The embedded script is automatically added to the bottom of the editor window when the slide share embed code is pasted in. It appears to re-add the script multiple times as images are uploaded and inserted or one switches between the visual and HTML displays of the WordPress editor. My latest such post, a summary of my Interop presentation on FCoE versus iSCSI, contained half a dozen copies of this script code!

Here’s a copy of the injected code:

<script src=”http://b.scorecardresearch.com/beacon.js?c1=7&amp;c2=7400849&amp;c3=1&amp;c4=&amp;c5=&amp;c6=”></script>

SlideShare took exception at being labeled a malware injector, claiming this is “just a comscore analytics link”, but malware is as malware does, and this tracking script interferes with the operation of the WordPress editor and is added without consent. I call that malware, and I call foul. If SlideShare wants to monitor the use of their embedded slideshows, they should simply add tracking to their own JavaScript code, rather than clumsily adding a third-party script.

I recommend switching to HTML mode and removing the script before pressing “Publish” whenever using SlideShare embeds. And I suggest reconsidering whether you want to use a service that does this sort of thing. I know I’m considering dumping SlideShare and deleting my account!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | SlideShare Embed Injects ScoreCard “Market Research” Junk
This post was categorized as Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

• My work
  • The Four Stages of Vendor Blogging
  • Always Punch Above Your Weight
  • Introducing The Enterprise IT Infrastructure Events Calendar
  • What Does HP Printer “Ink Cartridge Expired” Mean?
  • HP Photosmart Ink System Failure – Error: 0xc19a0035
• Other good stuff
  • Nigel Poulton did a great job covering EMC’s latest Symmetrix updates in VMAX Comes of Age
  • Chris Wolf is always worth reading; witness this week’s Hybrid Cloud Mobility: Converting the VM is the Easy Part
  • I also loved Tom Loverro’s piece, Android “Vista Pie”

Subscribe to my Google Reader feed or follow me on Twitter to see these in real-time.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Back From the Pile: Interesting Links, December 24, 2010
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Everything, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

See my companion piece, When To Embargo Blog News (And When Not To), over at Foskett Services

A similar error happened this morning, with NetApp’s Israeli site reportedly scooping the company’s own embargo regarding some product enhancements. This time, I hadn’t even had my briefing when the news hit Storage Newsletter and The Register. This sparked a discussion on Twitter regarding embargoes, and I thought it was time to lay down my own opinion on the matter.

Embargoes Are Useful

Embargoes help us all. I love that I can get inside information ahead of announcements, giving me time to consider the implications of new technology releases. I’m not scoop driven (though I’ve sometimes gotten the scoop) so I’m less interested in timeliness than I am in the depth of insight I can get from a briefing.

So I usually welcome embargoed briefings from companies I cover. I’m always ready to listen to interesting content, and usually ask tough questions during these calls. I want to know why a product decision has been made and what it’s good for, not just that it exists.

But I won’t write about everything. I am not a professional reporter, and I don’t get a bonus for being first or most-read. I use my blog to talk to the world, as well as a mechanism for me to record my own thoughts on topics interesting to me. I’m not trying to maximize pageviews or ad impressions.

So I will often refuse a briefing if I’m not interested in a company’s announcement, and will even cut off a call midway through if it seems like a waste of both my and the company’s time. (I hope they understand the sincerity in that move) I will also sometimes decide not to write about a relevant topic if I can’t find something I want to say about it. I’m not going to parrot everyone else’s coverage just to have said something!

Stephen’s Stance

I’d like to lay out my opinion on embargoes very clearly:

1. I honor embargoes I agree to – Contact me and if I say I won’t publish until a set date and time, you can bet I won’t.
2. Set a date and time – It’s frustrating when companies haven’t decided when an announcement “goes live” or don’t include a time zone.
3. Don’t break your own embargo – This happens all the time. Please don’t hold me to a higher standard than you follow yourself!
4. Embargoes are not NDAs – As spelled out in my other post, don’t confuse these terms. Embargoes are not NDAs and vice versa.
5. Try to be relevant – I write about enterprise and consumer technology, especially data storage. Don’t pitch me on unrelated topics.
6. Don’t pester me – If I overlook your briefing request, go ahead and contact me a second time. But don’t pester me for weeks especially on irrelevant topics. I get about a dozen requests a week and can’t attend to all of them!
7. Give me time and information – Don’t expect me to react positively to a press release or tardy 15 minute briefing. I need time to ask questions and digest your announcement or I’ll just skip it.
8. I will be skeptical – I’m not going to write a summary of your press release. I will interrupt your slides. I will question your numbers. Send me a sample to test and I’ll really test it.

