Smart and Cheap and 135 Terabytes- BackBlaze

THIS is cool. 135T Raid-6, Http accessible storage for $7k+ - Phenomenally Disruptive price compared to standard storage practices (e.g. SAN).



Not only that but TCO is low:

One guy (Sean).. maintain[s] our fleet of 201 pods, which holds 9,045 drives.(16 petabytes!)

Philosophy:

to plan for equipment failure and build a system that operates in spite of it. 

BackBlaze's Online "Cloud" system backup stack:
desktop computer -> client app ->HTTP -> custom tomcat app ->memory cache-> LVM -> ext4 -> (md?)raid 6->Linux -> Sata

I think Google was a frontrunner in the idea of reliable infrastructure on top of cheap commodity hardware and linux/opensource +test and  engineer improvements yourself (e.g. Paper  and Summary) with  principles like:

•  Instead of a  3x +  premium for "Enterprise hardware" - design your system to expect failure and fail gracefully. 
• Instead of a  premium for "Enterprise hardware"--  do your own engineering. (e.g. Backblaze uses Hitachi Deskstar 5K3000 HDS5C3030ALA630 drives - Doesn't it make more sense to have someone test drives and find the best one, rather than pay a bunch of very high paid managers to sit through sales presentations for the privilege of paying a lot more for an "Enterprise" solution which is less reliable?)
• Instead of heaping all of the redundancy requirements on your infrastructure (which costs bigtime because its those smaller .9's which cost the big bucks) : Tune your infrastructure to support your app and build your app for redundancy and  component failure.

Why does backblaze give away their trade secrets??? Well they don't really give it all away.  It's the freemium thing. 

If you need to build a reliable, redundant, monitored storage system, you’ve got more work ahead of you. At Backblaze we’ve developed software that manages and monitors the cloud service.

And that software stack is proprietary :)

Android Dev links

Taking mobile development class. Working HARD,  but loving it. I haven't done much Java for almost two years AND it is an ECE class - much different type problem set than MIS. Bye bye pain points, COGS and Data mining. Hello state diagrams.

Fascinated by the idea of using ad-hoc wifi, or other p2p 802.11 wireless with android devices.  It looks like there is a new standard from  API for android
WifiDirect

Some other interesting links:

LAN-Based peer to peer using Adobe Air
and this http://blog.immanuelnoel.com/2011/08/11/p2p-apps-for-mobile-devices/

Frostwire Peer-to-peer filesharing for android via WiFi https://github.com/frostwire/frostwire-android

This is not exactly in same class but awesome I want to explore more: http://wiki.daviddarts.com/PirateBox_DIY

And some EXTREMELY INTERESTING stuff - people I would really like to work with:
serval project - phone, sms, collaborative mapping over peer-to-peer ad-hoc wireless mesh network.

This is just the coolest thing ever. crowdsource your net -.  http://www.servalproject.org/

  I think the more narrow focus is more productive, in that serval has a target customer and thus easier to make design decisions, etc.

Open Technology Initiative is trying to do something similar, (commotion) without the more narrow product focus, + at an earlier stage.

The New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative (OTI) an open source “device-as-infrastructure” distributed communications platform that integrates users’ existing cell phones, WiFi-enabled computers, and other WiFi-capable personal devices to create a metro-scale peer-to-peer (mesh) communications network. supports human rights advocates and civil society organizations around the globe since 1) a distributed infrastructure eliminates the ability of governments to completely disrupt communications by shutting down the commercial or state-owned communications infrastructure. 2) device-as- infrastructure networks enhance communications security among activists by eliminating points for centralized monitoring..

B2B social media - Communities in Medical Industry

I have been researching:

• Should a B2B Medical diagnositics company start a professional community site for a group of users? Within this are questions:
• ROI of social media, specifically
• ROI of professional community sites
• Direct Revenue from site
• ROI from increased sales as a result
• Other measures which influence sales
• Increased Brand image, Trust -> customer retention
• Increased Trust -> increased customer testimonials
• Decreased Customer support calls, 
• Increase in marketing data collection at decreased cost
• Increase in ability to hold and record conversations with end users
• ROI of other B2B social media (facebook, twitter)
• Costs of implementing
• Community site
• Other social media program costs
• Examples 
• Concerns about regulated industry what can be done

B2B, Medical and Lifesciences diagnostics;  case studies and best practices examples

