New Florence. New Renaissance.

20 from 20: It took a village

This is the last episode in my "20 from 20" highlights series.

It took a lot of work to review, edit, splice, comment on 3,000+ minutes of video I uploaded in the last few months.

But in doing so, I realized I was excerpting less than 10% of videos, images, notes I accumulated across the 5 series I ran

• 75+ executives shared their heroics and industry perspectives in the Acrobatics during the Crisis series
• 60+ vendor executives and analysts presented on new products and surveys in the Analyst Cam series
• 50+ folks proudly described their hobbies, charities, personal pursuits in the Technology and my Passion series
• 20+ analysts and influencers commented on industry trends in the Burning Platform series
• 25+ Florida towns are profiled in the West Coast on the East Coast series

So many people stepped up to share stories in the midst of so much doom, gloom, fear and anger that defined 2020.  Some of them participated across several of the series. Others came back and updated earlier comments. I felt like I was in an oasis of positive people. I have heard from so many readers and viewers they went wow after many of the episodes.

Some day, someone will discover these archives in a time capsule and say "Wonder why mainstream media never talked about these amazing and positive people in 2020?"

What's up for 2021?  In some ways, I hope we don't have to lurch from one crisis to another like we did in 2020 and deliver heroics for each. I hope I hear more about innovation and drive in calmer times in the Acrobatics series. I hope many more vendors present in the Analyst Cam series. I hope to invite many more tech industry observers in the Burning Platform series. Similarly, I hope people write about ice fishing, jigsaw puzzles and so many other activities which surprisingly no one has over a decade of the Passion series. 

So, thank you again to every one of the 2020 contributors.  Somebody once told me I can make a brown paper bag sound interesting. Not sure he meant it as a compliment - but I strive to improve the message of anyone who shares with me. I will take it in any format. Some shared from their mancaves. Others shared their passion in hand written notes. Good enough for me. Please keep sharing - especially positive, inspirational stuff.

In the meantime, here are the links to the 20 highlights if you want to revisit.

1. The Passion Play 
2. Resilience during the crisis 
3. The year HR finally turned strategic? 
4. Business Heroics 
5. Not your Dad's verticals 
6. Diversity in Tech 
7. Inspirational quotes 
8. Digital Acceleration  
9. Humor in tech 
10. A small, proud accomplishment 
11. The 20 minute digital pitch 
12. The World is still round 
13. Mega-trends affecting IT 
14. More for "Vinnie Vertical" 
15. Never bet against America 
16. West Coast on the East Coast 
17. My Rock  
18. Small (biz) is beautiful 
19. No industry untouched 
20. It took a village

20 from 20: No industry untouched

This is the 19th post in a series of 20 highlights from the Acrobatics during the crisis, Analyst Cam, Burning Platform  and other series I ran last year.

2020 turned most industries upside down. I posted earlier about conversations in four industries here and another four here 

Here's another dozen. 

Jason Blessing, President and CEO of Model N, describes the intensity when 24 out of 25 of his largest customers like Stryker and Gilead have worked on some life-saving COVID-19 related products or services. The longer interview is here 

At 2.52 is Mark Galloway, Chief Commercial Officer at GrandPad which offers a simple and secure tablet computer that digitally connects a senior to their family and friends. Mark describes the speed at which they rolled out the device to nursing homes and elderly care facilities. The average user is 82 years old and technology which most readers of this blog use on a daily basis is a big challenge for these seniors. The longer interview is here 

At 5.54 Phiroz Darukhanavala, who goes as "Daru" is the ex-CTO of BP and points out the oil and gas industry has faced other "shocks" before, usually on the supply side. The sector in the past has bounced back and has been more efficient each time. The longer interview where he discusses industry changes is here 

At 9.48 is Bill Berutti, CEO of Plex talks about the auto industry. He and CTO Jerry Foster cover global manufacturing trends and the effect of COVID lockdowns in the longer interview here. 

