There’s just one glaring flaw in the math: Data doesn't buy products. People do.

We’ve entered a cycle of "efficiency" that is actually a death spiral. Companies are slashing 20% or more of their workforces to "optimize" margins and please the analyst desk. In the same breath, those same companies are doubling down on ad spend to reach a consumer base they just finished impoverishing.

The most glaring examples:

• Alphabet/Google: A data mining and ad company with a mediocre technology hobby.
  • Ad Revenue: $294.7.2B
  • Total Revenue: $402.8B
• Meta: A data mining and ad company with data collection hardware dreams like VR.
  • Ad Revenue: $196.2B
  • Total Revenue: $201B
• Microsoft: Trying really hard, but the incompetence is stronger with this one.
  • Ad Revenue: $22.1B
  • Total Revenue: $281.7B

Here is how the system breaks when the math stops working:

Phase 1: The First to Struggle

The initial tremors hit the companies built on "optionality."

• Mid-Tier SaaS: Businesses that sell "nice-to-have" productivity tools or analytics-for-the-sake-of-analytics will see immediate churn as budgets consolidate to "must-haves".
• Discretionary Consumer Tech: Companies selling high-end hardware or subscription-based lifestyle services fail first because their target demographic just became the "optimization" statistic on a balance sheet.
• Over-Leveraged Growth Engines: Any company that relies on cheap debt to fund customer acquisition costs (CAC) that are higher than their lifetime value (LTV).

Phase 2: The Total Failure

When the struggle turns to collapse, the "middle-men" of the data economy disappear.

• Pure-Play Ad-Tech: The $500B ad market is the house of cards. When companies realize they are paying to show ads to people who can no longer afford the product, the ad-spend pulls back violently.
• Zombie Startups: Thousands of companies exist solely because of the "exit" culture, designing for a sale rather than value. When the M&A market realizes the "assets" are just piles of dirty data and dwindling users, the funding dries up.
• The "Aspirin" Vendors: Companies selling point-solutions for symptoms rather than root causes will be gutted. If you aren't solving a systemic problem with measurable ROI, you are a line item waiting to be deleted.

The Moral

We have spent two decades valuing the extraction of value over the creation of it. We built an economy that knows exactly what a consumer wants but has systematically removed that consumer's ability to pay for it, along with any value the products may have had.

Food for thought: If your business model requires a $500B bubble of behavioral manipulation to remain solvent, you aren't an innovator. You’re a parasite waiting for the host to stop breathing.

Real value doesn't require a tracker; it requires a solution to a problem worth solving. Build accordingly.

The Count of the Wobbleygooks

I help you, you help me, and then we both see, That a world that is fixed is the best place to be. Life is a team sport, we’re all on the field, and the truth is the power that makes the best yield. It isn't just nice, and it isn't just sweet, It's the smartest way possible to stand on your feet.

In the center of town, where the Snaggle-Vines grow, Stands a Great Gilly-Machine, all a-gleam and a-glow! It hummed with a whistle! It whirred with a thump! Producing the Fizz-Juice that makes your heart jump! It puffed out the Puff-Pills! It clinked out the Toys! For all of the Gilly-Goo girls and the boys.

But this Great Gilly-Engine, so shiny and vast, Needs a very specific and special breakfast. It doesn’t eat crackers! It doesn’t eat cheese! It eats Only-True-Things, if you please, if you please! It needs the exact count of Snallywag-Socks, And the "Ground Truth" of pebbles inside of your box.

Young Pip was the Player in charge of the Count, To tell the Machine the exact right amount. He’d count every Wobbleygook, green, blue, and red, Then whisper the number right into its head. "Six Wobbleys today!" he would shout with a grin, And the Fizz-Juice would pour from the spout to the bin.

But one Tuesday morning, while counting the Goo, Pip tripped on his shoelace and dropped a, oops... Two! Two Wobbleygooks tumbled! They rolled down the hill! They splashed in the river and sat very still. Now Pip had a problem. His count was quite wrong. (And the Machine needs the Truth to keep humming its song).

"If I tell the team," Pip thought with a sigh, "They’ll know I’m a stumbler! They’ll know I’m that guy! They’ll pause the whole game, read maintenance books, And give me those 'Oh-Pip-You-Clumsy-Oaf' looks." So he looked at the Engine, and whispered a lie: "The count is still Six!" with a wink of his eye.

He thought he was clever! He thought he was fast! He thought that his "Fiction" would certainly last. He’d saved his own face! He’d stayed on the track! But he’d put a big hole in the team’s Gilly-Goo-Sack...