• Key is Utility, Value, Entertainment "because they believed in the power of their strategies, they went ahead without compromising and focused their efforts and resources in developing best in class executions. Unfortunately, diminishing initial creative ideas is a mistake that still happens too often due to the difficulties in evaluating return on investment in social media." BurgerKing, BestBuy, Gap,  Canon EOS (community photos )  http://jyesmith.com/social-media/4-case-studies-in-utility-value-and-entertainment/
• Indium - 15 engineers blog: 70 blogs.  http://socialmediab2b.com/2009/09/b2b-social-media-example-indium-blogs/  - Rick Short Indium
• There is also a statement that these are personal opinions, rather than company positions.
• Mayo clinic
  You tube channel - community  - testimonials from patients, talks by docs
  http://www.youtube.com/user/mayoclinic#p/a/u/0/3N-2v-fjCB0
  Thought Leadership: Mayo Clinic center for health social media
  http://socialmedia.mayoclinic.org/
  
  Social Media tools for analysis:
  Listening: http://socialmediab2b.com/2010/06/b2b-social-media-tools-4/
  
  Industry segment:  life sciences diagnostics
  biorad genomics FB -
  They also have some amazing youtube video
  http://www.facebook.com/BioRadGenomics
  http://www.facebook.com/BioRadGenomics#!/topic.php?uid=315474864939&topic=14356
  
  
  Sigma-Aldrich
  Facebook
  http://www.facebook.com/SigmaAldrich
  
  Roche xcelligence
  http://seekingalpha.com/article/140515-bio-rad-sparks-video-war-among-lab-supply-companies  20k views
  Roche also has twitter pages (multiple)
  
  Applied Biosciences
  PCR - Amplitaq 360
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISGQt9WJi5k&feature=related
  
  
  Illumina - Genome analysis machines
  900B revenue / 124m income 2010
  
  

  Real-Time PCR (qPCR) uses various fluorescent detection chemistries to monitor a PCR reaction as it progresses, allowing samples to be characterized at the point when amplification is first detected,

  
  twitter https://twitter.com/illuminaqpcr
  http://twitter.com/illuminainfo

ROI 
Compendium on ROI case studes http://barnraisersllc.com/?p=2504

• Cisco saved $100k on product launch costs through investment in social media instead of in traditional media http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/cisco-social-media-product-launch/
• ROI and internal community and Social media strategy: IBM 
• Has SM guidelines, but does not police employees
• Provides and internal platform for Inside co social media with 17,000 blogs, internal wiki with over a million daily page views.
• Crowd-sourcing identified 10 best incubator businesses, which IBM funded with $100 million
• $100 billion in total revenue with a 44.1% gross profit margin in 2008
• http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-ibm-uses-social-media-to-spur-employee-innovation/ 

Community sites: 
presentation on why brand communities? Benefits:
http://www.slideshare.net/agentwildfire/it-takes-a-community-to-raise-a-brand-not-a-campaign-presentation

• Hispanito http://www.socialmediaportal.com/Research/2008/04/How-to-build-and-grow-a-Hispanic-Social-Network-the-case-of-www-Hispanito-com.aspx 
• Oracle Partner Network:Gartner report http://www.gartner.com/technology/media-products/reprints/oracle/article134/article134.html 

• Nurse one
  http://nurseone.ca/

• List of patient and practitioner communities
  http://www.doseofdigital.com/healthcare-pharma-social-media-wiki/
   
• review of physician communities, July 2010
  http://careers.bmj.com/careers/advice/view-article.html?id=20001227
  Top 5: doctors.net(175k) sermo.com(112k) doc2doc.bmj.com (28k)  doctorshangout.com (17k) 

• Vitabotics ROI from community site
  http://www.freshnetworks.com/case-studies/social-media-case-study-vitabiotics 
• The UK's leading health supplement manufacturer used social media to learn more about the health and beauty needs of their customers.  Created a community site with forums, blogs, beauty experts to answer questions. 13,000 community members, 1000 women apply for product trials which get a 95% completion rate.
• learn more about customers
• find customers to test and trial products and get feedback
• Promote products to target audience
• Responses from customers feed into new product development

Platforms

 Jive is used by Cerner (ucern), Netapp, Charles Schwabb
see book
The 2020 Workplace - in depth discussion -
Company Goals, commmunity, transparency, collaboration -"bottom up" culture
"community gardners" - from corp learn ing who moderate. Internal launch 2009 - point systems. helpful employees get points from participating online which leads to + performance reviews. system is integrated into workflow not separate.
http://www.jivesoftware.com/# 
 
Netapp community http://communities.netapp.com/index.jspa

Charles Schwabb http://activetrader.schwab.com/research/TradingCommunity.aspx
trading community. "Share ideas, ask questions, and find ways to improve your trading - plus network, socialize, and learn from other Active Trader clients, Schwab and third-party experts. "

Customer Development for Startups

What is it?  It's a way to develop a new product/startup through frequent interaction with your likeliest early customers.


