Thread by @QuinnyPig

Slow #reinvent news day, so I will now do a #requinnvent livetweet of a panel: "Boldness Matters in Critical Moments."

This features Mai-Lan Tomsen Bukovec (@awscloud VP of Storage), Eva Chen (@TrendMicro) co-founder and CEO, @ShelArchambeau (@Verizon board member), and @juliecordura(Thorn.org CEO).

Mai-Lan was one of my favorite Screaming in the Cloud guests. Sadly the other four folks haven't appeared. YET.

So @ShelArchambeau spent 15 years at tech companies. And also some time at IBM. #reinvent

Thorn.org fights child sexual abuse. Don't worry, @juliecordua didn't over-specialize. She also helped start @RED.

And @caseycoleman went from the @USGSA to @salesforce, where the numbers are roughly the same order of magnitude.

And Eva Chen founded and runs @TrendMicro, which I understand to be a jobs program for @marknca #reinvent

First question is for Eva and Julie. "Can you walk through a few critical moments?"

Eva: "Well my résumé is pretty simple, I just founded this company and spent 30 years here. But in 2005 a pattern file update crashed computers worldwide..."

"That critical moment was what I feel was a turning point both for me as a leader and for @TrendMicro. I flew to Japan and made formal apologies." Goes on to talk about explaining to a Japanese audience the concept of blamelessness / not punishing the engineer.

...can I get Eva to consult with a few companies who still need to learn this lesson fifteen years later? Please?

Now @juliecordua: "We decided to fight child sexual abuse. We started working with law enforcement, and pressuring large tech companies" she says at @awscloud's premier conference. I GUESS IT WORKED

Then four years in, the plan was to hand things off to Law Enforcement for them to run--but discovered that this wouldn't serve the children the best. The kids needed technology to work for them, so @juliecordua basically had to sell a massive pivot to her board.

"There were a bunch of reasons not to productize this, but we took a leap. Unless we did that, the thing we built wouldn't ever see its full potential." --@juliecordua

"And thus Thorn became a product organization."

Next @ShelArchambeau talks about a previous company that was bleeding money around 2003. They basically were the first mover for "risk and compliance" as an independent industry.

Dialing for dollars and getting it in front of customers, then in 2008 @Gartner_inc came out and said it was a real space. Validation victory! "We're going to raise money in 2009. We're killing this!"

And then the economy collapsed.

"So money was tight. Do we fight or fold? It was a bold decision. I decided to fight; we'd proved we were onto something real." Next came trials and tribulations and hard times.

The company survived, and @MetricStream still exists a decade later and is thriving.

Mai-Lan says "the biggest challenge in moving to the cloud isn't technical, it's" PLEASE SAY LOUDMOUTHS ON TWITTER OH PLEASE

#reinvent

Aw nuts. It's "people and culture." That's less snarky but also very true.

"How did you shift the culture?" We start with @caseycoleman. I don't think the answer is "We bought @SlackHQ."

"Back in the beginning there wasn't a common undertanding of what Cloud actually was" so of course a bunch of vendors tried to capture the term.

Man, I've gotta say: watching enterprises struggle with cloud has gotta be basically Happyland Fun Time compared to watching the US federal government make that leap. #reinvent

(No, @awscloud. "Happyland Fun Time" is not a good service name.) #reinvent

Her solution was around understanding how to motivate people--and unpacking the reasons people oppose the shift.

We see this a lot. Folks tie their identity to their technology choices if they're not careful.

Next question is for @ShelArchambeau. "How do you know when you're in the critical moment?"

"Very often you don't." That really, really resonates.

She tells the story about making something perfect for a client, showed up to present it, and was told "oops, my budget got cut 3 days ago. Sorry."

"The lesson was 80% good and shipped is better than 100% and late." I pay for lots of things where "80% good" is aspirational.

"The thing that slows you down a lot is fear; fear of failure. I tell my teams mistakes are fine, you can always change your mind or course correct, but make the decision and GO."

Now @juliecordua talks about the utility of fear. "It's a signal that you should pay attention to where you are." Then she alludes to one-way-door decisions.

"If everyone aligns in the same direction, it's not a bold decision!" --the quotable @juliecordua

"You're a non-profit, why invest in these things and charge companies for it?" "Because it's the right answer and it's working." People forget that money is also the root of all good. @thorn didn't forget.

Now what suggestions do the panelists have to help the audience navigate their bold decisions?

Eva Chen starts: "Organizations need to have agility." Agile consultants everywhere bemoan the lack of capital "A" in "agility."

"You also need empathy for the customer."

"What's empathy?" asks Oracle.
"What's a customer?" asks Oracle Cloud.

"The third thing organizations need is courage." I don't think she's talking about removing the headphone jack here.

Next is @juliecordua, who also has three things.

1. "What's the actual overall objective here?"
2. "Who are you actually serving?"
3. "Ask yourself how you can get comfortable with being uncomfortable, because bold decisions are never comfortable."

Now it's @caseycoleman's turn.

"You don't need to wait until you have a charter or official mandate. Change doesn't take a giant org. You can make change wherever you are."

IBM immediately forms a 600 person steering committee to explore this concept.

And last up is @ShelArchambeau.

"A bold decision is only good if it's made in time. Speed is critical." She's definitely on Verizon's board, not Sprint's.

"To get there you need a decision-making framework. If you're making them independently and then have to sell it to people afterwards, that's hard. Make people feel included."

Now Mai-Lan wraps by thanking the panelists.

I'm glad I saw this talk. Cloud is way more about people than it is technology. #reinvent