Dot’s Helpful Drip-Drop

Now Dot was the Player on the very next base, With a Gilly-Goo wrench and a smile on her face. Her job was to polish the Wobbleygook Shells, And ring all the Gilly-Goo Gongs and the Bells. She waited for Six, as the Engine went clink, But she only saw Four... which made young Dot blink.

"That’s funny," said Dot, "Pip whispered for Six, But there’s only these Four for my wrenches to fix! If I tell the team that the count is quite low, The Gilly-Goo Game will be dreadfully slow. Poor Pip will feel silly, his face will turn red, And the 'Team' will have chores and go late to their bed."

So Dot, being 'kind' in a way that was wrong, Decided to help the Machine get along. She took some old Snallywag-Socks from a pile, And stuffed them in Wobbleygook Shells with a smile! She made the Four look like a Six-pack of Goo, By adding some fluff and a little bit of glue.

"There now!" whispered Dot, "I have fixed the mistake! I’ve saved us some time! I have lowered the brake! The team is still winning! The game is still fast! My helpful Little-Fiction will certainly last."

But the Gilly-Machine gave a rattle and cough, And a Gilly-Goo gear-bolt came tumbling off. The Fizz-Juice turned grey, like a puddle of mud, And the Gilly-Goo Gongs gave a hollow-type thud. Because Dot had been 'nice' to save Pip from some shame, She’d added Sunk-Cost to the Gilly-Goo game!

The socks gummed the gears! The glue gunked the wheels! (You can’t imagine how bad a Gilly-Engine feels). By 'fixing' the lie with a lie of her own, The seeds of a System-Wide-Failure were sown.

The Huddle and the Radical Audit

The Coach (the wise Goose) raised a webbed-foot on high, And looked every Gilly-Goo kid in the eye. "Wait! Stop!" cried the Coach, "Blame’s not the game! Nobody wins if we name and we shame! This failure is big, not one little mistake, Problems cascade before everything breaks."

"It isn't just Pip! And it isn't just Dot! It’s the way that we played with the data we got! We hid all the wobbles! We polished the rust! And now our Great Engine is nothing but dust. If you want to be Winners, if you want to be Teams, You have to give Truth to the Gilly-Machine's beams!"

Pip stepped to the front, with his head held up high, (For a Sovereign Player has no use for a lie). "I dropped two green Gooks! I was clumsy and slow! And I whispered a Six just to keep up the show." Dot stepped up beside him, "And I saw the Four! But I stuffed in some socks just to open the door."

They didn't feel small, and they didn't feel bad, (Though the Gilly-Goo park was still gloomy and sad). They felt like a Team with a job to get done, To clean out the Sunk-Cost so they’d have some fun!

They pulled out the fluff! They scraped out the glue! They fished out the socks (which were smelly and blue). They performed a Great Audit, they checked every gear, Until every "Fiction" was gone from the sphere. They didn't just 'sorry', they worked on the core, Until the Ground Truth was just the same as the score.

Then Pip counted Four. Just a plain, simple Four. And the Gilly-Machine gave a happy-type roar! The Fizz-Juice poured out! It was purple and bright! And the Gilly-Goo park was a beautiful sight!

"Life is a team sport!" the Gilly-Goose cried, "With no silly fictions or secrets to hide! When you play for the Truth, and you play for the Team, The world works much better than even your dreams!"

I love Dr. Seuss, so this is a thing I do. If you like it, there are links to others at the end. I make no guarantees as to the freshness of the content.

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.

Dr. Seuss 'The Lorax'

  At the far end of tech 
 where the products are sold
 and the wind smells of sandwiches delivered half-cold,
 where no roadmap is ever delivered when told…
 is the street of the Lifted Lorax.
  
 And deep in that end, some people say, 
 if you look deep enough you can still see, today, 
 where the Lorax once stood
 just as long as it could
 before somebody lifted the Lorax away.
 What was the Lorax? 
 And why was it there? 
 And why was it lifted and taken somewhere 
 from the far end of town where the products are sold? 
 The old Once-ler still lives here.
 Ask him. He knows.
  
 You won’t see the Once-ler.
 Don’t look for his booth.
 He stays in his mansion, alone with his things,
 where he drinks cold-pressed juice
 that someone else brings.
 And on rare occasions, out of the blue,
 he tweets
 out a message
 he often repeats
 and tells how the Lorax was lifted away.
  
 He’ll tell you, perhaps…
 If you’re willing to pay.
  
 He’ll send you a link
 to an app where you lay
 one third of your equity, then sign
 NDA
 of course, he will say
 it’s always this way.
    
 He then checks the app
 triple checks the amount
 to ensure he owns you
 that you can’t dismount.
  
 Then he adds what you paid him
 to the piles of cash
 some used for the mortgage
 the rest wipe his ass.
  
 He slacks, “I will ping you by video call,
 While out on my yacht, with crappy sig-nal.
  
