The big bad car rental company I recently rented a car from one of the major car rental companies. During the trip, I had a flat tire. After changing it out for the spare, I called the roadside assistance number on my contract to let the rental company know what happened. They promptly answered and directed me to get the tire replaced at a local tire shop. They even made an appointment for me. They did tell me that I needed…
In enterprise technology, we love cloud computing. While for some it may be threatening, for most of us, we see it as an opportunity to change the way we consume, broker, integrate, and secure technology. It’s not about moving application workloads from one building to another, it’s about creating a better technology experience for the business. This can be done regardless of where the server racks are located. Cloud computing started out with a few basic service models such as…
I take security incident management very seriously. For most of my career, I’ve been a part of a team that is responsible for protecting the enterprise from cyber threats. I jump into action to understand what is going on and contain the threat as soon as possible. Today, I will share with you one of those fateful events from several years ago. The day started out like any other day. I read emails and attended meetings. Things were off to…
I recently read the biography of Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance. For those of you that don’t recognize his name, Elon is best known as a founder of PayPal, SpaceX, and Tesla Motors. He has successfully disrupted the banking, aerospace, energy, and automobile industries, and he’s only 45 years old. He is a fascinating individual and an icon of entrepreneurship and innovation. He’s also the real-life inspiration for Robert Downey Jr.’s portrayal of Tony Stark/Iron Man, my favorite super hero. One…
In 1986, Aliens was released. It was a sequel to the 1979 movie, Alien. Aliens is one of those rare cases where the sequel is better than the original. I don’t remember exactly how old I was when I first watched Aliens, but I know for sure that I was too young. It terrified me. I think I had nightmares for a week straight. I didn’t see it again until I was an adult, at which point it became one…
Congratulations. You are the new person on the team. We’ve all been that person from time to time. You get to hold that title until someone newer comes along. Presumably, you got onto this new team because you have lots of talent and plenty of great ideas. Perhaps it’s a new company, or just a new position within your company. When you look at your team, you see rich opportunity to implement all of your new ideas. This blog article…
Today marks the one year anniversary of Zach on Leadership. I’d like to thank all of my readers for engaging with me, encouraging me, and spreading the word. This started off as a wild experiment, and has now become an important part of how I communicate my ideas and influence the greater IT community. I’d like to briefly revisit the mission for this blog. My tag line in my logo says it all: “Better Leaders in Enterprise Technology.” Enterprise Technology…
This week, I had the opportunity to attend the Graduate Institute of Cooperative Leadership at the University of Missouri. CHS was among 22 agricultural cooperatives at the institute. Working for CHS, the largest agricultural cooperative, has taught me many things over the past two years. Due to my back-office role in enterprise technology, I only had basic knowledge of the history, purpose, and challenge of the cooperative business model. Spending a week with colleagues from cooperatives around the world, academic…
The Setup Most technologists start their careers as generalists. This is often how educational programs are built. They are designed to expose learners to a variety of relevant technologies to make students relatively versatile to the needs of the marketplace. Even if your educational background is specialized, often entry level positions in enterprise technology are general in nature. Help Desk professionals solve a variety of end-user problems. Operations professionals handle the entire gamut of IT systems support. Junior Developers often…
I was recently looking over my LinkedIn profile, and I noticed that my most-endorsed skill is “Disaster Recovery.” It’s interesting because I’ve made no attempt in my career to make myself known as the Disaster Recovery guru go-to-guy, but alas, it looks like that’s exactly what I am most well-known for. After thinking about it a little more, I realized that Disaster Recovery really has been a big part of my career, and I’ve hardly written anything about it. Thus,…
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