At 12.99 is M.R. Rangaswami of Sand Hill Group. He talks about sustainability efforts at the members in the Corporate Eco Forum he runs. He also points how the definition has extended beyond renewables and climate issues to also cover diversity and inclusion. The longer interview including coverage of other communities he runs is here 

At 16.00 is Associate Dean Bill Moncrief at the Neeley School of Business at TCU. He describes the complexities of moving from campus to on-line education in under 2 weeks and the challenges of teaching in hybrid mode - some students in-class and some on-line. I am on the school's advisory board and the longer presentation to the board is here 

At 19:33 is Bob Ferrari of Supply Chain Matters. He describes how supply chains - PPE, global, food etc - came under a lot of pressure but responded amazingly. In the longer interview here, he talks about adjustments most industries are making to their supply chains. 

The sports world had never seen this much disruption since WWII. Yet, it bravely kept us entertained with its bubbles, empty stadiums and shortened seasons, At 22.06, you get a glimpse at the maneuvering from Max Mueller, CEO and Christian Nilson, COO of Daimani, a unique marketplace for VIP experiences in sports, rock concerts and other events. The full interview is here 

At 25.52 Vittorio Viarengo of VMware shares how he brought to life COO Sanjay Poonen's desire to record a rendition of "This little light of mine" using a group of musically talented employees around the world. These are amateurs and the result is amazing - you can see how Taylor Swift and others in the music world managed to do even more with their virtual productions. The longer session with Vittorio is here 

At 31.21 is Rod Johnson, President of Infor. He points out how the TV and entertainment industry has an opportunity to help refine tech and other events in a virtual format.  The longer conversation is here.

Apple, in reverse, promises to reshape physical events and the TV and movie industries with its iPhone 12. At 32.56 is an excerpt of the stunning imagery recorded from the back of a truck and from a drone. The longer coverage of the launch of that device is here.

Sector after sector saw massive changes. Yes, Toto we are not in Kansas anymore. 

 

20 from 20: Small (biz) is beautiful

The pandemic was especially tough on small business - this post is about their heroics and what so many have done to support them like Zoho did with their ESAP program for customers with less than 25 employees.

This is part of a series of 20 highlights from the Acrobatics during the crisis, Analyst Cam, Burning Platform and other series I launched last year.

Starting off is Michael Pinckney, founder and operator of a gourmet, hand-made cookie store based in Kirkland, WA. He was my colleague at Gartner, and had a long technology career which included stints at Microsoft, IBM and startups. He now makes wicked cookies including some infused with bourbon. He gives us a tour of his "plant" and recounts his heroics. He was squarely in the epicenter of the first outbreak in the US. He had to decide whether to shut down his business. Lockdowns made selling at the Farmer's Market unattractive. He had to switch to on-line selling. For various reasons he describes in the video, business has taken off and meeting the backlog of orders has required more heroics with distancing and talent constraints. See the fuller interview here 

At 4.58 I describe some of the support I provided to small businesses in our community. I have heard of similar from many other colleagues. Not that we ourselves had great years, it comes from a belief that society is better when consumers have plenty of choices especially from entrepreneurial small businesses. I am pleased to report the businesses I profile have survived - some have even thrived - during the last few months.

At 9.10 Stephany Lapierre, CEO of TealBook shares how during the BLM crisis and for diversity initiatives since customers have leveraged their 800,000 certificates for black and minority owned businesses. More impressively they have helped a number of smaller businesses self-certify (she says 95% of them find formal regulatory certification too cumbersome or too expensive) and become more visible to prospective customers. In the longer interview here she also describes how in the first few weeks of the pandemic the UK government and a number of companies desperate for PPE supplies and looking for choices beyond China, leveraged TealBook for information on 60,000 ISO certified PPE makers.  

At 12.43, Sue Fellows, Chief Customer Officer at Workfront describes how their customer, John Paul Mitchell Systems re-purposed their 40 year anniversary celebration budget to create a fund for hair care salons which were particularly hurt by the pandemic. The longer session with her is here  

At 13.48, Jack Barrett, CEO of First Citrus Bank, describes the herculean effort to get SBA PPP loans for small businesses and the outpouring of gratitude that resulted. Many community banks stepped up to help the SBA process these loan applications  - the bigger banks in many ways fumbled the ball. The longer interview is here 

20 from 20: My Rock

This is the 17th post in a series of 20 highlights from the Acrobatics during the crisis, Analyst Cam, Burning Platform  and other series I ran last year.

