Monday May 30, 2005

Leaving Sun

I've taken a job at Intuit and I'm leaving Sun. Wow, I can't quite believe it is real. The job is an exciting opportunity and I am very excited about all the new challenges, but I am very ambivalent about leaving Sun. I have been here for 17 years.(correction: 18 years) When I started at Sun I had two little girls 3 and 7 and my last name was Brown. Now 17 years later my youngest is going into her last year of college and will turn 21 in a few months, and my oldest has just finished two years of teaching elementary school. My life has changed dramatically. Having been divorced and remarried my last name is now Vermazen. 17 years is in a very real sense a life time. My time at Sun has been an amazing roller coaster. A high point has been working with absolutely phenomenal people who just awe me with their creativity, hard work and intelligence.

One of the things about working for a big company is that you can change jobs but not change employers. I've been a customer support manager, a software development manager, a configuration management manager, a real estate IT manger, and finally the IT director for Sun's iWork program. For most of these jobs I am very proud of what I accomplished. For a couple of them all I can say is that they were low points on the roller coaster and real learning experiences.

Sun is an absolutely amazing company that I will always be proud to have been a part of. I have almost always felt like I could make a difference here and I have never even for a moment doubted the reality of Sun's high ethical standards.

Finally I am so grateful that Sun introduced me to blogging. Creating a blog and being a part of Sun's blogging community has been so much fun. I think I am hooked for life and I just hope I can create a successful blog away from the warm and nurturing environment of blogs.sun.com. Here is the link to my new blog. I am also posting this entry there. For those who are reading this posting on the new blog here is a link to my Sun blog. I don't know how long it will be around.

Sunday May 29, 2005

Guns, Germs, and Steel

I just finished reading Gun's, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. I highly recommend it. "This book attempts to provide a short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years" That's The first sentence of the preface to the paperback edition. That in and of itself would make the book interesting to me. I have always wondered about world history beyond the caucasian history that I learned in school.

But beyond the history, the book attempts to develop some possible answers to the the big questions " Why did wealth and power become distributed as they now are, rather than some other way? For instance, why weren't Native Americans, Africans, and Aboriginal Australians the ones who decimated, subjugated, or exterminated Europeans and Asians?" Guns, Germs, and Steel is a very easy to read book and it is the kind of compelling non fiction that engages me. Each chapter starts with questions like Why did only some societies domesticate plants and animals and become farmers? Why did Europeans germs wipe out Native Americans rather than Native Americans germs wipe out the Europeans? Diamond's suggested answers are fascinating.

Diamond's arguments stimulated me to think about other topics too. When he explored why the same society is not equally receptive to all inventions it made me think about why my friend Joe Reinhard's gyroplane which as I understand it is a superior technology is not in production today.

When he talked about the development of writing and how "ancient writing's main function was to facilitate the enslavement of other human beings." It got me thinking about the ways that modern technologies could be used in a similar way.

I think I will eventually read Diamond's most recent book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. But the next book on my list to read is Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.

Friday May 27, 2005

Where will you store your data?

In a recent post about Gmail Jeremy Zawodny said "The more I use GMail, the more I find myself re-thinking about the question: Where will you store your data?." I think that the long predicted transition to keeping your data on the network as opposed to on the desktop is really happening. I know that I like the idea of someone else backing up my data and me being able to access it from anywhere. I've recently started using Plaxo for my address book and del.icio.us for my bookmarks. I still use Thunderbird at home to access my yahoo email but I am seriously considering changing over to Gmail.

This change to keeping your data on the network reminds me of the change from punched cards to on line files. (I know I am dating myself) I remember liking the security of being able to hold my program in my hand but once I faced the fact that a program on a deck of cards was probably less safe that an online program there was no looking back. Having all your data on the network accessible from your PDA, your laptop or a computer at work just makes sense. This is of course Sun's vision of the future of computing. Why should you be tied to just one device.

Renaissance People

I often read books or articles that advise you to find your passion, focus and become an expert. That advice has never worked for me. That is why James Governor's blog about the need for the reemergence of Renaissance People really resonated for me. I have always resisted being a specialist. My goal is to have a wide range of knowledge. I get bored focusing on just one topic.

Wednesday May 25, 2005

Reading Blogs

Writing an introduction to how to read blogs and then posting it on your blog is kind of like holding a seminar on mountain climbing on top of a mountain. But I think I will point a lot of people to this entry when I tell them how beneficial it is to read blogs. So if you are already an avid blog reader you might just want to skip over this posting.

I was in a staff meeting yesterday where we were talking about how to really understand the business needs of a group with whom we are doing a big project. A bunch of the people in the client group are bloggers and it was obvious to me that the people from my group who are doing the project are missing the bet if they don't read the blogs of the client group. There are lots of other good reason's to read blog too. If you want to understand Sun strategy. If you want to connect with other people in your discipline or in your area of interest both inside or outside of your company I can't think of a better thing to do than to start reading blogs.

I don't really understand why more people don't grasp how useful and enriching it can be. Again I'll say that if you are reading this then you probably already know the value of reading blogs but I know there really still is a whole world of people who just don't get what the big deal is.

