. When you approach life with a serving attitude, the connections become strong and lasting. In fact, your day is filled with serving others and you may not even realize it. Allowing someone in line as you drive to work, opening the door for someone or simply doing your job. You help your spouse with the dishes, the kids with homework or a neighbor move a desk.

Most everything you do throughout your day is comprised of serving others. And this elaborate intertwining of peoples lives means that you are served as well through out the day. What you receive in return is directly proportional to the level of servitude you extend to others.

It can be humbling but you need to have confidence in yourself and a positive attitude that you can change other peoples lives through small acts of kindness. Serve with a joyful heart and with the knowledge that you will receive in kind the same. You have nothing to lose and all the world to gain. We are never too young or too old to ask, "Can I hold open that door for you?"

Stay inspired my friends.

Viva Las Vegas: EMCWorld 2013 - Day One

"In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit." -Albert Schweitzer

Are you one of the thousands of people attending this year's EMCWorld Conference in Las Vegas? If not, it starts today and the crowds of people roaming the halls of the Venetian Conference Center are proof of what you might be missing out on. From my perspective in the Unified Storage Division, the large amount of events associated with just our division is quite big...Big Data!

• USD Keynote: Rich Napolitano, Wednesday May 8th 8:30-9:30am, SVP Unified Storage Division
• Technical Breakout Sessions: 32 sessions repeated twice
• Birds of a Feather Sessions; Hands-on Labs; Unified Storage Booth; Meet the Experts Whiteboard area
• Demonstration stations covering several topics including Applications, Management, Virtualization/VDI, FLASH 1st
• Theatre Presentations in Partner booths: VCE, VMware, Avnet/Metalogix

Wow, it is big.

But what is even bigger are the people in attendance, the interaction, the conversations and the collective human connection. It reminds me of what we can do when we come together. This week I look forward to meeting new people and renewing old acquaintances. When each of us leave at the end of this week, we'll be better prepared to solve challenges in front of us and see new possibilities.

All of this will happen because we connected with each other. You might be at @EMCWorld 2013 or at home; just keep on connecting with people you meet. You're going to learn, enjoy and live a better life. And above all, don't forget to stay inspired my friends.

Viva Big Data

"All this technology for connection and what we really only know more about is how anonymous we are in the grand scheme of things" -Heather Donahue

Coming to you live from Las Vegas this week at EMC World. A gathering of over 10,000 people that have one thing in mind, data storage. This the premiere technology event of the year and its going to be another great one.

The articles this week are not going to be marketing introductions or specifications on data. What I want to bring to you is the human element of the conference. The connections people make, the interaction of different people from all around the world.

Here we have the chance to take all of this social media and actually connect face-to-face with each other. Scary for some, intriguing for others, but the great thing is making those connections to other people.

I will be offering small updates by means of Twitter and Facebook, so check me out on Twitter @jprimm or Facebook Joseph Primm.

So Viva Las Vegas from @EMCWorld, the world of big data and lots of fantastic people.

Hang tight, I think I just saw Elvis....