http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/08/08/the-7-commandments-of-blogosphere-and-life-self-defense/

To me, principles should come before personalities. If I say something that people don’t agree with, by all means, attack what I said at will, and I will vigorously defend, modify or retract my stance. But if someone were to attack me because I work for the three-lettered Evil Machine Company, well.. I’d have a hard time taking someone like that seriously. But what you shared, Robin, leads me to hope that we are in agreement on that. I look forward to more open dialogue with you on technology – the stuff that our customers are really interested in.

I read Anil’s comments with interest too, especially his suggestion that somehow there is an “EMC ControlCenter” managing EMC social communications. I am a field guy – I spend 80% of my time with customers, and very little corporate.

So I can assure you that I have not been drinking scopolamine-laced water from the coolers in Hopkinton, or been subject to Corporate’s mind control rays, and I definitely do not participate in the ritual animal sacrifices at the alter of the Great DMX nightly at O’Tooles ;^)

But, I do agree that EMC social media participants do tend to have a very unified stance. If I may, I’d like to suggest that there may be another hypotheis other than mind control that may explain that.

My hypothesis is about EMC’s internal culture – our values are focus, passion, a sense of ungency and a maniacal obsession with making our customers successful. That is what we call our EMC DNA. Our corporate stance is not created in a vacuum – it is hotly debated internally, and converges through a very open process, always coupled with a strong feedback loop from the field and our customers. We all believe in our ability to help our customers succeed. The commonality you sense, I submit, is in this common conviction, so its not so much a case of saying the same thing, but saying it with the same set of values. Its our shared common vision and passion.

Is this mind control? One might argue that it is. It is also the hallmark of all great collaborative endeavors, from the formation of nations to healthy homes and families. And I hold that EMC is a geat company precisely because of this.

If I ever saw anyone constantly disagreeing with their company in public, I would have to ask – why do you work there if you don’t believe in it? Change it or leave. If I saw Hu Yoshida make anti-HDS statements, I would have no hesitation is asking him that. I dont believe he will, because he is as passionate about HDS as I am about EMC.

Just my $0.02…
Cheers, Kartik.

http://oraclestorageguy.typepad.com/oraclestorageguy/

Thanks Jeff! I wish more people at your company who have chosen to blog were as honest and informative as you instead of resorting to personal attacks and hiding behind bogus titles,

Same as true with EMC blogs. Chuck and crew certainly don’t like it when you disagree with them either, look how nasty chuck got at an anonymous post criticizing his poor job on analyzing and industry competitor:

http://chucksblog.typepad.com/chucks_blog/2007/08/that-sinking-fe.html#comments

Since when did “Being an Informationist” include making half baked comments about a competitor? News Flash, EMC folks think they’re technology is the best in the market! I guess you shouldn’t expect much from someone who doesn’t even have a real title. StorageZilla and the rest of the crew commonly use Ad hominem attacks against any who call them out on their Kool-Aide filled lives (Comparing Togio to Cartman comes to mind).

Such is life I guess, but why is everyone giving these guys so much press? They antagonize and distort information, I guess that’s the real meaning to being an “Informationist”, manipulate information to your viewpoint and antagonize anyone who calls you out.

Very, offtopic but this comment here really rubs me the wrong way, it may be a your own opinion and you are entitled to it, but it’s not a very intelligent one. Mainly from the perspective that you basically called >90 million people unscrupulous via association since they openly align themselves with that “unscrupulous” party (don’t try and defend your generalization by saying it’s the party not the people… they are one in the same). Wide sweeping comments like this is what has been killing politics one party is not good, and one party is not evil. Look to your left, now look to your right, if you aren’t a Republican one of the people you looked at as been insulted. It’s the equivalent of racial stereotyping, and I dislike it when, any of the Dems,Repubs,Libertarians,Green, etc start framing statements that way, it shows their stupidity rather than their intelligence. Myself, forced into a corner I’d probably say that if anything they all pretty much act the same way, as the groups are comprised of people. The Repubs have 30% of the population, the Dems 32% the number of members are so large that one can’t say that a party will act good or bad, it statistically just won’t happen. Because of this I most assuredly would not make a wide sweeping good/bad statement about something 30% of the entire population aligns their beliefs with.

