I had a decent library of documentation, templates, hand-offs, slide decks, etc in my pre-Splunk consulting life (technically, I still have them). It’s nice to be finally getting a decent collection to draw from for my customers in my post-automation consulting life.
a lot of travel
Over the past month, and through the end of March, I’ve done, and will be doing, a lot of travel for work. Nothing I haven’t done before, but it’s been a long time since I’ve had to be onsite for more than a couple weeks at a time – most customer leap at the chance …
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they asked the right question
Let me compare the experience I wrote about yesterday to another I had the same year with the first customer I was ever sent to – HSBC. Just a couple weeks after starting with ProServe in 2008, I was sent to Chicago to do a final PoC for HSBC. Someone else had done a PoC …
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but, i got them on sale!
Back in August 2008, I had a one-week “quick start” professional services engagement in Nutley New Jersey. It was a supposed to be a super simple week: install HP Server Automation at BT Global. Another ProServe engineer was onsite to setup HP Network Automation. Life was gonna be easy-peasy – the only deliverable was to …
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on entropy, password/passphrase complexity, and if you’ve been part of a data breach (spoiler alert: you have)
I wrote an article on passwords, passphrases, entropy, and data breaches for my employer’s blog: https://augustschell.com/passwords-passphrases-complexity-length-crackability-memorability-data-breaches
meetings
The author of a recent Medium post is so close to right, it’s scary. Gary says the best thing you can do is to cut your meeting length in half. And that is a phenomenal step. One that needs to happen. But one that needs to happen in conjunction with an even more monumental shift. Change the start time …
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i’m not technical
I am. But not really. To paraphrase my prelicensing class instructor, “95% of consulting is not technical work – it’s psychological”. 5% of consulting is delivery. The remainder is listening, empathizing, training, selling, encouraging, improving, and a whole bunch more gerunds. I’m an unlicensed psychiatrist dabbling in technology -just call me Frasier Malone – the single …
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traveling consultant cheat sheet
“Join the Navy and See the World!”* Perhaps one of the most famous recruitment phrases ever established in the United States. And it’s not at all dissimilar form what a lot of budding consultants think they are going to do when either joining a services organization, or starting their own business. I have been fortunate in …
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7 things employees wish they could tell their boss about salaries
LinkedIn had an interesting article Friday whose title I snagged for this blog post. The 7 items are: We don’t care about pay scales Forget policies. We talk. We think about our pay a lot. We will sometimes let you take advantage. When we have to negotiate … we both lose. No matter how much we earn, …
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what to automate
I have been in the world of automation for quite a while. Specifically in the realms of server, datacenter, and cloud automation – but I’ve been interested and/or involved in other tasks that tend towards automation (even for a short period of time) for far longer than just my post-college time in the world of …
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vacation
This CNBC story caused quite a bit of discussion on my Facebook wall this week. In short, Americans don’t take all the time off they can, and many don’t even take any. I didn’t used to take much, either – but have since changed my view on the matter. There seem to be a variety …
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the seven stages of expertise
I recently found The Seven Stages of Expertise in Software Engineering. Stage 1: Innocent barely knowledgeable if at all Stage 2: Exposed seeking knowledge Stage 3: Apprentice has read case studies and tries to apply those techniques Stage 4: Practitioner can actually apply concepts learned in one context to a not-identical context Stage 5: Journeyman …
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integrisure – the business that never was
For a long time I have been interested in real, actual, legitimate security. I am not a fan of the widespread use of security theater in our “post-9/11 world”, as {{Bruce Schneier}} calls it. Integrisure was supposed to be a real-world {{pentesting}} of “secure” facilities, a la Sneakers. In late 2000 / early 2001, I was working on …
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defaulting pxe boots with hpsa 10.0
In follow-up to my last post, which itself was a commentary on an earlier topic, I have the additional steps you need to do the previous procude (which is to edit /opt/opsware/boot/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default): /etc/init.d/opsware-sas stop smartboot Edit file. /etc/init.d/opsware-sas start smartboot
pxe works differently in hpsa 10.x
2 years ago I wrote-up how you can change the default choice for the PXE menu in HP Server Automation. Found out this week that those instructions are not valid if you are running 10.0 (release this past summer). HP changed how they present their PXE menu with 10.x, and I have filed an RFE …
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what should a professional services group’s goal(s) be?
Should it be as a revenue stream? Or can it be far, far more? Every place I have worked since getting into professional services back in early 2008 has viewed the goal of the organization as making money by performing services. Whether or not the customer was happy, something useful was delivered, whether a relationship …
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unsales
I am a huge believer in unsales. And not in the pharmaceutical industry sense. Because “shipping is a feature“, and because I intensely dislike the “do it for me, then hand me the keys” mentality, I routinely follow the unsales methodology. What is unsales? It is [almost] only selling what a customer can use today. I …
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there’s never enough documentation | there’s too much documentation
Documentation is vital. There’s never enough. And there’s always too much. In general, these are the areas I find documentation to fail: Not Enough Too Much/Many why-tos (instead of how-tos) tutorials on things you need architecture explanation design philosophy “how we got here” “why we are here” future plans / roadmaps deltas from standards recording …
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the value of face-to-face
I have been working from home for nearly 5.5 years. The benefits are myriad – not least of which is the minuscule commute and savings on fuel, eating out, etc. Sometimes I travel for work. This accomplishes many good things – a chance to put faces to names and voices, get a chance to read …
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new documentation should always augment the status quo
In my line of work, I often need to create documentation for clients. Documentation in general is a Good Thing™. But good documentation’s goal should always be to augment and improve upon what already exists – not to supplant, downgrade, or muddle what already exists. A prime example of this has come up with a …
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pmp project management professional certification exam preparation course in a book for passing the pmp project management professional exam by william manning
New record for longest blog title I’ve ever had. I think. First, the pros: it’s concise, finishing at a mere 91 numbered pages, including sample questions and the index. Second, the cons: it’s 63 pages of bullet points with little-to-no explanation of terms, examples, etc. {{William Manning}} appears to have done an admirable job of …
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evaluating “work from home” “opportunities”
It seems the number of advertised “work from home” “opportunities has gone ever higher since the advent of prolific social networking. A not insignificant portion of these opportunities really are legitimate – 31, Avon, Mary Kay … – but a lot of them at the very least feel scammy. The good ones tell you everything you …
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seamless is now avnet
As mentioned a couple weeks ago, Avnet has finalized the purchase of my former employer, Seamless Technologies. All of STI was brought over “intact” – ie, we’re still a unit, and Avnet purchased us for the people – but it’s very weird to go from such a small company (about 60 people) to such a …
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avnet buying seamless technologies
Avnet (AVT) is acquiring Seamless Technologies (my employer). Full Press Release (well, the important part): (and WSJ reprint) Avnet, Inc. Announces Agreement to Acquire Assets of Seamless Technologies, Inc. Significantly Expands Cloud and Automation Solutions PHOENIX–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Avnet, Inc. (NYSE:AVT) announced today that it has agreed to acquire substantially all of the assets of Seamless Technologies, …
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automation {gp}
The way people moved up the ladder in IT during my early days (starting in 1975) was to take on new projects that allowed them time to master the new software and become the local expert. As you became the local expert on many new software products, management became very comfortable giving you more and …
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