I suspect that a primary reason is time. If you have a job and kids and a spouse and friends I know that at times you have to choose between doing the dishes and taking a shower and even reading your email ends up quite a ways down the priority list. So maybe you just don't have time. A lot of people considering reading blogs assume that to read blogs means going to each blog that you are interested in to see if there is anything new. But there is an easier way. That is where Bloglines or some other aggregator comes in. Bloglines allows you to look in one place to see if there is anything new on any blog you read. You create a Bloglines account and then start adding blogs to your blog roll. Then any time you want to see what's new on any blog you read you can just look in one place. You can also easily add a button to your browser that will automatically add a new blog to your blog roll.

If anyone reading this would like help setting bloglines up just let me know. I'd also be happy to recommend the top ten blogs I think you should read based on your interests. I'm sure I'll miss some but it will be a way to start. It goes without saying that the top ten is different for each person. I know that each of my friends and colleagues has different interests. Obviously I am in no way an expert on blogs and all that is out there but I am really passionate about this and I would be happy to help. Leave a comment on this blog or email me at marion dot vermazen at Sun dot com.

Monday May 23, 2005

Food, Wine and Friends

Saturday night I went out for dinner with two friends I have known for 30 years. Pat, Linda and I were celebrating Pat's birthday which was earlier this month. As usual when the three of us go out it was a special evening. Pat is a connoisseur of wonderful restaurants so we often eat at some truly great places. Saturday night we ate at Manresa in Los Gatos. The evening started with a bit of serendipity. When I arrived to pick up Pat and Linda we realized we were color coordinated. Pat and I each had on chartreuse jackets and Linda's pants were a similar color. When the Maitre D asked what the occasion was we laughed and told him we were starting a secret society.

The menu at Manresa was highly conducive to a great evening of food, wine, and conversation with friends. We had the four course dinner paired with wines. We each picked four things off the menu. Each item came with a glass of wine selected to go with that item. I had the Spanish Mackerel with orange and leeks, the Black Cod, the Beef short ribs with onions and morels, and the Warm Pecan Tart with Brown Butter ice cream. In addition they brought us each four taste treats throughout the evening. One of the them was a parmesan churro. All the courses were small enough that we weren't uncomfortably full at the end of the evening but we were very very satisfied.

The decor was understated elegance and the service was superb. What I love about a meal like we had Saturday night is how wonderful it is to sit and talk with friends and relax over three hours of fantastic food, great wine and the great conversation.

Friday May 20, 2005

Work From home tips

Scott Jolly has started providing work from home tips in his blog. Today was the first one. He makes some great points about being available. I've found that many of the people who work from home are easier to get a hold of than those who are in the office. (2005-05-20 11:07:25.0) Permalink Comments [1]

Monday May 16, 2005

Blogging as a Connection Tool

Every once in a while Pubsub turns up a blog that mentions me and quotes my blog. I just found this article and as always the link to my blog makes me sit up and smile. I guess it might be just an ego boost but I think it is more than that. It is the joy of starting a new conversation. I love conversations and I love meeting new people. I think it must be because they keep life interesting and new.

Anyway, Jon Froda in the E-mediator blog just wrote an article about corporate culture and blogging. He does a great job of articulating how blogging enhances multi-directional communications. Coincidentally I was already working on a posting on pretty much the same subject.

Scoble commented after reading some Sun employee blogs including Mary's about how corporate blogging is a great way to build bridges across organizations. His example was between Microsoft and Sun but it made me think about how it builds bridges within organizations. At a big company like Sun disparate groups never cross paths. Before blogs I don't think I knew anyone in a group like for example, Solaris engineering. Since I started blogging I have met several people virtually who I didn't know before I started blogging. I'd like to meet more of them face to face now. I like the way Scoble is always doing meet ups. My personal goal is to start meeting face to face the people who I've met blogging.

Friday May 13, 2005

Solaris 10 internal deployment update

I run a Solaris 10 Java Desktop Change Acceptance Review meeting every Friday afternoon. Which means I can give you a Solaris 10 Sun internal deployment status update. As of today 196 Sun machines have been upgrade to Solaris 10. 108 of those are Sun Ray servers. We have had an pretty good response from users reporting issues. I think the production deployment will be very strong because of all our internal user testing. Our biggest problem is that many people in Sun are skeptical about the value of actually filing a trouble ticket so they don't bother. Obviously we can only improve our deployment and the quality of our support if people report problems and if necessary provide feedback when they aren't confident that the problem is understood and properly handled. One tool we have used to capture situations where we don't hear about problems is a feedback alias. That has worked fairly well.

update: I should have made it clear that the numbers of S10 machines above is just for IT managed infrastructure servers. There are probably hundreds if not thousands of desktop and laptop machines running Solaris 10 as well as a lot of application servers.

