Underwater Cloud Computing Data Centers?

I was just reading and article in The Economist that Microsoft recently completed a years long test of locating a dozen server racks under the sea off the Orkney Islands.

The underwater data center suffered just 1/8 of the equipment failures of a land-based data center.

According to the article, some other possible advantages to locating data servers underwater:

1. Cooling is a big expense on land.

2. Land in cities like New York or London are expensive, but not the nearby sea floors.

3. More than 1/2 the world's population lives within 120 miles of the sea.

© 2020 Praveen Puri

Haunted House Innovation for Covid

I'm not sure if haunted house "actors" are considered an arts group but, since haunted houses are banned this year, I saw that at least one in my area was innovating.  They set up a haunted experience on some access roads through a camp ground in the woods, where they built different scenarios, each with a team of actors to perform.  

You have to stay in your car, with the windows rolled up.  You drive slowly, and they have red light/green lights set up (like a car wash) to let you know when to drive into each scene and then park.  They perform the scene, and then let the next car drive up.

I would think that you could apply that to other types of performers.

© 2020 Praveen Puri

Interesting Amazon Review of My Book "A Strategically Simple Look at Business Innovation"

Today, I received an interesting review on Amazon for my book A Strategically Simple Look at Business Innovation:

Strategic simplicity is strategically simple

You know you’ve picked up a great book on simplicity when you find it’s only 20 pages long. If you need a 300 page manuscript to describe simplicity, then you’ve picked up the wrong book. This is brief, easy to read and chock full of ideas. One thought provoking idea is that we are now in the Attention Scarcity age. We are bombarded every few seconds by more and more. Delivering real value is more important than ever. This is a great read, I highly recommend it.

© 2020 Praveen Puri

Shampoo advice: rinse and repeat

Strategic Simplicity® has always been about carving out focused micro-projects, and iterating, self-correcting, feed back, analog vs digital.

© 2020 Praveen Puri

Leaders Develop Their Team

As a leader, you’re primary responsibility is adding value to the business and pleasing customers, but it is also to develop your team and make their jobs interesting. 

So, don’t micromanage. Do delegate, but don’t just break things down into rote work. There is a balance that engages people: not too easy, but not overwhelming. A good leader know where his/her people are at, and adjusts the level of work as they learn more.

© 2020 Praveen Puri

scrum / agile, water fall, CMM, six sigma, etc

The thing is, scrum / agile, water fall, CMM, six sigma, etc are concepts that circulate in and out of favor.

The key is how they are actually implemented inside a company.

You can be successful with any of them, as long as you implement them with common sense.

I've also seen them all fail when they are implemented by runaway bureaucracy - where following the process is given more importance than results.

© 2020 Praveen Puri

Two Universal Truths

1. If you keep putting something off, then you don't really want it.

2. Shiny new tools are no substitute for judgement and experience.

© 2020 Praveen Puri