Customers: We'd really like to understand how all of these services interact together.
AWS: We've scheduled re:inforce and the Americas Online Summit for the same days!
Customers: I live in fear of the free tier billing me.
AWS: You set up a Managed NAT Gateway and now you owe us approximately "Guam."
Customers: Give me a sense of stability and continuity.
AWS: Meet your fourth account manager so far this year. Happy July!
Customers: Look, don't tell my boss I said this, but we have basically unlimited budget for this; I just need to know roughly what the annual price will be.
AWS: Let's introduce you to our cost-focused Solutions Architect.
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When you catch up with people you haven't seen since before the pandemic, you start off by handing them a document of what you worked on for them to read first.
Suddenly your favorite restaurant is "The Cheesecake Factory" because it's the only place that has a menu long enough.
DLP (Data Loss Prevention) is a failed industry and if you disagree you're almost certainly selling it.
So what is DLP?
Generally it's an appliance, software, etc. that makes sure that your employees don't copy sensitive data out of your environment.
Sounds good in theory, right?
In practice it's crap.
It has to MitM secure connections, so that's awesome. (A one stop breach!)
It has to recognize what the sensitive data is in the first place. (Is that a SSN or just a nine digit number?)
It has to work everywhere your sensitive data lives.
I made fun of this behavior a few years ago and found myself rapidly educated.
Let's say you buy a new vacuum every, what? Ten years or so?
The odds of you buying a new vacuum today then are 1 in 3652.5.
You just bought a vacuum. Great!
Maybe it'll break. Maybe you'll want one for your summer house. Maybe it broke. Maybe you just discovered a very specific fetish for which I will not shame you.
But for a while, you're *likelier than the average shopper* to buy another.
In hindsight, the recurrent failing that my managers always had was that they failed to explain just exactly WTF their job was. It turns out that 'managing me while catering to my every whim' was absolutely not it.
From where I sit, the hard truth is partially that having employees isn't the manager's job; having employees is simply their current approach to getting the actual responsibility handled.
"Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door" is a lie presumably spread by mice. Your door must feature a cash register because the mousetrap will not sell itself.
Take what we do at the @DuckbillGroup as an example. "Consulting projects that pay for themselves many times over before they're complete" sounds super compelling and easy to sell.
There is no such thing as an easy sale to a sophisticated business customer. Thus we hire salespeople to drive the sale and thus keep our Spite Budget topped up. Their primary job is helping a buyer sell the project internally.