Thursday May 12, 2005

Empathy

I'm empathetic. I feel what others are feeling. When I was a kid I used to cry when my siblings got in trouble. I absolutely hate watching suspense in movies or on TV it bothers me way too much. I also dislike watching shows like the Jamie Kennedy Experiment where people are put in embarrassing, uncomfortable positions. They are almost painful. I just can't watch.

I guess it is not surprising, but I realized a few years ago that books impact me the same way. When I read a piece of literature I become involved in what I am reading. So now I stop reading a book if I realize it is depressing me or putting me in a really bad mood. Occasionally I feel like I need to finish the book. For example The Book of Salt by Monique Truong made me feel isolated but I finished it anyway. But when I started reading Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee(It was this month's book club book.) I decided to stop after 80 pages. The main character is a man who does a very stupid thing at the beginning of the book. I found when I read the book I was getting mad at my husband who of course didn't even know what was happening in the book. On top of that the book was depressing me. I didn't go to the book club meeting but my friend Linda who did said that everyone agreed that it was a very powerful book that was also very depressing.

Empathy has its down sides but it also can be an asset. Because I am empathetic I am often good at bringing people together, understanding multiple points of view and developing and communicating solutions that work.

Wednesday May 11, 2005

The Getty

This past weekend we flew down to Los Angeles. Duke and his girls had college registration stuff to do. On Saturday I hung out with Shan and helped her produce her first ever resume. On Sunday we all went to the Getty. I've been there before but it was as wonderful as I remembered. If you have never been there I highly recommend it. It is not just the art which includes stunning pieces from Monet, Van Gough, Renoir, Raphael., Rembrandt, Warhol, and Michelangelo but it is also the setting. Architecturally it is wonderful and it sits on top of a mountain overlooking Los Angeles and the Pacific. If you are ever in LA it should be at the top of your list of places to go. And other than $7 for parking it is free!

Thursday May 05, 2005

S10, JDS, Email and washing dishes

I've been answering JDS and Solaris 10 feedback alias questions all day and I am reminded of washing dishes. I read Shane Nickerson's weblog. I really enjoy his writing. In a three part story called The Corner of the Kitchen he talks about a job washing dishes for an Italian restaurant in L.A. He says " I did find a certain masochistic pleasure in conquering the dish pile each night. There is something very liberating about a job which has a definitive, simple goal. In this case, the goal each night was to wash all the dishes." To me answering a whole pile of emails with questions about JDS, Solaris 10 or our strategy is similar to attacking a pile of dishes. It gives me a certain masochistic pleasure. Of course in my case I not only clean out my inbox but I also gather valuable information that we can use to improve the product and the roll out. And by doing so I am building support for our efforts.

What we are doing by seeking feedback is really the engaging support and resistance step of Sun's Change Acceptance Process (Sun CAP). I honestly believe that the personal responses to the 400+ emails we have received since November were a significant part of the success of the JDS Preview roll out.

Companies and organizations are understandably very hesitant to put a personal face on their support. The fear of being buried or attacked is very real. We have been debating recently where to send users with feedback about the S10 roll out. We started with an alias but the problem is that an alias doesn't allow us to easily track problems and their resolution. Now we have decided to send users to our internal help desk. That will guarantee problem tracking but we know users are very skeptical about the abilities of the help desk to resolve their problems and many users would rather solve problems themselves than submit a ticket. Ideally users would get thanks and feedback about how useful it is to us for them to submit a ticket and they would get their problem resolved and we would identify all the issues that make the transition less than flawless. Those personal and authentic conversations with our users will augment the team to make the roll out a success. But creating the dialogue is not an easy task.

I've been thinking about how this applies to external support. Imagine the loyalty and community that would be created if when you sought support you had a conversation with a real support person, you got your problem resolved, you believed that your feedback was appreciated, and you knew that your feedback ultimately resulted in product improvements. The challenge of course is volume and cost but I do believe that this kind of support is possible.

I believe more and more that authentic, real conversations between individuals and the relationships and community that result are an extraordinary tool that can make a big difference in the success of a company, a product or a change.

Wednesday May 04, 2005

The Future of work

Here is blog about Sun's Dave Desforges taking about iWork at the World Congress on the Future of Work. Interesting stuff!

Progress with Conversion of Sun to Solaris 10

As I've blogged before we are converting our infrastructure to Solaris10. Last weekend we converted a 500+ person site in Oregon so that Solaris 10 is their default SunRay environment. Up until now we have only converted a few servers at each site and have asked users to voluntarily start using Solaris 10. I've been using Solaris 10 all day every day for everything I do. I am very happy. In Oregon we converted the whole fail over group so Solaris 10 is the default SunRay environment for everyone. There were no major S10 problems although we did receive a lot of feedback about issues that we either need to fix in our configuration or that we need to add to our user FAQ.

We are also upgrading to a new version of Mozilla at the same time and we did run into some issues with that. The SAs are working through all the issues.

For our first big conversion it went pretty well. I am happy with the progress.

Tuesday May 03, 2005

I passed!

Back in mid March I took the two day certified finanacial planner exam. I invested a lot of time and money in preparing for the exam, so I am very happy to report that the results were posted yesterday and I passed!