Join us Thursday, October 1, 2015 at 10:15pm edt for another episode of Current Status. During this Episode of Current Status co-hosts Theresa Miller, Phoummala Schmitt talk with guest Ruben Spruijt (@rspruijt), CTO of Atlantis Computing and Citrix CTP. The IT landscape is always evolving and changing. History has shown that the technology trends of the past are not the trends of the future. See the full post here
Source: Current Status Podcast #28: The CTO Perspective on Workspace 2020
A hot topic recently is business continuance. For businesses today, it’s more than recovering from a Disaster or failed systems. Businesses want and need to be operating seamlessly when issues strike. It’s about Business Continuance. Keeping the operations running. Continuing operations in spite of challenges that your business may face. These challenges can be anything from cloud outages ( AWS outage…), weather related or even an act of God like the Papal visit this week in Washington DC, NYC and Philadelphia. Organizations in these cities have been planning for this visit to ensure business operate as normal.
Developing Business Continuance plans takes time and many different departments must come together to develop the plan. It’s not a one person job. It takes teams to ensure it is successful. From the IT perspective, it is beyond making sure the servers are running but also making sure users can still connect and will this have a $$ cost added to any existing infrastructure. Will the current environment and/or hardware be sufficient or does the BC plan require additional licensing and software?
As you may be aware, in my current position I work in Center City Philadelphia. The Papal visit has had us make some adjustments and prepare accordingly. Many things had to be planned because access to center city buildings were being closed Thursday & Friday. Roads and bridges into the city are limited or even closed , which will last until Monday at noon. This means thousands of workers in the city of Philadelphia are not able to go into work as normal on 2 business working days. No work means loss of productivity and loss of $$$. As part of BC planning to ensure we operated as normal as much as possible, IT had to do some planning. Items that had to be factored included but not limited to :
This wasn’t an easy task and took lots of planning from many people beyond IT, that spanned over the course the year. Many people have expressed to me how interesting this was and wanted to know more about what we did and how others planned for this sort of event. So… to answer some questions and gain insight into business continuance, Why not have Current Status do an episode on this topic!? I think I can arrange that ….
Join us September 24th, 2015 @10:15pm EST for Episode 27 of Current Status . We are joined by Jay Gagné, CTO Of Razor Technology (@jaytgagne) to chat about the challenges businesses face with developing business continuance plans and what they can do to overcome them to maintain continuing operations. We will talk about how companies like the one I work for prepared for Pope’s visit and Jay’s insights on how other businesses can prepare for similar events.
This year myself and co-host Theresa Miller @24x7ITConnect both attended VMworld 2015 and Tech Field Day Extra. While at the conference we were able to host a live stream of our weekly podcast #Current Status. Live streams are always fun because you never know what is going to happen, especially at a conference with over 23K attendees. We were also happy to have Justin Warren, @jpwarren from the land down under as a special guest co-host. Thank you Justin and though you brought us no kangaroos!
#CurrentStatus Mimosa
#VMworldSelfie with Steve Kenniston
In pure #Current Status style we even had glasses of adult beverages! Given the time of day our live stream was at ( 11:45 am local time) we had mimosas instead of our traditional wine. None of the less it was a fun show filled with plenty of surprises guests.
Tintri – Yael Zheng CMO and Merlin Boissonneault, Sr Systems Engineer @merlindb
Catalogic Software – Steve Kenniston
AND of course the famous Head Geeks from Solarwinds!
Patrick Hubbard @FerventGeek
Thomas LaRock @SQLRockstar
Kong Yang @KongYang
and more surprise guests!
Each and every one of us has a positive energy, a flame inside of us that exudes the greatness within us. It’s part of our beauty, our mind, and our soul that makes each one of us unique. It inspires and pushes us to go beyond our limits to follow our dreams and our passions. It’s our own magical power. The spark that ignites a flame in all of us is our “inner goddess”.
We all have this goddess inside of us, hence my alter ego Exchange Goddess. Some are stronger than others, but it’s still there. Our inner goddess helps us fights those battles that we have in our daily lives. Sometimes the battles defeat our goddess, and we give up. There are times when the fighting becomes too much, and we don’t realize that we have lost her. That was the case for me.