The wonderful thing about the blogosphere is that you are still entitled to espouse your uninformed opinions, and I can also state my opinion about your statemens (I did slip that last one back ontopic).

http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&q=Storagemojo+storage+antichrist&meta=

I think you’ll find more of the folks like Kartik on the inside (as I’m sure your aware with your friends at EMC). So it’s nice to know you are still holding out hope to see them in the blogosphere and on the sales front (I am too!!). Overall though, the storage blogger community as a whole needs the folks like Chuck continuing his informationist mantra, Barry continuing his self appointed marketing watcher, and the rest of the people (like Craig) talking about the interesting things in their daily lives.

As far as the interesting tech blog posts go…. I really liked the Google breakdown, keep the posts like that up and I’ll never stop reading

Here’s another current reference to corporate blogging:
J&J Sues The American Red Cross: The Beauty Of Corporate Blogging
http://internet.seekingalpha.com/article/44797?source=feed

I appreciate the civil tone of your comment. I wish all EMC employees had similar control.

I may be behind on EMC may be today, but on the other hand my recent experiences with EMC haven’t been all that positive either. I get the feeling that the company is actually trying to mature with the new board and some of the new execs, but old cultures die hard.

Being on the inside isn’t the best place to view a company’s culture. Maybe we have a newer, humbler EMC, ready to take the long-term view that have kept IBM and HP players for many decades. I just need to see it. With the kinds of ranting I get from some bloggers employed by EMC – check the second comment here please forgive me if I have my doubts about a “reformed” EMC.

That said, I’d be happy to run an industrial strength charm school for EMC bloggers so they wouldn’t make fools of themselves. Mr. Tucci?

Josh,

I don’t think I was slinging any mud. I am trying to understand why someone would want bloggers to be homogenized the way corporate PR is. Doing that defeats the purpose of blogging IMHO.

Following that thread it occurred to me that an unscrupulous group, like the Republican party, might use bloggers to further their aims. It is a natural enough thought, and you’ll note I did not accuse any one of doing that. It is a possibility, one that was suggested by a reporter, and I just looked at it.

My most popular posts have to do with technology, not boring, overhyped subjects like blogging. I’ve been observing EMC for 15 years. I have many friends who’ve worked there, and a few, who shall remain nameless, who still work there. Back at the turn of the century I worked for EMC’s largest OEM doing over $200M a year and I couldn’t get my phone calls returned. When I did it was, well, let’s just say it wasn’t satisfactory.

My generalizations are based on many data points, some recent, some not so much. I try to indicate which is which and maybe I don’t always succeed. But I do try.

I equally unforgiving of Sun and Microsoft, for instance, and I never get them frothing at the mouth. Honestly, I think EMC has a culture issue. Chill guys. It’s only words.

Robin

One of the things, I find interesting about EMC bloggers are that their posts, topics and views are typically in unison with very little, if any, differences in opinions among themselves. Even if they claim their blogs not guided by EMC ControlCenter, I seriously doubt anyone who reads EMC bloggers believes that.

Actually, several times I have been queried by others who thought about “indorporate” blogging initiatives whether EMC has an entity that brings certain topics, subject and news items to the attention of their bloggers, indirectly coaxing/influencing them to write about these topics.

When a blogger talks about the business, product and services of the company they represent or competition, my suggestion is to be extra-cautious, thorough with fact-finding, perform due diligence, back your opinions with supporting evidence in blog post and phrase your blog post such that it is clear that they are your opinion, just don’t rely on a disclaimer in footer.

Anyway, I find storage domain to be so fast-changing and ever-expanding that I rather talk about what I don’t know or in the process of learning than what I already know or do at my day job every day. Blogging is not extension of day job for me. Blogging is a creative outlet and method of pushing the boundaries of my existing storage knowledge in to new territories.

Anil

I know the controversy thing does well for you and it’s easy to get EMC’s blood boiling, but I’m just not sure what your point is. Sure Barry has a unique opinion as do you, but to argue over who’s opinion of “how to blog” is the right opinion is like arguing over which wine tastes the best (I guess there are blogs for that too…)

HDS and Netapp both take plenty of shots at EMC on their blogs (as most bloggers do)…. I know EMC is easy to hate, they’ve pissed me off at times too, but once you weed through the assholes and get to the products and the people making the secret sauce there is a lot to like. So arguing with one EMC blogger and generalizing one voice to the entire company is a little irrational (afterall isn’t blogging and social media about ALL of the voices).

Perhaps the pointless mudslinging is why most of the EMC program managers, developers, etc aren’t out on the internet talking about their features, and perhaps your posts like this one and Barry’s posts are part of that.

I hope I’m wrong and your not picking fights for traffic, the topics you post about otherwise are interesting enough that you shouldn’t need it.