I really respect and enjoy working with many PR professionals, and I have a serious distaste for the “un-professionals” out there. Reach out to me in a positive way and I’ll happily work within your embargo!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | My Stance on Embargoes
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

The Human Element

People used to read trade magazines and scour conference halls to uncover product and technology gems, but this kind of research is better done online today. The other day, a friend-of-a-friend tweeted a request to suggest “NAS storage in the $3k to $5k range.” Knowing I would have some suggestions, my friend retweeted the request and I fired back a list of suggestions. Since we were on Twitter, my reply included links to the companies that made the products in question. Back in the old days, this product search might have lasted weeks or months, but I bet jjx had her research done in hours.

EMC World airport bus interview: Karl Lewis of UofM from Stephen Foskett on Vimeo.

So why go to a trade show if not to discover products? It’s all about the people. Increasingly, trade events like EMC World and Storage Networking World are becoming venues to meet people who were previously mere online avatars. They are for building friendships, business development, and cementing real connection and community. A look at my recent trade-show videos on Vimeo will reveal that most of my own interaction is personal, and the relationships built there could never be forged online.

David Scammell talks SNW and SpiceWorks from Stephen Foskett on Vimeo.

The new people I have met, like Karl Lewis and David Scammell, will become part of my own community, and I will become part of theirs. We would have never met without the Internet (Karl recognized me from my blog, and David spotted me on Twitter), but we would never have become friends without real human interaction.

Devolving the Conference

Tech Field Day Overview (Short) from Stephen Foskett on Vimeo.

The same can be said of the Gestalt IT community. We were friendly before we met, but our interactions at Tech Field Day cemented a surprisingly strong bond, especially between the delegates and presenting vendor staff. We are much more a community now than before these events. This is the main reason we will continue the Field Day event series: It brings a new kind of community to life! This kind of interaction might have happened at old-school conferences, but the specific (some might say peculiar) nature of the Field Day (invite-only, independent, and blogger-centric) makes it unique.

Another event I really look forward to is Greg and VaNessa Duplessie’s BD Event. It’s like the Field Day in that it distills a single element from the old trade show days to its purest form. In this case it is the business-to-business back-channel discussion that gets the focus. The BD Event is all about business development, and every part of it is designed to foster the sharing of ideas and opportunities between business people. I love the concept, and I hope I will see a tremendous crowd at the Boston event next month!

Watch live video from The Cube LIVE from EMC World 2010 on Justin.tv

Even traditional conferences are changing. EMC World had a tremendous blogger lounge set up, including an amazing live video setup. SiliconAngle brought us “The Cube“, a live webcast that brought the social elements of the blogger lounge to a massive online audience. My hat is off to NiceFishFilms for their technical expertise, yet it was the human element, getting such diverse people together in the same place, that made it all work.

Stephen’s Stance

The Internet will certainly change many elements of the traditional trade show, but it will never kill the need for real interaction. I look forward to the next clever twist on the conference, complementing Gestalt IT’s Field Day, the BD Event, and The Cube, but do not worry that we will all some day remain in our secluded caves. We are social people, and nothing beats meeting someone face to face.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Nothing Beats Meeting In Person
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Gestalt IT, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Case Study: Social Media at EMC World

Watch live video from The Cube LIVE from EMC World 2010 on Justin.tv
Watch this social media panel from the show, for example. John Troyer and Len Devanna, two of the more genuinely interesting and socially-credible people I know, spend much of the discussion talking about the benefits of social media to their companies (VMware and EMC, respectively). It’s a bit disturbing, really, to hear just how successful these companies are at influencing opinion, fostering loyalty, and driving sales by leveraging social media. These guys are not “salesy”, yet their companies are benefiting in dozens of ways from their efforts.

