This panel will focus how the Big Data problems of today (scale, distribution, diversity) require new paradigms in cloud computing, databases, and analytics capabilities.

To learn more about SH Worldwide’s Cloud Fair 2012 at the Sheraton Seattle Hotel this April, please visit the conference website. http://www.cloudfairconference.com/

Ho! Ho! Ho! The holidays are almost here! Join your SH Worldwide friends at The Shops at The Bravern in Bellevue on Friday, November 18th from 5:00pm – 8:00pm as we kick off the holiday season with a Tree Lighting Ceremony, hosted by Kevin Joyce.

Santa will arrive at 6:00pm in a horse-drawn carriage with Jamie & Karen Moyer from The Moyer Foundation and two campers from Camp Mariposa. Santa’s arrival will be led by Bells of The Sound and accompanied by Captain Smartypants and Sensible Shoes of the Seattle Men’s Chorus and Seattle Women’s Chorus.

From 5:00pm – 8:00pm enjoy fireside beverages, The Dickens Carolers and pony rides for the kids. Donations will be accepted for fireside beverages and the pony rides. All proceeds benefit The Moyer Foundation.

For more information, visit http://thebravern.com/

As CEO of MySQL AB for seven years, Mickos grew that company from a small start-up to the second largest open source company in the world. After being acquired by Sun Microsystems, Mickos served as Senior Vice President of Sun’s Database Group.

Mickos has held CEO and senior executive positions for multiple companies and has a M.Sc. in technical physics from Helsinki University of Technology.

Simon Crosby, CTO at Bromium, Inc. recently closed a $9.2 million series A round of funding with Andreessen Horowitz, Ignition Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Founded by Gaurav Banga, Simon Crosby, and Ian Pratt, Bromium is focused on the delivery of infrastructure solutions that permit enterprises to safely embrace two major trends in IT: consumerization and cloud computing.

Simon was formerly CTO for Data Center & Cloud, at Citrix Systems, and was founder and CTO of XenSource, later acquired by Citrix. He was also the founder of CPlane Inc., a network optimization software vendor, where he held a variety of executive roles. In 2007, Simon was awarded a coveted spot as one of InfoWorld’s Top 25 CTOs.

In other roles, Simon was a principal engineer at Intel where he led strategic research in distributed autonomic computing, platform security and trust. He was also a tenured faculty member at the University of Cambridge, UK, where he led research on network performance and control, and multimedia operating systems.

Well known in the Cloud Community for his technical expertise, Simon is the author of over 35 research papers and holds patents on a number of datacenter and networking topics including security, network and server virtualization, resource optimization and performance.

To learn more about keynote speakers or to submit a speaker proposal, visit the Cloud Fair Conference website. http://cloudfairconference.com/

Mark your calendars – registration opens December 2011.

Cloud Fair 2012
Making Cloud Computing Simple, Secure and Financially Successful”
April 17 – 19, 2012
Sheraton Seattle Hotel

The hottest topic in computing today is “The Cloud” – you see it on websites, television, and in newspapers, magazines, and billboards across the globe. And Cloud Conferences have popped up like mushrooms, each one promising a full plate of speakers, technologies, and solutions. You’ve heard the hype. The promises of lower costs, scalability, and increased reliability sound wonderful. But you want clear answers to real questions about its use, its security, and its cost-effectiveness. Where can you go to find solutions not just jargon? Cloud Fair 2012.

To learn more about becoming a sponsor, speaker or attending, visit the Cloud Fair Conference website. http://cloudfairconference.com/

Photos courtesy of Susie Atchison.

For those of you keeping track, this makes eight girls born in a row at SHW! It must be the water.

