Self Promotion

Setting down to write another blog, I took a moment to see who was linking to DrunkenData and ran across a recent post by S. Foskett, a guy I confess I do not know.  The context of the post was interesting:  should we trust any foo coming from bloggers who are clearly associated with a vendor?  For what it’s worth, my thoughts on this issue are simple:

• Everyone has the right to blog. 
• Everyone who blogs should have an obligation to articulate vendor affiliations so that readers understand how the opinions are being shaped.
• Blogging is a good way for people with an opinion (or hands on knowledge) to articulate what they think, know or have experienced.
• Even vendors should blog, since this is one of the few ways we have for understanding what’s behind some of the architecture and design work they are doing — how they view customer needs, how they are trying to address those needs going forward.  Sometimes we also get insights into what happened between the white board stage, where the problem was defined, and the really bad products that were produced and delivered to market.  A useful thing.
• Blogs are so numerous, if you don’t like what someone is saying, you can just change the channel.

In his overview of blogs, Foskett set DrunkenData to one side. 

• Unlike StorageZilla (EMC hack), Adaptec Storage Advisors (actually, very good vendor agnostic fare), and the blogs of industry notables like Randy Chalfant at Sun, Dave Hitz at NetApp, Hu Yoshida at HDS, DrunkenData doesn’t work for a vendor.  We don’t even allow advertising on our site.
• Unlike some of the “analyst” bloggers, we do not pull punches out of fear that vendors will not buy our services in the real world.  DrunkenData ain’t selling services.

Since we do not fit either of the above categories, Mr. Foskett put DrunkenData in the category of “Jon Toigo’s self promotion.”  I guess that is kind of true, but I hope this blog is much more than merely self promotion.

Mr. Foskett, DrunkenData begins with the premise that the current state of data management is, well, drunken.  We have no sense of what we are storing, its value to the business.  As a result, we have no idea how to correctly host it, archive it, delete it or protect it — at least not efficiently.  Managing bits today is akin to late Rodney Dangerfield’s old line:  After I go out drinking, the next day I have to do two things — find my car, and return the car I took. 

It is our further contention that many vendors are contributing much obfuscation and bullshit to urgent efforts to re-align data with business.  In many cases, the vendor’s motives are clear:  Their top line growth is more important to them than is their customer’s top line growth.  If they helped consumers to fix data management, they would sell fewer junk drawers to house undifferentiated data. 

We strive to sort out some of the marketecture here – to ask probative questions and in some cases to show a bit of disrespect to patently absurd vendor claims.  Often, our only intention is to get consumers to ask a question instead of buying vendor BS whole cloth.  We are a mosquito, trying to make a itchy little sting on the vendor’s marketing story so that the customer will pause to scratch — to ask questions before shelling out big bucks on crappy wares.  We are but one small voice barely discernable over the din of the vendor’s multi-million dollar propaganda campaigns.  Surprisingly, even a little voice like ours is sometimes effective.  The highest praise we have ever received was from a disgruntled sales droid for a powerful vendor who once wrote that we shouldn’t let our egos get too big, because he only reads our crappydoo to find out what questions he is likely to face from a customer the next time he visits the account. 

DrunkenData is self promoting?  I suppose it is to some degree.  I have no shortage of opinions and I like to talk.  If I didn’t, there would be no motivation to blog.  I also have fun with Photoshop and like to inject a bit of humor into what is usually a dry and disinteresting, though critical, subject.  Maybe if SNIA did more of this, instead of boring everyone with long winded discussions of object-oriented programming that make most storage folks’ eyes glaze over, they could build real momentum behind SMI…

If DD is self promoting, however, I ought to be making a ton of money from it, shouldn’t I?  That’s the real motive of the other classes of bloggers that Foskett described:  they are seeking to rake in bucks for their vendor shop or analyst house.

I actually started this blog as a place to record notes from interviews and research I was doing for trade press articles.  That way, I didn’t have to haul a bunch of paper with me when I was on the road.  It has evolved into a place where sometimes some magical conversations happen.  We, in fact, get ripped off by many trade press writers now — topics discussed here become headline pieces in other people’s rags.  We kind of like that, whether attribution is given to us or not.  Our little voice becomes magnified many times over. 

We are a pebble in the lake.  The ripples reach outward globally.

We are broadbanding common sense, which is always self promoting for anyone who uses it.