In many ways, this is the most memorable highlight.

Margaret and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary last year. Importantly, I got to spend 360 days with her. In none of the other 30 years, I approached even 250 days given my frequent travel.

She continued to work in her psychiatric role, though I am glad she reduced her hours. I was blown away with her bravery. Her trips to the clinic and the surveillance she got from her medical colleagues about the COVID virus gave us all more courage to not stay cooped up. It allowed us to navigate cautiously and ignore much of media which created so much anxiety.

Her art of the day trip allowed us to take many one gas tank trips. That gave me fodder to launch the West Coast on the East Coast series.  It also allowed me to get on a streak of 10K steps a day.

The time at home also allowed me to appreciate the museum and botanical garden she has created. At every turn, we have collectibles and flora from around the world. And they keep evolving. I have mostly been using the library for all the videos I have been recording. I should be using all the other natural backgrounds she provides. Fortunately we have used them as "restaurants' for our meals together.

She has been a wonderful mother having home schooled the kids when they were young and counseling them along the way. She helped Rita launch her coaching business this year, and played games with Tommy in Colorado on Zoom. We are foster parents to a neighbor's beagle, Sophie and to another neighbor's cat, Shadow, and we saw plenty of both of them at our place this year.

The travel restrictions and lockdowns in 2020 definitely had a silver lining. I had a chance to spend more time with Margaret and made me appreciate what a rock she truly is.  How could I not include that in my highlights for 2020?

20 from 20: West Coast on the East Coast

This is the 16th post in a series of 20 highlights from the Acrobatics during the crisis, Analyst Cam, Burning Platform,Technology and my Passion and other series I ran last year. 

While most of the other series involved video footage, one only profiled images posted on Instagram.

As she wrote in the Passion series, my wife Margaret is a packing pro - as in lots of activities on a day trip. Over the last few months, on weekends, she has used it to great advantage navigating all the lockdowns. We have gone up and down the West Coast of Florida mostly between Cedar Key and Marco Island - roughly 300 miles of Gulf coastline.

They have been day trips, with masks and distancing precautions. Most were one gas tank trips. FL roads are excellent, and access to many of these places costs only a parking ticket. One of the best investments we made was annual memberships to local museums and botanical gardens. They have opened up access to many other places with their reciprocal arrangements.

Most folks think of Florida as Orlando or Miami. The West Coast of the state is way better - not that I am biased. Some of the places here are still rustic, some are swanky, most offer plenty of history, almost all of them have stunning scenery with the water in the Gulf, in springs, lakes and rivers.

Come visit the West Coast of FL in 2021! In the meantime, enjoy this gallery of 10 photos from each visit.

Caladesi Island

Cassadaga

Cedar Key

Christmas

Clearwater Beach

Crystal River

Dunedin

Eureka Springs

Ft Myers

Ft Myers - Edison and Ford Estate

Gainesville

more Gainesville

Key West

Lake Apopka

Naples

Oldsmar

Osprey

Plant City

Punta Gorda - Babcock Ranch

Ruskin

Sanibel Island

Safety Harbor

Safety Harbor

Sarasota - Celery Fields

Sarasota - Ringling Museum

Sarasota - more Ringling Museum

Sarasota - even more Ringling Museum

Sarasota - Selby Gardens

Sarasota - more Selby Gardens

Sarasota - Tibbals miniature circus

St. Petersburg - Christmas 

St. Petersburg - Crescent Lake Park

St. Petersburg - Dali Museum

St. Petersburg - Edge District

St. Petersburg - James Museum

St. Petersburg - Museum of Fine Arts

St. Petersburg - New Pier

St. Petersburg - more of the new Pier

St. Petersburg - Sawgrass Lake Park

St. Petersburg - Sunken Gardens

Tampa - Channel A

Tampa - Cypress Point

Tampa - Historic District

Tampa - Lettuce Leaf Park

Tampa - River Walk

Tampa - River Walk at Christmas

Tampa - River Boat Parade - Super Bowl 55

Tampa - Raymond James stadium - Super Bowl 55

Tampa - River Walk prep for Super Bowl 55

Tampa - Upper Tampa Bay

Tarpon Springs

Tarpon Springs - Easter

Thonotosassa

Thonotosassa - Hillsborough River State Park

Tierra Verde

Treasure Island

Venice

20 from 20: Never Bet against America

This is the 15th post in a series of 20 highlights from the Acrobatics during the crisis, Analyst Cam, Burning Platform  and other series I ran last year.