Social media was everywhere at EMC World. Product announcements and keynotes were covered and discussed live on Twitter, including by yours truly. The event also generated dozens of blog posts, hours of video, and even a tie-in promotion leveraging Foursquare! Again, I was involved in this frenzy, posting a video interview and blog entries on Iomega, STEC, EMC, and the VPLEX. None of this would have happened if EMC hadn’t consciously reached out and included social media in their event planning.

Considering all this, it is surprising that social media was probably not a major element of the overall EMC World budget. I am certain that the blogger lounge (complete with a barista) cost tens of thousands of dollars, yet this is insignificant compared to the show’s other costs – hiring Counting Crows, renting the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center (the largest and most expensive space in New England), and setting up a huge show floor, complete with a dozen motor coaches. Indeed, most of the attendees (including the bloggers) even paid an entry fee and travel costs to attend the show. As I point out in the video, EMC’s budget for this one event could pay for all social media efforts the company will make for the next hundred years!

The Next Wave

Although social media is making a huge impact on companies like EMC (and they are investing huge amounts of time and money to make this happen), it may be surprising to learn that I’m not worried about their impact. Social media can’t be taken over by corporations any more than the Internet itself can. Although they will certainly try to bend public opinion to their way of seeing things, the Internet (thankfully) remains too fluid to contain.

Let’s say (and this isn’t far from the truth, to hear some tell it) EMC, VMware, and Cisco hired every independent enterprise storage, virtualization, and network blogger, pundit, and gadfly, using social media as the ultimate recruiting pool. Each of these folks would now have to spend some or all of their time focusing on the technologies and experiences that relate to their day jobs. This opens opportunities for others to step up and fill the niches they once claimed – nature abhors a vacuum, after all.

We are already seeing this happen. Although four Tech Field Day and Gestalt IT community members have now joined related companies (Scott, Ed, Simon, and Rich), they remain credible contributors to the enterprise IT community. We still have plenty of unaffiliated folks as well, with new ones added all the time. Take a look at the contributions of people like Ilja Coolen, Craig Stewart, Matt Davis, Edward Aractingi, Dan Hughes, and so many others. Each gets far less readership and attention than he deserves, and each will undoubtedly step up and claim a spot in the IT community. Social media is designed to allow people to say what they have and democratic enough to bring them attention.

“All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again*.”

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Relax: The Corporate World Can’t Co-Opt Social Media
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Everything, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Leaking confidential information can sometimes land you in hot water - avoid trouble by keeping your ears closed!

1 – Avoid signing NDAs

The best way to avoid breaking an NDA is simply not to agree to one in the first place. Asking for a non-disclosure agreement is part of standard practice in business, but it’s not always necessary. Politely ask if the NDA is really necessary and suggest that really secret information shouldn’t be shared in the first place. I don’t want to know the long-term product plans of every IT supplier since this is the very topic I love to speculate and write about. Knowing the roadmap ruins the fun of guessing, and companies don’t always stay on course anyway!

Trap Tip! Ask your corporate counsel (or your boss) about any NDAs your company may have in place with its partners, suppliers and customers. You may find that you are covered by an NDA that you never heard about!

2 – Ask for embargoes instead

Many companies will allow you to forego the NDA and still give you the heads-up on near-future releases under embargo. If you’re proven your responsibility, you can often get a sneak peek, prepare yourself for the release, and get your ideas straight on day one without having an NDA in place. I much prefer embargoes since they’re easy to keep straight in my head – “don’t say anything about the product XYZ until next Monday, but everything is wide open then!” But make sure you’re careful about exactly when you can talk, including the time and timezone of the release!

3 – Limit the scope

If you’re dealing with a larger company, ask if you can limit the scope of the NDA to just one product or technology area. This it unusual and unlikely to fly, but at least shows that you take such agreements very seriously. Assuming this is nixed, limit what you hear. Ask in writing to keep your briefings confined to a certain area and stop speakers who want to say too much. None of this affords much legal protection, but it helps you to keep your head straight and avoid temptation to spill the beans.

