To be recovered
Ellard Roush on Zone Clusters.
filmed & edited by Deirdré Straughan
Category Archives: what I do
Party Animal
I never planned to be an event planner, but I do have a lifelong history of entertaining in a big way. This was bred into me during my childhood as an expatriate in places like Dhaka, Bangladesh, where (in 1977) there wasn’t a lot for foreigners to do except invite each other to dinner parties, musicales, etc.
So I grew up assuming that getting a bunch of people together and letting them have fun was a normal thing to do, and worth the effort I put into it. I’ve seldom been disappointed in the results. During high school (an international residential school in India), I helped organize dorm open houses. In college, I threw dinner parties to which I invited students and professors, to the surprise of both. For my 21st birthday, with the help of my roommates, I had a big bash at my aunt’s place in the country outside Austin.
Whenever I’ve had space for it (and even when I haven’t), I have entertained. At home in Italy, Enrico and I were famous for our parties with “exotic” food (Indian, American, or barbecue) and live music (provided by Enrico and friends). Now that I’m living in a (shared) big house in suburban Colorado, I have (Italian) dinner and (Indian) movie nights for friends and colleagues.
As a very active alumna of Woodstock School, I’ve also been involved in the planning and execution of alumni events, and have learned a few hard lessons about how not to do this stuff. (Though I fear I will never learn not to over-order on food, but I guess it’s better to have too much than too little…)
The first big event I worked on that wasn’t strictly personal or school-related was vlogEurope 2006, held in Milan and on Lake Como. That was a lot of work, but I met or re-met a bunch of cool videoblogging folks, and enjoyed taking care of everybody and helping them to get more out of a part of the world that I know very well.
Sun Events
All this considered, it’s not surprising that part of the work I now do for Sun is event planning. My job is about community development, and one of the surest ways to make people bond is to get them together and feed them (along with generous libations, for those who partake). I’ve been working with developer communities, but also with others such as Girl Geeks.
Storage Summits
I was part of the team that organized and ran the first Open Storage Summit in September, 2008, which was such a success that we followed it up with another one – with an even larger attendance – in February, 2009.
Student Events
Sun likes to meet students who are our potential future (and current) users, customers, developers, and colleagues. So we’ve been experimenting with new ways to involve them in industry and community events.
The biggest event I’ve worked on so far was for the benefit of ~400 students who came from all over the world to attend SuperComputing ’08 in Austin. We threw a party for them with great food and great music, but also gave them the opportunity to meet with some of Sun’s HPC developers and marketers – in fact, the Sun folks in attendance were kept busy talking with students the entire night. (I kept busy ensuring the steady supply of barbecue, cupcakes, and entertainment.)
We are now planning something similar for SC09 in Portland, and working with the Broader Engagement program to help bring in wide variety of students from around the world.
But, before that, there’s ISC09 in Hamburg, where we’re planning a Sun HPC workshop to kick off a coding competition, and, of course, a party. Suggestions are welcome on what kind of party and venue the students (probably mostly German) would enjoy.
And, even before that, there’s CommunityOne West in San Francisco, June 1-3. Watch this space for announcements!
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Performance of the Hybrid Storage Pool
A conversation between Roch Bourbonnais and Nick Stephen. Roch says: “Hope to be able to keep your attention for 30 minutes of impromptu conversation about OpenStorage performance.
At the end of the piece, I show my geeky capture/replay technology.”
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The First Colorado Front Range Girl Geeks Dinner: Jai Ho!
The first Colorado Front Range Girl Geek Dinner was held on Thursday, March 5th, on Sun’s Broomfield campus. More than 80 people attended, only one of whom was (a very brave) male.
Sun sponsored this first one with food, drink, and venue. There was plenty of interest from other individuals and businesses in helping with the next (contact me to be put in touch with the now-being-formed committee). Thanks to the many who helped spread the news (including Jeremy Tanner, who helped get the word out to startups and other smaller businesses). We had at least 80 attendees (probably more – I don’t think we caught quite everybody at the registration desk), and were in touch with several dozen more who couldn’t attend on this particular date but definitely want to participate.
With this kind of momentum, I think the next CO FR GGD can take place in about two months (but I’ll be leaving it up to others to organize that one as I expect to travel heavily from now through July).
The atmosphere in the room was electric and inspiring, and I hope was encouraging for those who had recently lost their jobs (or fear they might soon). Women helping women can be a powerful resource in the workplace, and that’s what Girl Geek Dinners are about.
^ listening to Linda, the “voice from on high”
Linda Skrocki put together a presentation which I ended up delivering (with her participating by phone) because she was home with a flu and didn’t want to infect the rest of us.
Our aim was to showcase Sun’s many activities in social media, in order to illustrate how other companies and individuals can use social media to enhance their own brands, win friends and clients, and influence people. Social media is important in just about any job these days, so I hope the information was useful to other women wanting to add to their work skills.
I noted a lot of interest in the room at the idea of managing one’s personal brand and identity online; that might be a topic for a future talk. One attendee wanted to talk more with us about Sun’s “radical transparency” in relation to a project she’s working on. And it seems that people want to hear more about videoblogging, which of course I’m happy to discuss anytime.
My only (personal) disappointment was that I was so busy running the show, I had very little time to talk with anybody – and there was a roomful of fascinating women I’d love to know more about. I look forward to making up for that next time!
Thanks to Kristin Tulp of Level3, we had TV coverage, with a segment by Jodi Brooks of CBS4 news (Denver) on Friday night. As part of a series on “Beating the Recession,” the piece talked about how we “Geek Girls” are rallying together to help ourselves and each other in a hard job market. I don’t know whether the segment will be posted on their site. Perhaps if enough of us ask them…? Here’s the transcript: ‘Geek Girls’ Gather In Broomfield For Networking
other coverage:
In case you’re wondering about the title: Jai Ho is the Oscar-winning song from the end titles of Slumdog Millionaire. The song’s composer, A.R. Rahman, says that Jai Ho translates as “May victory be yours.” Which seems to me a fitting benediction for my fellow girl geeks.
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SETI For The People: Addressing the Challenge of Massive Data Sharing
Tucker Bradford, Director of Information Technology at SETI, speaks at the Open Storage Summit, Feb 2009.
filmed and edited by Deirdré Straughan