I have spoken openly about my struggles with sexism in IT. It is sometimes called unconscious bias or diversity issues, but simply put it is a form of discrimination. For many women in IT this can be a challenging experience, a daily battle that is fought, and I was no different. This type of negative energy can defeat a goddess. It took a friend asking me a question while discussing sexism in IT for me to realize that my inner goddess was lost.
WHAT?! Why was this man asking me this question? I love my work. I love technology. Could this man not see my passion? How dare he ask me this question just because I am complaining about sexism in my field? I was angry. Was this man so naïve living his privileged life, never having to experience any struggles of his own, that he just did not understand?
After dwelling on this question for a few days, I came up with two reasons why he must have asked this question. It was because of who I had become and possibly his own passive ignorance. He was not seeing my passion or my love for technology. That spark, the positive energy inside me, was not burning. He was not seeing my inner goddess because she was no longer there. I had lost her. Misplaced or perhaps lost in my shoe closet. Wherever she was, she was no longer visible or as bright as before.
He saw frustration, anger, and disappointment, but I do not think he quite understood where it all was coming from. I am sure he understood what sexism, gender bias, and unconscious bias are; we have all gone through those HR sensitivity courses, nodding our heads and thinking, “It’s wrong and should not happen.” However, if someone has not experienced this struggle for him or herself or has not had someone close to them go through the experience, it really is hard to truly understand what it means and feels to be discriminated against.
I had to rediscover my inner goddess. Everybody has a different journey. We all have different struggles and a different path to follow on that journey. In my case, I needed to let go of the anger and pain that I had been feeling about how I had been treated. The people close to me know that the last few years have been tough, especially within the last year. I had so much built up anger that I let it consume me. Anger is like a poison that can eat away you and it was starting to do that to me. I was so afraid of forgetting what I had gone through that I kept holding onto the anger. I did not want to forget it. I did not want to repeat it.
But letting go does not mean forgetting. Letting go allows you to move on and find peace within yourself. This allowed me to accept that I could not change what was in the past but I could change my future.
I know that I was not alone and others must have gone through something similar. What about the future for my daughter? Will she have the same struggles when she enters the workforce? I had so much anger that I needed to channel that negative energy into something positive. I wanted to make a difference and perhaps bring about change.
Using that negative energy to create something positive brought about the Current Status, a weekly podcast/webcast that I co-host with two other women, Theresa Miller (@24x7itconnection) and Melissa Palmer (@vmiss33). It’s a show we do live on air with video using Google Hangouts where we discuss technology with various guests in a relaxed setting. There’s even wine on the show. When I had come up with the idea it was to show the world that we, us women, know and can speak technology. We are more than the token female IT person on the team. We are technical people that just happen to be women. We are smart, beautiful, fun, and we are IT professionals. Current Status has become more than what my cohosts or I had ever anticipated. The show is really taking off and gaining traction within the IT community. It is amazing how much support we receive, and we appreciate every bit of it. To read more about our show check out our Current Status page or head over to our YouTube Channel to replay past shows.
Beyond the success of the show, the most amazing thing about what has happened is the bond that has formed with my cohosts. I have found my sisters, the “others” that have gone through similar experiences as myself. I have found other goddesses.
If you have the seen the show, you will notice that we have such a great dynamic with each on air and it really is like that off the air too. We are there for each when someone has a bad day at work or when there’s a promotion. It’s just not all business because when I have a bad hair day, I know I can send a group text to them. When I see some really great shoes on sale, and I cannot decide which one to get, they will be there encouraging me all the way. That’s what goddesses do; we support one another through bad and good.
For my friend who asked me that “awful” question, I have your answer; I am following my passion for technology and yes I am happy. But most of all thank you.
It has been an interesting journey to say the least, but I have found my inner goddess again. That spark that was once burning so bright, that could be felt across the room, is back. It is much stronger and wiser now. She’s back and she’s ready to take on the world. This time she’s brought allies.
Exchange Goddess 