5 most important words: I am proud of you!
4 most important words: What is your opinion?
3 most important words: If you please.
2 most important words: Thank you.
1 most important word: You.
The Most Important Words in the English Language
July 8, 2009 By 9 Comments
50 Reasons Why We / It / They Can’t Change
July 2, 2009 By 6 Comments
If you ever work for me, and I hear one of the following excuses, you’re fired.
50 Reasons Why We / It / They Can’t Change
1. We’ve never done it before.
2. Nobody else has ever done it.
3. It has never been tried before.
4. We tried it before.
5. Another company/person tried it before.
6. We’ve been doing it this way for 25 years.
7. It won’t work in a small company.
8. It won’t work in a large company.
9. It won’t work in our company.
10. Why change — it’s working OK.
11. The boss will never buy it.
12. It needs further investigation.
13. Our competitors are not doing it.
14. It’s too much trouble to change.
15. Our company is different.
16. The ad department says it can’t be done.
17. Sales department says it can’t be done.
18. The service department won’t like it.
19. The janitor says it can’t be done.
20. It can’t be done.
21. We don’t have the money.
22. We don’t have the personnel.
23. We don’t have the equipment.
24. The union will scream.
25. It’s too visionary.
26. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
27. It’s too radical a change.
28. It’s beyond my responsibility.
29. It’s not my job.
30. We don’t have the time.
31. It will obsolete other procedures.
32. Customers won’t buy it.
33. It’s contrary to policy.
34. It will increase overhead.
35. The employees will never buy it.
36. It’s not our problem.
37. I don’t like it.
38. You’re right, but ….
39. We’re not ready for it.
40. It needs more thought.
41. Management won’t accept it.
42. We can’t take the chance.
43. We’d lose money on it.
44. It takes too long to pay out.
45. We’re doing all right as it is.
46. It needs committee study.
47. Competition won’t like it.
48. It needs sleeping on.
49. It won’t work in this department.
50. It’s impossible.
E.F. Borish
Product Manager
Milwaukee Gear Company
Product Engineering Magazine, July 20, 1959
Ok, Ok… I’m Leaving Layered Tech – But Not Completely!
May 14, 2009 By 7 Comments
This morning I woke up to several emails from people who read Philbert’s, from Tier 1 Research, report that I was leaving LT. I must say, that was some sharp reporting! I have no idea how he found out about that so quickly. We didn’t really even announce it publicly yet. But he was very kind to me in his writeup (below) and I’m thankful for anything I was able to contribute while at Layered Tech.
Layered Tech chief marketing officer John Pozadzides departs
by Philbert Shih
Chief marketing officer John Pozadzides is leaving Layered Technologies to take the CEO position at iFusion Labs, owners of Woopra, a startup Web analytics and tracking platform. Woopra also happens to be a customer of Layered Tech’s private grid offering, buying a 100-server grid deployment for its ability to handle traffic fluctuations as it moved into a public launch (early in 2008).
Pozadzides came to Layered Tech in Q3 2007 as part of the new management team put in place by CEO Jack Finlayson that included some familiar faces from the older Savvis days. While he was not in the job for long, Pozadzides played a role in raising the company’s profile. Layered Tech had long been somewhat of a secret and that has quickly changed. Pozadzides can also be credited for helping position the company as a leader in virtualized and cloud-type infrastructure – an area that the company has made great strides in over the last few years. Through product development and the acquisition of FastServers, Layered Tech has quickly moved beyond dedicated hosting and built an identity as a total infrastructure solutions provider for the developer, reseller, SMB and mid-market enterprise space. Pozadzides deserves some of the credit for making that happen.
Pozadzides departs at a busy time, as another major initiative – implementation of the Astro automation platform – is well underway. The technology and platform have been built and the next step is to integrate the on-demand benefits into the overall marketing message. This will be high on the next marketing executive’s list of priorities. T1R sees Astro as a critical piece to Layered Tech’s potential success. If the messaging is right, Layered Tech will have a nice differentiator – a truly on-demand infrastructure provider with multiple hosting flavors – that will resonate in the marketplace.
Layered Tech founder, COO and president Todd Abrams will assume most of Pozadzides’ sales and marketing roles on an interim basis as the company searches for a successor.
Philbert got most of the facts correct, but I’ll just expand on of a few of the points a bit:
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SEDO’s Domain Brokerage Service SCREWS Me!
March 27, 2009 By 69 Comments
Folks, I’m here to share a story with you that I can hardly believe occurred. It’s the story of a major violation of trust between myself and a company we hired to specifically represent us as the buyer’s broker in a purchase transaction. That company is SEDO, and this story is, well judge for yourself… but to me it’s unbelievable.
The story begins when I decided I wanted to obtain a domain, related to OneMansBlog.com, that was already taken and which I quickly determined was parked and had been registered at Sedo.
Sedo is a large, accredited top level domain registrar. So, I first did a quick search on their site to see if the domain was listed for sale, and when it wasn’t found I decided to check out their offer to “broker” the purchase for me.
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John P. Makes an Appearance on WHIR tv
March 4, 2009 By 5 Comments
Here is a little interview snippet with Larissa, from The Web Host Industry Review, which we did while at the Parallels conference in Las Vegas a few weeks ago. Enjoy…
LayeredTech TV Episodes 3 and 4… Where I Embarrass Myself Publicly
February 26, 2009 By 9 Comments
Uugh. So bad. So bad….
Well, here are the latest episodes of our award winning Layered Tech TV. If by award winning you mean we might win an award for my really bad acting. In these episodes we see part 1 and 2 from the Parallel’s conference in Las Vegas where I got the opportunity to sit down and interview a few folks on stuff that is pertinent to the hosting industry.
So, sit back and grab some popcorn. You’re going to need some real entertainment while you watch this!
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I Take Issue with Mark Cuban’s Open Source Funding Plan
February 11, 2009 By 5 Comments
Mark Cuban pitched an idea over on his blog in which he offers to fund business plans for people, but only if:
- People completely detail out their business plan in public.
- The businesses must show a profit within 90 days.
- You use the bank of Mark’s choice and allow him control over expenditures.
Unfortunately, I believe Mark is off base with this concept, and left the following comment over there on his blog. I doubt he’ll respond, but he did at least get people talking – even though he might have done more harm than good.
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Layered Tech TV: Episode 2 – Server Security
February 10, 2009 By 4 Comments
For those of you who are keeping up with every little piece of bad film I appear in, here is the second episode of Layered Tech TV. In this episode, we talk about security and the actions you can take to ensure that your server is not compromised.
My guest on the show is Layered Tech’s resident security expert Terry Perkins. With a special appearance by some bears. Enjoy!
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Cali Lewis, Layered Tech and the Robotic Data Center
January 15, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Oh, my. Cali Lewis, everyone’s favorite video podcaster, stopped by Layered Tech to learn about our top secret project (code named Astro) a couple of weeks ago – even though we made her keep it under wraps until yesterday!
Anyway, Cali interviewed LT’s Director of Software Development, Josh Bosquez, in part one and learned all about whats been under development for like a year. In part two I give a mini-tour of the data center and you get to learn a few things about it. The data center tour was more extensive, but some of the video had to be taken out for security reasons. Still, it’s pretty cool!
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