Given the scary COVID-19 stats in the US, the bitter politics, the high unemployment you may snicker at the title of this post. Well, you would be laughing at Warren Buffett.

I excerpted from the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in May, where Buffett turned historian and talked about the "American Tailwind" ...how we have bounced back many times, usually much stronger after the stumbles we have had. The longer post is here including a video of the full meeting - fair warning, it is over 4 hours long and mostly procedural given it is a shareholder meeting. 

At 2.37, Ray Lane of GreatPoint Ventures provides more contemporary history. He talks about US dependence on foreign oil in the early 2000s, and how our innovations in horizontal drilling and fracking changed that. He also points out the funds which raised money last year and this will likely be the best performing this decade. It's largely about the quality of the entrepreneur he is seeing. You should hear his reasoning in the longer interview here.  

At 5.24, it is Paul Wright, CIO of Accuride Corp, a major supplier to the truck making world. He discusses how the country is likely to pivot back to "making" more right here and what that would mean to the education system. We cover a lot of ground in the longer interview here 

Finally at 7.08. it is Jeremy Bloom, CEO of Integrate, a B2B marketing software company. Impressively, he is the only athlete in history to ski in the Olympics and be drafted into the NFL. He was also a founder of Wish of a Lifetime foundation, which recently joined forces with AARP. Listen to him talk about how he learned from his parents who had a "healthy disrespect for the impossible". The longer session with him is here

I am an immigrant who has always been grateful for the opportunities the country has given me, but it is reassuring these and so many other business executives I have profiled in the last few months say the best is still ahead for the US. In spite of a very challenging 2020.

20 from 20: More for "Vinnie Vertical"

Another post in a series of 20 highlights from the Acrobatics during the crisis, Analyst Cam, Burning Platform and other series I launched last year.

I have been called "Vinnie Vertical" because I am constantly asking vendors about industry specific capabilities. In 2020, countless businesses asked them the same question as vertical edge applications from telemedicine to distance learning to eCommerce/automated fulfillment allowed many companies to survive or even thrive. I posted last week about changes in 4 industries.  Here are four more.

Bob Stutz of SAP kicks it off with commentary on grocery stores and related eCommerce. What used to be a routine, boring shopping experience has become a lifeline for people. He points out how much volume has moved to eCommerce - "every day has been like Black Friday" (SAP's commerce engine handles 561 GMV - Gross Merchandise Volume - that's larger than at Amazon and other online retailers). We talk plenty of other CRM in the fuller session here. 

At 2.41 it is Marty Groover, Partner, C5MI. C5 in the company name comes from his background in the Navy. He also spent years at Caterpillar and is now a big advocate for Industrie 4.0 - digital factories and the industrial Internet of Things. The fuller interview is here 

At 5.35, it is David Watson, an Executive in Residence at Health2047, the innovation and venture arm of the American Medical Association. He describes the explosion in telemedicine after being "in experimental mode" for two decades. During this crisis, the UC San Francisco health system saw 50% of outpatient visits move to telemedicine. It was 2% prior to that. The fuller interview on other big changes in US healthcare are here 

At 7.30 it is Sarvesh Mahesh of Tavant. He talks about seismic changes in real estate as the market moves to virtual home tours, and the mortgage process becomes increasingly digitized. The full session is here

 

20 from 20: Mega Trends affecting IT

This is part of a series of 20 highlights from the Acrobatics during the crisis, Analyst Cam, Burning Platform and other series I launched last year.

