As many of you know, I organize the Tech Field Day event series for Gestalt IT, a grass-roots gathering of freelance writers, bloggers, and such. It’s not a trade show or business conference – it’s a field day!

The ExecEvent is something totally different, yet somewhat the same in spirit.  Greg Duplessie brings together executives folks from a variety of IT infrastructure companies.  The ExecEvent includes two days of the other kind of networking – folks discuss potential business opportunities, investment, OEM deals, and the like.  It began a couple of years ago as the BDEvent, and the name change reflects an elevation of the focus from simple business development to real executive networking.

I’ll be heading to Palo Alto, CA for the ExecEvent during the week of the 24th.  It’s a great opportunity for me to network with the businesses that work with Foskett Services and Gestalt IT.  Although I’m not looking for venture capital investment, and don’t intend to come out with my own line of storage arrays, this gathering of high-powered industry folks has a lot to offer!

Many of my friends agree, and I look forward to seeing folks like W. Curtis Preston, Marc Staimer, Brad O’Neill, and too many others to list here.

I believe there is still space if you would like to represent your company at the ExecEvent.  If you are going, maybe you’d be interested in setting up a meeting with me!  I’ll be available most of Tuesday and Wednesday, so drop me an e-mail.  I look forward to seeing you there!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Will You Be At The ExecEvent?
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.

I hope you, or a representative from your company, will join me and the folks from Nirvanix and my friends like W. Curtis Preston and Marc Staimer, Charles Curran and Dan Gordon from Valhalla, and just about everyone else in the industry for Greg Duplessie’s Business Development event in Boston.

This is strictly an industry insider event – no end users, exibitors, tchochkes, or contests, just serious networking and business development. The kind of stuff that has always been going on behind closed doors and in the lobbies at Storage Networking World and Storage Decisions, but without the distraction of the actual conference!

If you are going, and are interested in discussing public managed storage in the cloud (or happen to have Red Sox tickets for June 8, 9, or 10) drop me a line. Let’s meet up in Boston!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | All Business Development All The Time!
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.

Storage magazine: seven years' proof of excellence

All things must pass, but it is with a heavy heart that I note that TechTarget‘s excellent Storage magazine has shipped its last issue. No official word has been posted by the company, but it is now widely reported. All print publications are feeling squeezed by a move to online readership which robs print of advertising revenue with its quicker turnaround and lower cost. Like its ancestor, Byte, and PC Magazine, Storage will continue online at searchstorage.com as well as through a controlled-circulation PDF newsletter. I do not yet know which of the excellent staff (writers, illustrators, and editors) of Storage will remain with these online efforts.

A History of Excellence

The final issue of Storage magazine was recently mailed - I grabbed a few extras if you want one!

Storage magazine was launched in March of 2002 to be “the best magazine dedicated to storage,” in the words of Editor in Chief, Mark Schlack, and it was. It stood out from the crowd right away, with square “perfect” binding and high-quality printing and design. Inside that first issue, one was greeted by fresh and engaging layout and artwork that was both clever and humorous. These would become the trademark of the magazine.

But content was king at Storage, and this is the area with which I am most proud to have been associated. The very first issue featured insightful pieces by Steve Duplessie, Rich Friedman, Richard Scannell, Dennis Martin, Darryl Brooks, and others. They were joined by a who’s-who of the industry, including Jon Toigo, Marc Farley, Alan Radding, Jerome Wendt, W. Curtis Preston, Jim Damoulakis, Tony Prigmore, Marc Staimer, Randy Kerns, and Tom Halfhill, and that was just in the first year! Just about every independent voice in the industry was represented over the next six years.

It was precisely that independence that brought credibility to the magazine. Although they eventually ended their provocative Behind the Firewall insider-tips page, they never allowed the magazine to become an advertorial. Like the companion Storage Decisions conference and seminar series, TechTarget managed both to remain editorially independent and to gather strong support from the industry. No doubt it was the wisdom and experience of the editorial staff, Schlack, Friedman, and Rich Castagna, who ensured balance rather than cheerleading or FUD to dominate the pages. They received recognition, as well: Just look at TechTarget’s award page for a list of “bests”!

My Own Experience

Storage impressed with its design, illustrations, and photography as well as its editorial excellence

Storage even found a place for yours truly in their pages: I wrote the Integration column every other month for two years before moving to the Best Practices column through 2007. I also contributed almost a dozen feature articles over the years, the last of which just missed the final issue. I was proud to be listed as a Contributing Editor for all of those years as well, and gave everything I could to keep Storage “the best,” including quoted commentary in many issues.

Every one of my interactions with Storage magazine was positive. The editors always knew how to edit my work to bring out the best. Although I am not truly a journalist, I have learned many things from Mark, Rich, Rich, and the others. And I remain honored to be listed alongside the luminaries whose work appeared next to mine.

I also want to call attention to the standout look of the magazine: I talked to many of the photographers featured on the pages, having had my own photo taken a few times as well as my editorial subjects, and they were truly professionals, drawing out the best in us. The illustrations that graced my columns and articles deserve repeated praise, too, always amazing me with their clever twists on what I wrote.

Storage magazine deserves its place in the enterprise storage industry, as well as the publishing world in general. But more importantly, it earned a place on my bookshelf, and it will remain there. I cannot praise it higher. Thanks for seven great years, and I look forward to working with TechTarget and the excellent staff of Storage in the future!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Remembering Storage Magazine
This post was categorized as Computer History, 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.

Most of the sessions were worthwhile, but I’d like to highlight a few of the sessions that I attended:

• Rich Castagna’s What Storage Managers Are Buying – always a highlight of the show, Storage Magazine’s survey results
• W. Curtis Preston’s Deduplication: The Perfect Solution to the Perfect Storm – it’s nice to have some sanity brought to the feverish talk of deduplication
• Ray Lucchesi’s Virtual DR – highlighting the value brought to disaster recovery from server virtualization (I missed this at the show)
• Marc Staimer’s Hidden Gotchas of Server Virtualization – I missed this one too, but Marc is brilliant and the content is right on

My two sessions are also available:

• Deep Dive Into Email Archiving Solutions – wherein I present my eleven points of differentiation and extoll the virtues of email archiving
• Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Storage Virtualization (In One Hour) – Overstuffed with content from my storage virtualization seminar

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Download Storage Decisions Presentations
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.