 BLURRP!
 The blurps of his call, ring loud in your ear
 and the old Once-ler’s voice is not at all clear,
 since he’s out on the water on cell-phone connection
 choppy and garbled,
 This makes him sound
 quite verbally hobbled.
  
 “Now I’ll tell you.” He says, with his ego displayed,
 “how the Lorax got lifted and taken away…
  
 It all started way back…
 such a long, long time back…
  
 Way back in the days when “The Valley” was green
 and orchards spread far
 for a beautiful scene,
 and a house could be bought by a regular Jane…
 one morning I came to this place I remain.
 And I first saw the schools!
 Stanford and Berkley
 their talent you see!
 So much innovation, but money was lacking,
 an untapped resource, for someone like me.
  
 Between them a freeway Junipero Serra
 with a great halfway point up above Santa Clara
 where Sand Hill Road sat, doing just fine, in a soon to die era.
  
 From the nearby South bay
 came cool morning breezes
 which moistened the fruit
 as it hung in the treeses.
  
 But that talent! Those brains!
 Those smart engineers!
 All my life I’ve been searching
 seeking to obtain
 a resource like this
 that I could abuse.
 A resource I’d care about,
 If I’d read Dr. Seuss.
  
 My heart leapt with joy,
 I’d be an investor!
 I leased a small space
 Near an old shopping center
  
 With GREAT BRAINS AND SKILL, plus some damn lucky timing, 
 We started to watch, our net-worth start climbing.
 In no time at all, I had built a small group
 so I cut down an orchard, at the end of the loop.
  
 The moment I’d finished, I heard W-T-F!
 I looked.
 Something popped out of a plum that had struck
 the ground next to where the last tree lay dead,
 His looks were as strange as the things that he said.
  
 He was small. He was old.
 Had a drawl and was bossy.
 He looked straight on over
 Like he didn’t even know me.
  
 “Douche bag! He said, with a stern knowing tone,
 “I am the Lorax. I speak for what’s grown.
 I speak for what’s grown and warn of what comes!
 And I demand to know, what you’ve done to my plums”-
 He was winded and red; his anger was showing.
 “Why the hell would you destroy, all the things that are growing!”
  
 “Look bro” I said. “No need to get pissy.
 It’s one little orchard. No one will miss. See?
 I’m saving the world. This thing is a network.
 To connect all the people, he said as he smirked.
 It’s a book. It’s a phone. It’s music! It’s apps!
 But it has more to offer than all of that crap!
 You can use it for ads and make tons of money!
 Selling people like products while they use a freebie”
  
               The Lorax replied,
               “Dude, your ego is large, so this may just sting.
               There is no one on earth
               who would need such a thing.
  
 Just as my mouth opened to say “go-to-hell”
 around the corner came AOL,
 they thought this web would be great for a buck.
 They hired some people and backed up a truck.
  
 I clowned the old Lorax, “You stupid old man!
 You’ll never quite get, what we just began!”
  
 “I repeat cried the Lorax,
 I speak for what’s grown!”
  
 “You’re expired. I told him.
 “Go retire in peace.”
  
 I ran for the phone, in those days they plugged in,
 I put in quick calls to nephews and cousins.
 I called all my friends, my college frat buddies
 said here’s the scoop, lets go make some monies!
 We’re going to make the old world move forwards!
 Get over here fast, take the road through the orchards,
 Turn left when there’s strip malls instead of more woods.
  
 And in no time at all,
 the cement was flowing,
 buildings and car lots sprung up in quick fashion,
 concrete and rebar were doing the growing.
 We ‘innovated’
 and we stayed very busy,
 with two maybe three drinks at lunches
 wining and dining,
 betting millions on hunches.
  
 Then…
 Hello, there, hello!
 How the money did flow!
 We needed more buildings
 more car lots
 more blow!
  
 So we cleared orchards with speed
 driven purely by greed.
 We were changing the world
 this was progress we said.
 And that Lorax?...
 We guessed he was dead.
  
 The very next month
 a knock at the door
 open it up, and he’s standing there.
  
 He bellowed, “I’m the Lorax, I speak for what grows,
 Which you are destroying, wherever it shows.
 But I’m also in charge of the birds and the bees
 Who live on the fruit of these orchard trees
 and gorge on the nectar and fruit as they please.”
  
 “Because of your buildings, your car lots, and malls
 there’s not enough food for the winter and falls.
 My poor birds and bees and dying in droves
 the rest are out searching for new homes and new groves.”
  
 “This was paradise to them, but now they must go.
 They require new orchards where their families can grow.
 Good luck my fine friends,” he said as he hung his head low.
  