4 – Follow the leader

If you’re under NDA and want to talk about something private that was shared with you, wait until an official source announces it first. One great aspect of the social web is the rapid spread of information from official blogs. If the Microsoft product team talks about something on their official TechNet blog, I assume it’s fair game. The same goes for corporate documentation posted at TechNet. Certainly employees can leak information and violate NDAs too, but information posted on corporate web sites, even in obscure corners, can’t really be considered confidential. Hold off on sharing information leaked by unofficial sources, though. You don’t want to be a trailblazer when an NDA is in place!

5 – Ask permission

When in doubt, it never hurts to ask. If you believe you should be able to write or speak about information shared under NDA, send an email to corporate PR or media/analyst relations specifying what you intend to cover. They will review it and let you know what you can and can not say. You can also raise your hand during presentations and inquire about the confidentiality of the information being covered. Don’t rely on “confidential” tags on slides and handouts, though – they’re often placed inappropriately or forgotten.

The NDA Changes The Game

NDAs are necessary but no fun. They can land you in hot water, even when you’re not trying to reveal information. And they put you in a subservient position relative to the companies you think, write, and speak about. Who wants to ask permission and wade through corporate bureaucracy just to blog? This is why the best way to avoid trouble is to avoid the NDA in the first place. But chances are you will be covered by such agreements at some point, so you had better figure out a strategy to live with them.

Note: Remember that each agreement and jurisdiction is different. I am not a lawyer and am not trying to give legal advice. I’m simply trying to help my friends and readers keep out of trouble!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | 5 Tips To Avoid Violating NDAs
This post was categorized as Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Everyone is a vendor - what are you selling?

We’re All Selling Something

I’ve always been a vendor blogger, and so have you. It took me a long time to come to terms with this, but nearly everybody is a vendor of one sort or another: Regardless of whether you deliver results to your employer, sell your own services, or push a product, we’re all selling something.

I’ve been delivering enterprise IT consulting for a living for almost 15 years now. It’s easy to pretend that human services like consulting are somehow more pure than the “box pushers”, but this is simply not the case. Even internal end-user employees are trying to keep themselves employed, and the most effective way to do this is to promote their company and themselves.

It’s not a black and white scale. If we are all selling ourselves and our employers,then we are all vendors to greater or lesser extents. We all have our axes to grind, our prejudices to expose, and only our experience to draw on. So no one is perfectly credible and no one is perfectly tainted.

I’ve long labored to maintain my credibility and independence, even as I have moved from an IT outsourcer (Sprint Paranet) to a storage service provider (StorageNetworks) to strategic consulting companies (GlassHouse Technologies and Contoural) to a cloud storage provider (Nirvanix). I’ve always remained separate from any product focus, but I’ve always been part of the sales and delivery process for consulting services.

Get Out Of Jail Free?

The fact that it’s all shades of gray does not mean, however, that we are free to twist the facts with impunity or that we should object when others pass judgement on our motivations. Quite the opposite: If we are all vendors, we all had better be careful what our actions say about us!

This is the most important lesson I have learned about blogging: Credibility is our currency, and no one has yet offered me enough reward to sacrifice mine. Can I be bought? Well, in the words of Jayne Cobb, “that’ll be an interesting day!”

Because I recognize the importance of credibility, I try to keep a level head and maintain a respectable persona. This means avoiding personality-driven battles and engaging in accptable business practices I would be proud for the world to know. This isn’t always easy: As your personal profile rises, there will be outside pressure (or inside temptation) to leverage it. Our shared challenge is to keep level heads.

The Messenger Matters

One inescapable fact remains: Employees of companies known for FUD are held to a higher standard of scrutiny. No matter how personally responsible and credible you are, if you work for a marketing-driven product vendor, you will be under the microscope.

Comments that would be considered innocuous or even respectably aloof from an “independent” might seem like mud slinging from a vendor employee. Imagine reading blog posts or tweets from an end user criticizing the products of Microsoft and IBM. If the exact same statements were made by employees of EMC or HP, wouldn’t they be seen in a different light? The message is the same, but the messenger matters.