Bottom line, it's based on the radical idea that you can find out more about "the market" for your "product" by getting out and talking to customers than from complex market research. And it gives hints and structure for these conversations.

It focuses on the "pain" the product meets (the use) - And on narrowly targeting the "earlyvangelists" (people dying to use your product) for these conversations.
 

Some concepts:

• Lean Startup

Some people:

• Steven Blank http://steveblank.com/
• Eric Ries http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/

Some links 

• http://www.amazon.com/dp/0982743602/
• I love how clearly Cindy Alvarez writes http://www.cindyalvarez.com/best-practices/customer-development-interviews-how-to-finding-people
• http://www.cindyalvarez.com/learning/faq-customer-development-for-product-managers

Unrelated, but since this post is on startups - On 5 slide venture pitch
http://knowledgeissocial.com/365-days-10-million-3-rounds-2-companies-all-with-5-magic-slides/

Google apps marketplace - Security, Privacy

I like http://insight.ly - it seems like a sweet app, a simple but good CRM/ Project Management application, and amazingly its FREE!
But is there always a catch?
Think about it.

It's a Customer Relationship Management application. That means you give it all kinds of private information, your contacts, your documents, your plans and the vendor doesn't even provide YOU with a mailing address and phone number on the insight.ly website.  Hmmmm. But surely they are ok?

I mean... this is a Google Marketplace App... So the great and powerful Google must vet these folks, right?
Let us consult the oracle.
Sayeth Google:  " NO! "

You are solely responsible for any compromise or loss of data that may result from using a Marketplace app....you should be cautious and install applications only from vendors that you trust.

Caveat Emptor! Sez the great and powerful Google!

Think about it.
If someone walked up to you on the street and asked for all of your email contacts, and the contents of all of your documents, and the phone numbers off of your cell phone, would you do it?

Higher Edu Ch ch ch changes - Anya Kamenetz

"There are people out there who are extremely talented and valuable, who don't have the resources to succeed in the current system. In a crass sense, they are undervalued talent. They're non-credentialed talent. Is there a way for them to prove their talent in order to succeed? ...  they're going to get hired by forward-looking companies who are going to underpay them because they don't have a credential, and then those companies are going to succeed wildly. So that's the opportunity that the Silicon Valley group sees. And I think that's going to be a growing opportunity until it evens out. "

The foundation of the value of higher education is institutional trust -- The institution prints paper we call "degrees." Just as paper money is backed by "the full faith and trust of the US government," degrees are backed by the full faith and trust of the institution.  A degree costs more than a piece of paper because of the public trust of the institution - its reputation. We trust that the institution has made sure that  students know enough before they graduate so that they won't go out and be an embarrassment to the institution -- Accrediting bodies police schools as well.  The system is necessary cause a lone individual has no way to show the world what they know or  have done. Oh, wait - what about the internet? What about blogs, videos, websites, etc...?

This is what I was talking about. A school certifies two things:

1.  What knowledge, skills, abilities and accomplishments are "good" - i.e. important, useful, relevant, necessary
1. In a particular field
2. In general
2. Who knows that stuff - or is smart/dedicated enough to learn that stuff.

Higher Ed is pretty close to losing its monopoly on 2) - I am not sure about 1).   

Article about Anya Kamenetz here.
Read a chapter of her book here http://diyubook.com/read-the-book/

Just Ship It

For fun I've been reading  interviews with Ward Cunningham.  (Inventor of Wikis, and a big influence on modern software development) He says:

  [so] much time is spent worrying about decisions that don't matter. To just be able to make a decision and see what happens is tremendously empowering... "

He explains that it is easier and works better to have a plan for recovering from mistakes than to prevent them.


Seth Godin talks about bypassing the lizard brain (deep seated fear of failure) through Just Shipping It.  (Whatever IT is)

7 steps:

1. Connect
2. Be generous
3. Make art
4. Acknowledge the lizard
5. Ship
6. Fail
7. Learn

Now I guess I better get to work.