 I, the Once-ler, felt something
 As I watched them all go.
 BUT…
 Money I worship!
 And I’ve got plenty of blow.
 Who needs birds anyway? I drive a Lambo.
  
 It wasn’t intentional. I didn’t want that.
 But bigger is better when wallets are fat.
 I biggered my bets. I biggered my tech.
 I biggered my campuses. I biggered my head.
 Our tech started shipping, all over the globe
 from Bangkok to Paris and back to Latrobe.
 So I kept on biggering… selling more tech.
 And I biggered my wealth, with each inbound check.
  
 Then there he was, the Lorax was back
 That angry old coot with more shit that was whack.
  
 “I am the Lorax,” he choked through a cough.
 Clearing his throat he readied a scoff.
 “Once-ler!” He roared, with the rasp of his age.
 “Once-ler! The air’s filled with smog. Disengage!
 My poor lotis butterfly, well they can’t see their way.
 At this rate we’ll lose sight of the sun through the day.
  
 “And so,” said the Lorax,
 “-please pardon my tone
 They can’t survive here.
 I’ve sent them off to places unknown.”
  
 “Where will they end?...
 I don’t comprehend.”
  
 “They may have to fly for week upon week
 To get away from you, and the smog that you leak.”
  
 “But worse,” cried the Lorax, his neck hair stood up.
 “Let me say a few words about this f’ng slop.
 Your plants are dumping this shit without stop.
 They build your chips and out this stuff pops.
 And what do you do with this poo smelling goo?
 I’ll show you, you self-entitled boy-man you!”
  
 “You’re killing the lakes where the Lake Splittail fish swims!
 No more can they frolic and live out their whims.
 So I’ve ordered them off. Their future is bleak.
 They’ll wander on land, flip-flopping and weak
 searching for water without oil streaks.”
  
 And then I got angry.
 So shakingly angry.
 I yelled at the Lorax, “Now listen here, Pops!
 All you do is whine, and scream Stop! Stop! Stop!
 Well, I have my liberty, sir, and I’ll tell you
 I intend to keep doing what I want to do!
 And! For your information, you Lorax, I’m going to keep biggering
               And BIGGERING
                             And BIGGERING
                                          And BIGGERING,
 Turning orchards into lots for engineers cars
 to build more tech we can trade for gold bars!”
  
 And at that very moment, we heard a loud sound!
 Outside in the orchards a tree hit the ground.
 The final fruit tree did finally fall.
 The orchards were gone, once and for all.
  
 No room. No more boom. No work to be done.
 So, in no time, my friends, nephews, cousins, every one,
 Threw up two fingers as they hopped in my cars,
 Peace out, they said as the tires burned tar. 
  
 Now all that was left was a bad smelling sky
 Office buildings, parking lots…
 the Lorax…
 and I.
  
 The Lorax said nothing. Stared through my soul…
 his stare said to me, what he saw wasn’t whole…
 as he rose to get going, his mood black as coal.
 I’ll never forget that look on his face
 when he stood one last time, to take leave of this place,
 this Garden of Eden, that I had erased.
  
 And all that the Lorax left here in this mess
 Was a pile of rocks, with one word…
 “Unless.”
 Whatever that meant, well, I just couldn’t guess.
  
 It’s ancient history now.
 But I’ve thought of it lots.
 Worried, and muddled
 to untangle the plot. 
 While Silicon Valley crumbled away
 I’ve tried to make sense
 I’ve worried, I’ve wondered,
 and not just for legal defense.
  
 “But now,” says the Once-ler,
 “Now that you’re here,
 The word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear.
 UNLESS someone like you
 Cares a whole awful lot,
 Nothing is going to get better.
 It’s not.
  
 “So…
 Listen!” cries the Once-ler
 “I’ve sent you a seed
 in it you’ll find the hope that you need.
 It’s the last of its kind, so treat it as such
 there’s no other thing, the world needs this much.
 Plant it somewhere bleak and dreary
 Feed it, water it, and in theory
 The hope will grow big and strong
 and one day the Lorax will come back along. 

uSeg has roots in ‘zero-trust model’ type of thinking and architectures. At the most basic level the idea is to greatly enhance security models based primarily on perimeter security implementations, like firewalls.

The reason for this is simple, if you rely solely on perimeter security you are completely exposed when (not if) the perimeter is breached. The graphic below depicts this.

In the graphic a single penetration of the firewall can lead to a comprised server or workload which then becomes the attacker with no security left to stop it.

Architectures attempting to enhance perimeter security have been implemented using firewalls as a funnel for all traffic, and VLAN Access Control Lists (VACL), among other similar techniques.