I have personally experienced the doors that close when moving from a consulting company to a managed service provider. Certain publications and event organizers have strict rules denying “vendors” the right to participate; others have no such restrictions. I was sad to say goodbye to TechTarget after 5 years, but I respect their rules. Happily, as their door closed, others opened and I was able to write and present more last year than any year previous!

If you enjoyed reading this, you’ll probably also like my Foskett Services blog!

My Approach

My new role at Nirvanix explicitly allowed me to continue my personal social media presence, including organizing Gestalt IT and Tech Field Day. Management saw that my reputation was a benefit to the company and trusted I would remain objective and keep my work and non-work roles separated.

I’ve endeavored to do just that, launching a new blog, Enterprise Storage Strategies, specifically for cloud storage strategy and restricted crossover between the two domains. In the interest of objectivity, I’ve also “recused” myself from discussions of cloud storage on the Gestalt IT web site and at Tech Field Day.

I don’t want to say that this is the correct approach for everyone, but it’s worked well for me. What do you think? How can vendor bloggers remain credible in the increasingly social world?

Hot dog cart image by rollingrck

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | What I’ve Learned From Vendor Blogging
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Biased content isn't just found on blogs - it's much more likely to be found in other areas like Twitter and discussion forums. When does discussion become Astroturf?

Discussions Are On The Move

The new Internet isn’t just about blogs. In fact, the majority of social media discussion and linkage probably happens on Twitter, LinkedIn, discussion forums, and other sites. But non-blog content raises even thornier bias issues than blogs:

1. Discussions are less formal than blog posts, so off-the-cuff comments are common. The rapid turnaround of Twitter comments encourages “post-before-you-think” thinking, and knee-jerk comments can be damning. Even if one did not intend to but another vendor down, it’s easy to say something inappropriate.
2. The length of a comment is limited, so subtle nuances get lost. I’ve often had trouble saying what I want in 140 characters, and even blog and forum comment conventions restrict verbosity. Again, sometimes your meaty tweet will really cut a competitor to the bone.
3. Biographical information is limited. Twitter profiles include just a few words and a single URL, restricting the disclosure of relevant information. Many profiles don’t include the name of an employer or disclosure of other vendor ties. Forum profiles and signatures are similarly restricted.
4. The Internet scatters content. Even if one is careful to disclose one’s business relationships on a blog, Twitter profile, or LinkedIn page, interactions go far beyond these.

Conferences are even worse. Many attendees switch badges or intentionally list a different company just to get in the door, obscuring their identity. And no one knows who the guy in row 12 is or why he is asking such pointed questions of the panel. The same thing happens with webinars and Internet polls.

All these limits obscure the good folks out there and conspire to allow the bad ones to act with impunity. This makes everyone suspect. Actively comment on a number of industry blogs and you could be accused of astroturfing! Whether it’s fair or not, employees of hardware and software vendors are being held to a higher standard than so-called independents.

Personal Defensive SEO

I’m going to assume you’re a good egg and want everyone to know where you’re coming from when you interact on the Internet. Many businesses actively engage in search engine optimization (SEO) to help them rise to the top of Internet search results. Individuals need to start doing some SEO, too, but the reason is different: Make yourself easy to find and disclose your connections and you won’t look like a bad egg.

1. Get a LinkedIn profile, keep it up to date, and set your name and company information to public. Go to Settings -> Public Profile, and turn on Basics, Summary, Current Positions, and Websites at a minimum. And make sure Websites includes your current employer and blog(s).
2. Create a Google profile with links to your LinkedIn profile, blog, Twitter, and other profiles. This helps Google and other search engines disambiguate you from the rest of the crowd. FriendFeed is another great place to set up a profile. I only use Facebook for personal/private connections, so I don’t bother with corporate links there.
3. Make sure your blog includes links to your Twitter and LinkedIn profiles, too. And pepper your blog with your own full name so it shows up in Google searches.
4. Include your employer’s name in your Twitter “one line bio” and use your blog as your Twitter profile URL.
5. Set up Disqus, Intense Debate, WordPress, and Typepad profiles and use them whenever possible.