On Wednesday, members of SH Worldwide participated in the Cake Boss FAM hosted by American Outback Adventures & Events. This fun, hands-on activity is inspired by the reality show Cake Boss on TLC. Led by a culinary instructor from South Seattle Community College, each group was challenged to decorate a cake inspired by the various teambuilding options that American Outback and Adventures & Events facilitates. In addition, each cake was required to include a rose, a figure sculpted from gum paste and lettering in red piping. The SHW team chose to create a pirate ship inspired by American Outback’s group sailing opportunities. The pirate ship, named the SHW Rose, was manned by a gummy bear crew and featured black licorice cannons and a skull and crossbones. While the SHW crew didn’t end up winning the Cake Boss title, their “all hands on deck” effort secured a tie for 2nd place and they had a swashbuckling good time!

We woke up early today to take part in a walking tour of Antigua before heading out for a shopping excursion. Our tour was led by a woman named Elizabeth Bell and even though she was born in California, she has lived in Antigua for more than 40 years. She was very insightful — we learned about the history of the city, the government, the various churches, the people, and the local art. We meandered through the central area of the city until we decided to branch off on our own to experience some of the local markets.

The city of Antigua has many markets. The largest is on the edge of town (similar to Seattle’s Pike Place Market) with row after row of booths selling local goods — we found chocolate and coffee, hand woven blankets and linens to hammocks, paintings, and hand carved flutes. The coffee here is outstanding! No matter where you go it seems that everyone, everywhere serves local coffee. We have all become very fond of Fernando’s. We will be making sure to stop by before we leave to stock up on their delicious beans and heavenly homemade granola.

We spent the rest of the day exploring and making sure we took as many pictures of the town as we could. Before long it was time to head back to the hotel to get ready for our last dinner together in Guatemala. We enjoyed a reception of wine and cheese at a local residence where we all made sure to reflect on all of our memories from throughout the past week.

We then walked to the edge of town to an amazing historic location — ruins from an old monastery called Santo Domingo. The site has been turned onto a wonderful venue and restaurant — and there was even a wedding taking place as we arrived. Our group was seated and we all enjoyed each other’s company with great food and great wine toasting to the team and their work and to future trips with Hearts in Motion.

Antigua is a charming city and has such a rich history that we were a little disappointed to learn that we were missing one of the largest celebrations of the year on Sunday (because we are heading home). Purple banners are hanging from windows and balconies to prepare for the annual Lent celebration. Each year a large procession goes through town and the locals make “carpets” of typical Guatemalan scenes and art from materials such as flowers and foliage. These are displayed all throughout town.

As we prepare to head back to Seattle, we just can’t put into words the experiences and connections we’ve made with the local people of Guatemala. Serving them has been inspirational! We’re also so thrilled to have met so many generous and supportive volunteers from around the world. People who gave up their vacations and donated their time and energy in helping so many. We look forward to building on these relationships and experiences in the years to come.

Thanks for reading our blog posts each day and staying connected with us while we were on this journey. Until next time.

The first thing on the agenda today was to get the surgical team to the hospital to do a set of rounds with patients. Following that we were off to Antigua, Guatemala for a four-hour caravan to Antigua, Guatemala. A set of volunteer firefighters (also known as Bomberos Voluntarios) drove us. It was a long and hot ride through several mountain passes until… our bus (a very large school bus) broke down. Luckily we were a part of a caravan of other vehicles that continued on and eventually came back for the rest of the team, and the broken down bus. Thankfully, we all made it safely and with time to check into our hotels and even some time to check out Antigua for a bit.

Antigua is a very small town in comparison to Guatemala City. The main area of town is about 12 city blocks by 12 city blocks with El Parque Central as the main town square. The streets are all paved with cobblestone — but are very uneven. The city was originally built in 1543 as the Capitol City of Guatemala, which at that time was all of Central America and the southern part of present day Mexico. The town was rebuilt in the late 1700’s because it was severely damaged by multiple earthquakes. It has many beautiful buildings and is very clean and friendly to tourists — it has multiple markets that offer local textile goods and even some of our Seattle favorites — coffee and chocolate.

We spent this evening at a lovely restaurant near the town center called Las Palmas. As we all funneled out after dinner some headed back to their hotels and others explored some of the historical sites in town. There are many beautiful ruins, mostly of old churches and monasteries that are so peaceful and magnificent when lit each night.