The failure of these attempts comes down to four things:

1. Visibility: limited knowledge of what traffic  can/can’t be blocked.
2. Cost: firewall hardware, etc.
3. Manageability: there’s no good way to manage that many distributed firewall rules or ACLs.
4. Complexity: any way you slice it this is complex, and complexity kills agility while adding risk, cost, and reducing manageability.

Micro-segmentation spins the conversation back up in a new format. The reason it has created so much buzz is that the tools have caught up to the point where we can reduce, or eliminate the four problems above.

Technologies including big data, SDN, and advanced automation have matured enough to provide frameworks to accomplish granular segmentation at a micro, or even nano level (another term some use).

The advantage of this level of segmentation is depicted below. In the graphic a penetration of the perimeter security compromises a host or workload, but malicious traffic from that host is blocked by micro-segmentation zones. This prevents the attack from propagating further.

As the graphic depicts, micro-segmentation should not be looked at as a replacement for perimeter security, instead it is an enhancement. Micro-segmentation provides advanced  security within the secure perimeter, and in some cases can simplify, not replace,  the perimeter security architecture.

In many cases a 3rd layer of security is also implemented. This is a layer of ‘macro-segmentation.’ Macro-segmentation can be used as a starting point to micro-segmentation, deployed in conjunction, or ignored if not required.

The macro-segmentation layer provides segmentation between large static groups. Great examples are compliant vs. non-compliant, and development life-cycles (dev, test, prod, etc.)

Macro-segments can be deployed in a much wider variety of devices due to the reduced need for granularity and change. Typically macro-segmentation is deployed using Software Defined Networking (SDN) solutions.

The two primary requirements for macro-segments are broad scope, and limited change rate. The reason for this is the broader number of solutions it will deployed in. In general the more granular the scope, or the higher the change rate, the more automated the platform will need to be.

In the next graphic we see the three layers of security operating together. Each layer expands on the last becoming more granular and enhancing protection.

Micro-segmentation is the most granular of the three layers, and there are many options for how to address these segments. Micro-segments can be built around workloads (Server, VM, Container), applications (www.onisick.com, WordPress, Oracle), or traffic flows themselves (TCP X and UDP Y to IP Z). The best workload protection tools in this space offer the ability to do all three.

The ability to use various segmentation methods in parallel is important. Every environment will have different security needs. More so, within every environment different applications/data/workloads will have different needs. Having options allows you to fine-tune cost, time-to-deploy, and security risk accordingly.

The most critical thing to account for as you deploy granular segmentation will be change rate. Many tools can enforce micro-segments, very few can handle authorized change at a rate that doesn’t impact business agility.

Connectivity in a data center tends to change rapidly, static non-automated, micro-segmentation will quickly create outages based on authorized change. A great example of this is software patching.

Software patches often modify the TCP/UDP port(s) used by the application or operating system (OS). If this occurs in an environment where micro-segmentation is tightly deployed, that port change can cause outages.

The old port remains open while the new, required, port is blocked by now-outdated segmentation. Manual remediation processes for this type of thing take 48-72 hours. That will not be nearly fast enough in a micro-segmented world. This is shown below.

Micro-segmentation is a security architecture that should be explored and assessed by organizations of all sizes and types. The level of granularity required, speed-to-deploy, etc. will vary.

To take another view on this topic check out the video below that I produced on the topic.

“Digital, Digitization, Digital, Digital, Digital Transformation. There, I've hit my mandatory quota of 5 digital mentions for my presentation, now we can get to something interesting.”

That was my opening line at a large data center and cloud conference in Rome. It wasn't the one I'd planned, but I had just spent a day listening to my executive colleagues from around the industry wax philosophically about 'digital' with no mention of how, why, or what. No call to action, no roadmap, no substance. The previous presenter was sitting front row center with his jaw wide open when I finished the sentence. He'd had digital-this, digital-that, as the title for every slide in his deck. Sorry, not sorry.

I haven't watched 'Game of Thrones' but I imagine 'Winter is Coming' might be similar to the way 'Digital Transformation' gets thrown around. 'Um yeah, it's this thing, it's on it's way, it's already happening in some places. Everyone knows what it is, definitely, for sure.' Let's agree that: it is a thing, it is happening, and it is coming in stronger waves. From there let's look at what it is, where it's coming from, and how it can be embraced.

Let's rewind to the beginning of widespread Information Technology adoption. We'll go back to the early days of networked computing and use the adoption of email systems as an example. As a company adopted email systems for the first time, they were dipping their toe into digital transformation. Paper based systems and analog based voice calls were converted to a digital medium. What that was doing under the surface was creating business value through technology adoption. That is the key to digital transformation.

Theoretically if there were two companies in the same industry and one was first to deploy and adopt an email system, they'd have a competitive advantage. The advantage of speed and agility. The hidden key phrase of the sentence being adopt. Deploying an email system wasn't enough. They had to drive adoption, incorporate it into their process and modify work flows to take advantage of it.