All this effort won’t directly help you, though it might save a few minutes when you try to comment on a blog. But they will make you easier to find, and reduce the likelihood that someone will accuse you of not disclosing your corporate affiliations.

Astroturf car, public domain image by Ingolfson

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Vendor Non-Blogs
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Not all bloggers are equally vendor-focused - it's a spectrum

The Vendor Blogging Spectrum

Although most folks know they should take official company comments with a grain of salt, social media muddies the waters. Consider a spectrum of vendor blogs, ranked here from most- to least-forthright:

1. It’s easy to tell that a blog hosted at “companyxyz.com” is at least a semi-official statement from that company. For examples, see NetApp or HP’s lists of blogs. At the very least, the content of corporate-domain blogs will focus on the positives of the company. This is my preferred venue for business-related blog posts.
2. There are also independent-seeming official blogs from many companies. Sussing out the corporate can be fairly easy (as in OnlineStorageOptimization) or somewhat more difficult (see CloudStorageStrategy) but a reasonably persistent person can see that these are corporate communications vehicles. Also, see Quest Software’s SQLServerPedia for an excellent example of a community service site!
3. Companies like EMC encourage employees to create independent blogs outside the corporate domain, but most blogs include an “About” page listing their corporate affiliation. Again, one expects the corporate glow to radiate from these blogs and they rarely include anything but corporate-oriented content. It you’re blogging about your company on your personal blog, you must make sure it’s obvious where you work!
4. Next are the personal blogs of employees, which may or may not include business content. Many expect that these will disclose employment affiliation but some do not. I have often had to turn to Google or LinkedIn to discover who is and is not an employee of one company or another. This is fine as long as business content isn’t included, but disclosure is a must when there is crossover.
5. There are also paid placement blogs that serve as PR vehicles outside the corporate domain. Above-board examples like DCIG do an excellent job of providing solid content along with sponsor-oriented paragraphs, but it can be much harder to discover the paid connections in others. Some analysts even speak and write on behalf of their clients with no disclosure whatsoever!

And these are only direct connections. Is a reseller any more independent than a vendor? How about a consultant who gets paid to install and configure the product? Or an analyst who gets paid for strategic advice? Or a reporter taken on a junket? Perhaps the FTC disclosure rules weren’t so crazy after all…

Does Industry Matter?

Surprisingly, the tolerance of readers to vendor bloggers varies greatly by industry. What would be acceptable in one segment would be odious in another.

Base IT infrastructure components (storage, servers, switches) are an incredibly competitive market, so competition from bloggers tends to be equally fierce. The same is true of emerging technologies like cloud computing. Head-to-head competition is going to attract both overt blog battles and covert mindshare wars, so these industries tend to be much more concerned about who is and who is not “a vendor”. Marc Farley’s move from Dell/EqualLogic to 3PAR, for example, was the topic of heated debate due in part to the intense competition between these vendors. Tony Asaro’s blogging and career moves have caused similar debate for much the same reason.

In contrast, virtualization platforms, database software, applications, and development environments are more about making effective use of a singular product. Without the foundation of competition, much less attention is paid to where a blogger works. This is why the hiring of many top VMware bloggers by VMware and EMC hasn’t caused much concern. Who cares if you work for VMware when the relative merits of the platform is not a subject of debate? Folks like Scott Lowe, Ed Saipetch, and Rick Scherer are known for their quality technical contributions, so it’s unlikely that their moves into “the mothership” will change anything. But I know they’ll be watched much more closely from now on…

Case in point: See the recent “best blogs” polls at vSphere-Land and Storage Monkeys: The VMware blogger list includes (by my count) 11 vendor bloggers out of 25. In contrast, the Storage Monkeys site chose to have two separate lists, one for vendors and another for independents. It is interesting that the VMware community thinks nothing of combining “vendors” and “independents”, while the storage community wouldn’t have it.

Another cause of “vendor blogger” FUD is the orientation of the bloggers. Folks who are focused on message tend to be more criticized than those focused on technology. This is not always the case, however. If one became widely known as a proponent of a specific product or technological approach (say, NAS for VMware storage), it would be very difficult for them to make a move to a vendor with an entirely different approach (like a Fibre Channel or iSCSI player).