For most of 2020, CIOs and IT teams performed heroics moving millions to work from home, scaling up or down massive volumes, helping their companies pivot to new business models. In background, massive changes have been affecting the IT landscape. Here's what I heard from multiple conversations:

Leading off is Bob Evans who authors the Cloud Wars site. He talks about every company is becoming more of a software company and what that means to tech industry. The SaaS, IaaS etc definitions of the last few years look increasingly dated as we discuss in the extended session here 

Next at 3.23 is Holger Mueller of Constellation Research. He points out that hyperscalers are pulling away with their platforms and why application vendors should refocus on next-gen business processes which take advantage of contemporary ML, IoT and other capabilities. The longer conversation is here. 

At 7.01 it is Tamas Hevizi who talks about the growth of citizen programmers and why "shadow IT" is not unhealthy, it is inevitable, especially in small businesses. The longer conversation with him about Digital Acceleration is here 

At 10.17, Brad Feld, co-founder of Foundry Group talks complex systems thinking he explores in his new book and looks at the recent crisis from that lens. The longer session is here 

At 12.37, Brett Hurt, who is the CEO and co-founder of data.world says "data is one of the least networked resources" as we explore "single source of truth" in the explosion of data streams we saw around COVID-19, polling, the census. The longer conversation is here 

At 18.30, it is Grant Halloran, CEO of Planful which describes its Continuous Planning platform as "marrying finance’s need for structured planning with the business’ need for dynamic planning," We discuss what it would take to make pandemic modeling less chaotic than what we saw in 2020. 

20 from 20: The world is still round

This is part of a series of 20 highlights from the Acrobatics during the crisis, Analyst Cam, Burning Platform and other series I launched last year.

Over my career I have been to or worked in 70 countries. One minor disappointment in 2020 was I did not extend my tally. Also given the severity of our COVID19 crisis and the rancorous politics it was easy to forget there is a big world outside the US. So, I was pleased to do a number of calls with executives about what was happening elsewhere

Starting off is Peter Maier, President Industries at SAP. SAP has the image of a lumbering giant whose projects take forever. In this excerpt he describes a project where they built a registration portal (Rückholprogramm) within a couple of days for the German Federal Foreign Office (Auswaertiges Amt) to help airlift stranded German citizens around the globe as commercial air travel came to a standstill. He describes another 2 week project to help manage capacity across 25 hospitals in the Heidelberg University system. In the fuller session here  he describes SAP and customer heroics in other markets.

At 3.00 is a very different perspective from Amit Shah, who is CIO of Excelitas Technologies, a spinoff from PerkinElmer. As he describes it, they are "light people" with products which "create light, sense light and bend light". Since they make components for avionics, imaging, temperature sensing and many other applications considered essential, the majority of their global locations remained open. Full interview here 

At 6.17 is Andre Blumberg, Senior IT Director at CLP Power. Based in Hong Kong, he was one of the few executives I talked to last year who was in his corporate, not home, office. In the longer interview here he describes how energy consumption patterns have evolved over the last few months - consumer v. commercial, across Asia-Pacific. He also describes the 3 Ds driving their business - decarbonization, decentralization and digitizing - and how the crisis has influenced their thinking. 

Darren Roos, CEO of IFS, describes from London starting at 9.40 heroics in his UK and European customer base. He pays them tribute with the term "challenger mindset" and calls them "beacons of light in the darkness". Full interview here 

At 11.56, Kevin Parikh, CEO and Chairman of Avasant takes us down memory lane to the evolution of global outsourcing. In the fuller interview here I liked his optimism about using maturing technologies to re-imagine the world as we recover from the crisis.

At 15.03  Phil Fersht, Founder, CEO and Chief Analyst of HFS Research provides a contemporary look at global outsourcing as he contrasts how India and Philippines have handled the crisis. Full session here

Finally, to reassure us the world is still round, at 20.49 Rob Enslin of Google Cloud describes his "round the world" trip of virtual client calls in one day. Full session here

20 from 20: The 20 minute digital pitch

This is the eleventh post in a series of 20 highlights from the Acrobatics during the crisis, Analyst Cam, Burning Platform and other series I launched last year.

I launched the Analyst Cam series based on an inspiration from Rob Enslin of Google (starting at 1.08) describing his round-the-world trip of virtual client visits in one day!

The goal is to try to excerpt 20 minute segments from vendor briefings and events. I share the progress in the series.

More coming in the series in 2021.