As technology became commonplace a shift occurred behind the scenes. Information Technology (IT) moved from a value-creation center to a cost-center. Technology purchase decisions moved from 'what can it do for the business' to how much money can we save doing the same thing. IT sales conversations shifted to circular conversations about return-on-investment (ROI), and sales cycles began incorporating any number of questionable ROI calculations.

Now comes Digital Transformation with all it's hype being treated as something new. It's not. Like most everything in technology it's circular. We're at a technology inflection point where IT can move back into the 'what can it do for the business' seat. Digital Transformation is simply using emerging technology and new IT operational models to drive new value streams for the business or mission. No more, no less.

Several things are coming together at once to form the catalyst of this shift. New technologies like big data, and AI. New consumption models like mobile first compute users. And new delivery models like cloud which provide an extremely low compute entry cost and a scale up model as a company grows. Uber is one of the most touted examples of combining these things to create market disruption, which is just silicon valley's term of the week for transformation.

Uber is an example I like, and not in the doom and gloom 'disrupt or be disrupted' way people love to use them. The question I ask my customers is different: 'If you were the taxi companies three years before Uber launched, and you had the idea for an Uber like app, could you have executed on it? Would your IT infrastructure and organization been able to build and adopt the new model?' Universally the answer is no.

The first stage of digital transformation is modernizing the technology delivery stack into a system that provides agility. Agility to test out new ideas, agility to fail and try again. Agility to deploy the bright ideas that your organization comes up with. The world moves fast, the longer it takes to process an idea, and get it stood up, the higher the chance of missing the market and being out maneuvered.

The dirty secret in all of this is that the technology is easy. There are hundreds of great options to choose from when it comes to the right technology. You can cloud it, automate it, DevOps it, etc. Alone or in tandem all of these things can work perfectly from a technology perspective to achieve your goals. The tech is easy, but most still fail.

The hard part is choosing the technology stack that fits your organization, then remodeling your people and process to take full advantage of it. Nobody likes to admit that getting new technology running is the easy part. The hard part is getting it adopted to it's fullest potential within your organization. Successfully launching a product or project internally is as important as picking the right tech and standing it up.

I look at this like Marine Corps boot camp. As a recruit we spend all of boot camp hating it and waiting to graduate, thinking boot camp is the hard part. Our drill instructors assure us boot camp is the easiest part of being a Marine. Years later we find out they were right. Boot camp, like a technology install, is fairly color by the numbers, if you follow the instructions things work as expected. Being in the fleet, post boot camp is like technology adoption. You're up and running but now it's your responsibility to apply the skills and capabilities the right way every day.

When looking at making technology shifts be ready to tackle the people and process with as much energy as you do the technology. You'll need leaders, champions, early adopters. You'll need to provide a clear sense of direction, intended outcome, and a sense of 'why'. If your team is bought in, and all moving towards the same goal the technology stack becomes a supporting character in the transformation you'll drive.

As a parting thought on Digital Transformation try and think big. I've been privileged to travel the world working with customers of all types in some very interesting places. I've gotten to see first hand the positive transformative power technology can have. From banks in Africa using cell-phone usage statistics to assess credit worthiness and provide small-business loans to people with no credit history, to hospitals in India using tele-medicine to provide advanced patient care on-site in remote villages.

Digital transformation is as much about change and a better future as it is about profit lines. Even better, the two don't have to be separate goals. This is why I wake up every morning excited to see what I can help my customers achieve that day.

It often feels like we thrive on the complexity, we water it, we feed it, we want it to grow big and strong. Maybe we do -- maybe that complexity exists so that as masters of it we can command higher salaries – maybe it’s just a byproduct of moving so quickly. Either way it needs to change.

Hand your iPad to a child and within minutes they’re navigating through their favorite videos or playing a beloved game; no instruction or education is required. Hand an English major an SSH session and ask them to configure your switch, results will vary. Move up to our most common high-level abstraction ‘the orchestration layer’ and ask them to deploy an application. No dice.

This complexity isn’t necessary. This complexity can go away, it really can, but we’re missing something.

Enterprise technology is actually missing two things: the Bill Gates, and the Steve Jobs.

Sordid and detailed history aside Gates and Microsoft made computing a reality for the masses. The combination of good-enough technology in Windows, combined with powerful vision, sales, and marketing moved the PC into every home.

Jobs took this to another level and turned technology into art. His genius was in simplicity; providing consumers with technology they never knew they needed but could from that point forward never live without. He did this by combining hardware, software and service into experience. The iPod wasn’t a device like its competition. The iPod was the hassle-free experience of listening to exactly what you wanted, wherever you wanted to listen.

