For the past month I have picked up my “blogging” again. There were a number of reasons I had taken a break from it, but I felt it was time to pick it back up. My blog site, The Storage Alchemist, is where I like to do all my posting. That said, I realize your personal blog site, unless you are famous or have a massive following, isn’t the place where you going to get a lot of exposure. It is for this reason that I not only post there, but I also post on LinkedIn.
My blog site, The Storage Alchemist, is predominantly writings about technology in the data storage space, and more specifically, data protection. I have been in this technology space for the last 20+ years, and I do actually love it. I accidently stumbled into this career, and I couldn’t be more thankful or grateful. I have worked for a number of high-tech infrastructure companies that are really great, worked with a number of outstanding colleagues that have taught me a lot and met some of my best friends.
My writings as of late have leaned more toward the aspect of working as a technical marketing person or evangelist in high-tech for the last 20+ years than the technology. I’ll be very honest; I was having a crisis of confidence when I started writing again. It wasn’t about weather or not I was good at my job, or if I knew the technology well enough to write about it. It was more about “why” was I doing it and who cares. I think a lot of people come to some realization about who they are, what they do and what their life is supposed to mean when it comes to the work they do. I started to feel like I was supposed to have had an Elon Musk type of impact in this data protection marketplace. I felt like I had talked about so many important things in this space and hoped that it had made a difference. I started to think, it really didn’t make much of a difference and questioning why I was in this space or doing my job at all.
I have done a lot more thinking and started to realize a few weeks ago that I am sure I have made some impact. To make an impact, you don’t need to send a rocket to Mars, you just need to have helped advance the cause a little bit. As I started to think about all the moments I did do my part, I started to think about all the companies I help to get acquired. I thought about all the sales calls I went on to help the sales team to move the ball forward in their deals. I thought about all the executive briefings I had been asked to present at because they liked the way I told the story. In its own way, this is how I was helping to make a difference. Then I started to think that telling the stories I have been telling over the last few weeks is my way of trying to help more. Its not just about the technology when telling a story, it’s about how you tell your story using trust and honesty. Or having the confidence in your expertise to come to decisions and utilizing the power of your team. Its also about how you are creating these stories, just pumping them out or being thoughtful about their creation.
At the end of the day, I realized that in this next phase of my career and writings, I want to shed both some light on the evolution of the technology we are utilizing to keep your information safe, but also, how we are doing that in a thoughtful, honest way.