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.

This news is so fresh you would leave footprints if you step in it, but here’s a collection of my favorite links and coverage so far. I’ll be updating this list throughout the next few days:

• Let’s start with independents:
  • My first post on the topic can be found over at Gestalt IT: EMC Symmetrix V-Max Is Neither Monolithic Nor Midrange
  • Chris Evans was first but promises more than Enterprise Computing: EMC Announced Next Generation V-Max Architecture
  • Storagebod supposes that there will be No DMX5
  • Duncan Epping is watching from a server virtualization perspective: EMC announced the Symmetrix V-Max!
  • Jerome Wendt: EMC Symmetrix V-Max – It’s About Time
• And the press:
  • Beth Pariseau is always smart, as her SearchStorage piece shows: EMC clusters Symmetrix high-end disk arrays
  • And Beth on StorageSoup: EMC launches Symmetrix V-Max, may add spin-down
  • Chris Mellor is dead on in his piece for The Register, Symmetrix and the death of monolithic arrays
  • Lucas Mearian of Computerworld focused his piece on the private cloud: EMC introduces x86-based Symmetrix array for cloud storage
  • Dave Raffo at StorageSoup: EMC V-Max: V stands for bigger
  • Paul Travis at Byte and Switch: EMC Clusters New Storage Systems for Virtual Data Centers
  • And Dave Simpson brings up the rear on his personal blog, but still no word from InfoStor: EMC V-Max: Locked (in) and loaded
• EMC’s bloggers are first out of the gate:
  • Barry Burke has typically prolific and detailed coverage: 
  • • 1.055: symmetrix v-max – a revolutionary evolution
    • 1.056: inside the virtual matrix architecture (my favorite)
    • 1.057: symmetrix v-max – scale up, scale out, scale away!
    • 1.058: v-max does what hi-star can’t?
    • 1.059: fully automated storage tiering (fast)
  • Chuck Hollis’ Symmetrix V-Max: Storage Architecture Redefined is a solid overview
  • Chad Sakac is always good, and his EMC’s VMware Storage Strategy – The 3rd Shoe Drops is a must-read on V-Max, though I’m still left wondering about EMC’s VMware strategy!
  • Mark Twomey’s there with three posts and counting:
    • V-Max: The Scale Out Symmetrix
    • VMax: Auto-provisioning Groups
    • V-Max: SRDF Evolves
  • Dick Sullivan promises You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet
  • Steve Todd:
    • V-Max Quality
    • Managing V-Max at Scale
  • Len Devanna comments on the Social Launch
• The opposition is moving fast, too!
  • Marc Farley preempted the announcement with a hilarious must-watch video, EMC insider interview is a fake, and an expose on What’s a tigon anyway?
  • Val Bercovici from NetApp observes that the world might have moved past the need for a Symmetrix, noting “Frames are so 90’s”
  • Hu Yoshida focuses on what the V-Max is not: A storage virtualization platform. Don’t Confuse Symmetrix V-Max with Storage Virtualization
  • Claus Mikkelsen of HDS was also predictably underwhelmed, asking why EMC introduced this roadmap now? EMC – Catching Up With the Past
  • Tony Asaro blogs for HDS about 10 Questions on V-Max

That’s the news that’s fit to print so far! Stick with this post and Gestalt IT’s continuing coverage of the V-Max!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | Tracking EMC’s Symmetrix V-Max Launch
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.