And then we return to enterprise technology. Even the sales pitch is atrocious. We focus on individual value propositions of point products. We occasionally get bold: tying a handful of products into a ‘solution’ and espouse the specific values of that solution in isolation. Never do we discuss the value to the business, the experience of the user. We never discuss anything that has true value, or real differentiation.

All is not lost, there are emerging technologies and trends that look to address this. Intent driven systems, and ‘Serverless’ are on the right track. They speak to the overall experience of architecting/deploying applications or coding/building them respectively. This is a major move in the right direction.

This move still needs help:

As consumers of enterprise tech, we must be more open to looking towards vision and outcomes. In fact, we must demand that the sellers we communicate with articulate that first.

As sellers, we must learn how to weave technology together for the higher-level purpose of those outcomes. We must then learn to communicate it in that fashion and get religious about doing so.

As vendors we must move from building products in isolation. A move to building products and driving trends that focus on tangible vision, and business outcomes.

As an enterprise technology community, we must hope for our Gates, and our Jobs. Our visionary leaders who can provide us the hope required so that we can buy into that vision and move forward towards it.

Technology should be simple to consume. It takes hard work and understanding to keep it that way.

• A product manager responsible for defining a product, driving engineering, and taking that product to market.
• Anyone working a sales job for any product, in any place.
• A candidate applying for any job, or requesting a promotion/raise at any job

Answer: They must all understand how to define value, understand how that value differentiates, and be able to definitively communicate that differentiation.

I'll call these the 3–Ds' of Winning because they are applicable almost anywhere you look.

• Asking for that big, long-overdue promotion? 3–Ds' of winning
• Looking to build a B2B partnership? 3–Ds' of winning
• Negotiating for a raise? 3–Ds' of winning
• Selling a solution? 3–Ds' of winning
• Shopping for Venture Capital money? 3–Ds' of winning
• Selling your company? 3–Ds' of winning
• Applying for a business loan? 3–Ds' of winning

I think you get the point. We often classify these as sales skills. That's a mistake. That's like saying the body's 'motor-skills' are 'driving-skills.' Sure they help with driving, but they have much broader applicability. The reason this is important is that if you think of them as sales skills it's too easy to write them off: 'I'm not in sales', or 'I hate sales.' Letting yourself fall into this trap does nothing but sell yourself short every time. Reclassify these skills as tools you use for winning the game of life. Just like the game of life you can hone things and use them to play with integrity by the rules, or take a different path. That's your decision, and the one that decides if the skill is sleazy, or underhanded.

The nice thing about the 3–Ds' of winning is that they neatly describe a 3–step path required to position value in a way that separates whatever is being positioned from the pack. We live in a world of options, and instant access to information. If you can't find a way to remove yourself from the noise you're in trouble.

I like the example of a corporate restructure or lay-off. They happen all the time, and cut some number or percentage from the work force. It's a common trimming tool for companies, and can easily be argued as a necessary one. When they occur, the CFO along with the top executives decide a dollar figure, workforce percentage, number of head-count, etc. that they need to cut. They then pass this down the chain in some fashion.

Here I am Joe, a Director at the company and I'm tasked with cutting 20% of my team which means two of my ten people have to go. This sucks. I've been the right combination of adept and lucky in my leadership roles. So much so that I can say that I've built high-performance teams. At best I've had teams where I'd classify each member as excellent and my manager peers would agree. At worst I've had one complete dud hanging around. Let's take that case.

Step one is obviously easy. The dud is my first choice of the two. I don't like letting people go, but I also don't like wasting my time on people who refuse to take ownership of their deficiencies and their growth. If you're the 'world happens to me' type, go work for someone else. As I said, step one is easy. Whether that person has been at the company 20 minutes, or 20 years I won't lose sleep over cutting them if they are the dud I just described.

Step two is hard. Step two sucks. Step two will keep me up for weeks. Nothing about the necessity of a restructure, maintaining share-holder value, etc. makes it any better. How do I decide between 8 excellent employees? There's honestly no good way to do this. It's probably going to boil down to one of the following regardless of who you are or where you work.

• Arbitrary factors that have no meaning to the value someone brings like tenure: who's been here longer.
• Last action taken factors. Have you ever heard that one mistake erases a dozen good deeds?: Whoever messed up most recently.
• Factors that make the decision in your head but you can't ever say out loud because they are HR violations: Sarah/Henry is the sole bread winner in their family, so I can't let them go. (I've seen this one happen.)
• Etc.

Now if 8 of my remaining 9 have differentiated themselves and the 9^th is an excellent technical contributor, with outstanding work ethic among a company where there are a lot of those, I know who to cut. Obviously team member 9 is excellent, I have no complaints with them, what they do daily is commendable, it just isn't differentiated. Worse, maybe it is differentiated but I don't know how it is.