Expose Yourself!

There are ways to mitigate the impact of a vendor job move, of course. We’ll be talking about these in detail later in this series, but one easy way is to make sure there is a clear distinction between the person and the company. Here are some specific suggestions for your blog:

1. Create an “About Me” page, obviously linked from every page on your blog, that lists your full name and employer. I shouldn’t have to google you to discover who you are.
2. Create a separate work blog. Clearly spell out which “hat” you are wearing on each of these blogs, and keep from mixing work and personal content.
3. Don’t get into personal battles over work-related topics. Remain calm and professional and don’t make enemies. You never know when you’ll be playing for a different team!
4. Move work content up the stack. The closer you get to the top of the vendor blog spectrum, the less problems you’ll have. Some companies won’t allow a “company.com” blog, but maybe they would allow the creation of a special company-wide blogging site.

Your goal is to be open and honest about who you work for. Above all, remember: Your credibility is the currency of the new social economy!

If you enjoyed reading this, you’ll probably also like my Foskett Services blog!

Prism image: GFDL by Peo

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | The Spectrum of Vendor Blogs
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Are you a vendor blogger or an independent? Can you straddle the line and be both?

Why Do Vendor Bloggers Matter?

I suppose it’s best to get some definitions out of the way at the outset. Blogging and social media is a diverse and ill-defined region of the Internet, a world which itself in its infancy. What I write here is focused on my particular corner of the online world: Enterprise IT infrastructure, and enterprise storage in particular. I am sure that other areas, both inside and outside of IT infrastructure, have different norms and values.

In fact, this particular focus on who is a vendor and who is not will seem peculiar to many. Some areas are dominated by insiders blogging for their employer, other companies are entirely absent from the blogging sphere (Exhibit A: Apple), and still others don’t make much of a fuss over who someone works for. Yet concern about payola and bias runs deep even in the most liberal circles.

Can You Trust It?

It boils down to a simple question: How much can you trust what you read? Blogging and other social media activities (Twitter, conferences, forums, etc) have come to dominate discourse and drive search engine ranking. An outspoken social media maven can drive mind-space and thought leadership using these tools. Yet the democratic Internet is open to any and all.

This kind of influence can be very subtle. A connected employee can be expected to be part of the larger conversation about a product, service, or technology. Once also expects them to influence this discussion, and this will always be biased based on their experience and background within the company. Where outside critics see a profit-motivated monolith, an employee sees an all-too-human company trying its best to succeed. And since that success feeds their children, it’s hard to expect them to be too critical.

Certainly some content is inherently trustworthy, especially in technical areas like IT. I love Chad Sakac’s posts on EMC/VMware integration, for example. I also look forward to reading what the VMware and Microsoft employee bloggers write, since they’re so detailed and factual. And finding this kind of content of a personal blog, even without disclosure, wouldn’t raise my hackles. But even the most technical blogs sometimes get into “mine is better than yours” arguments between vendors.

The world of strategy and opinion is much less black and white. Consider just about anything on Chuck Hollis’ blog. He writes at EMC.com and his content is always on point for that company. But many others (from many companies) write similarly corporate-focused pieces with much less disclosure. This is an old PR trick, and the Internet makes it easier than ever both to get published and to disguise affiliation.

But even with the best of intentions, we are all biased in one way or another. Our experience, our employer, our friends, and indeed the entire world we live in influence our experience. It is not a simple thing to be independent of this, and we should expect everyone to be impacted to one extent or another. The trick is to detect overt bias and manipulation.

Throwing Stones

I’m not trying to throw stones here. In fact, I write a vendor blog myself for my employer, Nirvanix. I am very used to wearing multiple hats, and I pride myself on my ability to step into and out of the corporate shadow. But it’s a very difficult game to play, and I’ve failed on occasion.

Rather, I’m hoping that this series of articles will spark some discussion on the whole concept of vendor blogs. I’ll be posting about the spectrum of options that corporate bloggers have, non-blogging soapboxes they use, and best practices to keep everything straight.

If you enjoyed reading this, you’ll probably also like my Foskett Services blog!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Vendor Bloggers 1: Why Does It Matter?
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