Take this thought experiment one step further. Let's say all 9 of my remaining team members are excellent and visibly differentiated after selecting the dud for the cut. This poses a brilliant opportunity for me, and them. I can now use the 3–Ds' of Winning to identify that unique, differentiated value-proposition and communicate it to my leader.

I can make a very valid case for why I can only cut one from my team. I have a real opportunity to remove the hard decision, and keep my high-performance team in tact. This is not theoretical, this happens regularly. Ever notice those leaders that only make shallow cuts, if any at all? This is what they're doing.

I hope that quick example shows you both how important the 3–Ds of Winning are, and how widely applicable they'll be for you. So where do you start? For the following I'm going to focus on the idea of defining your own value for the purpose of salary/promotion negotiation or a job-interview. I'll leave it to you to make the simple fluid wording adjustments to apply the same questions, and concepts to your team, your product, your company, etc.

Define Your Value

The questions are easy, the answers take thought, self-reflection, and time. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable because you need to really sell yourself here.

• What unique value do I bring? Are you a nurse that served two combat tours as a medic in the Army. You probably have a unique threshold for stress and an amazing ability to triage that your fellow ER nurses can't even compare to. Define it!
• What unique experience, or perspective do I have that provides value to my role? Did you come into the country as an immigrant refugee, sacrifice your medical degree because the US doesn't recognize it, relearn a new trade, scrape your way to where you are? HOLY SHIT! That's powerful, that's grit, determination, adaptability. Define it!
• What skills do you have that your peers don't? Are you a UI designer that happens to have a minor in psychology with a passion for pricing? That's crazy powerful, especially if you're working for a company that does online or mobile retail. Define it!
• What do you do well that your peers don't? You work in technical marketing now, but your major was English Literature because you always wanted to be an author? That's beautiful, you have a unique ability to weave white-papers into relatable stories that help impart information and sell product value. Define it!

These are just examples, formulate your own, or grab a book on the subject. The key is to express who you are, and what you do in succinct value statements.

Here's one of mine I bring a unique ability to communicate information, regardless of the format. My super power is making the complex relatable.

Differentiate

Step back once you have your value statements. Think about those statements from the perspective of the person who needs to buy that value. I find it easiest to start with what they don't care about. It narrows the process down quickly.

I'll stick with me as the example. Maybe my direct manager doesn't care bout communication in my role, maybe they want me heads down building technical architecture guidelines rooted in system configuration. Does that mean I don't have unique value. I hope not (although in my case, many would argue yes.) Time to modify my value statement.

My ability to communicate information allows me to make the architectural relatable, bringing business relevance and readability to system configuration.

I haven't changed the root value at all, I simply word-smithed it into a format that relates more directly to my intended audience. This step is key. Gas mileage isn't relevant to someone buying a Corvette in order to go 0–60 in 2.8 seconds. Pick a value that can apply, then make it apply. Try to come up with 3 tailored value statements.

Run them through a litmus test for differentiation. Could any of my peers theoretically say me too? If so, it's time to play with them a little more until they are uniquely differentiated. Back to myself as an example. Maybe I'm on a team of brilliant people, maybe two of them can do this as well, or close enough that it doesn't matter. I'm obviously not going to go competitive against my peers, so to avoid that I need to differentiate more.

My ability to communicate information allows me to make the architectural relatable bringing business relevance and readability to system configuration. The unique value I bring is in tying the business outcome to the technology.

Now I'm separated from the pack, without undermining anyone else. Where I'm unique is understanding the business and bringing the conversation down from that level. My peers still have room for differentiation, they can go deeper and swim with the propeller heads, fantastic! Overall you need both.

Definitively Communicate

This tends to be the hardest piece, especially for people who are extremely technical or extremely humble. The only solution is practice. You can't expect people to always see your value, if you aren't willing to guide them. Your leaders are worried about this for themselves, at the same time they are for their team. Meanwhile the have a job to do, it's easy for you and your value to get lost in the noise.

Start with a video camera or mirror, practice communicating this value. Read some books on this subject, and find ways to start communicating in public. Pipe up in meetings, attend toast-masters, stand up at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and tell your story. Where you do it is irrelevant, that you do it is imperative.

My accompanying video: https://youtu.be/3E7kdpntsaY

For more on the overall subject of Career and Salary negotiation check out my YouTube channel on the subject. Plenty of content there, and more coming every week:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQYtv3NzUiFFHHI9XLsIGQA

You can also grab a shirt or mug to remind you that it's Your Career | Your Rules: https://teespring.com/stores/define-the-cloud