Travel has always been a part of our lives. Whether business or leisure, rarely did a week pass this year where we weren’t in planning mode for one trip or another. Not for Margo or me is the thought of heading out through the front door on our way to some destination ever giving us pause to wonder why? As our bags are brought up from storage to reside near our wardrobe, our imminent departure begins to look real. Even as our respective cultures differ on so many fronts where we find consistency is in seeing the world.
Culture can be tough to define. Perhaps the best
description of culture I came across was: Customs, laws, dress, architectural
style, social standards and traditions are all examples of cultural
elements. Deconstructing into these elements is helpful but might be a bit too
vague for some. Although it is hard to argue with the role customs and social
standards play in defining culture. Then again, there are plenty of other
obvious examples.
We have car
culture; we have cultures based on food and wine. And there is sports culture
of course! Closer to home we all recognize cultures based on different
competing technologies, products and vendors. Think IBM vs the BUNCH? Too far
back in time, perhaps? How about Google vs Microsoft or Intel vs AMD or Nvidia
vs everyone else – they all have ardent supporters. The culture they cultivate
is as fervent as that following any soccer oops, football, team today.
How is culture
reinforced? Huge flags flying at sporting events! Cars that seem to be always
painted red? And what about the energy that has gone into reinforcing culture
in places as diverse as there happens to be with culinary and fashion as
perhaps equally as well-known influencers on culture. Black turtleneck
sweaters; sweatpants, and that all important hoodie are as much style as they
are substance. And pizza!
Up and down
Silicon Valley it is as if each new start-up is more than keen to put their
stamp on their unique way of doing business. Their own modus operandi!
The HP Way was one of the earliest expressions of a tech company culture even
as today, it has become commonplace to hear tech execs talking about the
culture underpinning their company’s practices.
Last year as the
New York Jets football team set about hiring a new coach, the team announced
that, “Culture
is one of those words that is overly used in the sports world, and yet not
clearly defined. Why? Well, it's more of a feeling and less of a tangible
quality.” The implication being that the team was disappointed with the culture
of the team following numerous off-field altercations.
In the United Kingdom
it was altercations of a different type that has just led the government to
take on financial institutions. CNBC in a December 9, 2022 editorial, UK
announces major overhaul of its financial sector in attempt to spur growth,
among the many growth shortcomings identified was the lack of executive
accountability. “The government also confirmed it will review rules around the
accountability of top finance executives — another post-2008 regulation. The
Senior Managers Regime, introduced in 2016, means individuals at regulated
firms can face penalties for poor conduct, workplace culture or
decision-making.”
Whereas the New York Jets were looking to foster a culture
of shared feelings, emotions that could be channeled into better on-field
performances, the UK government was looking to penalize those in charge who let
a negative culture ferment within their institution. Culture, it seems, can go
both ways; lifting up a group to do better as it can stymie others.
And yet, simply by associating with our peers we create
cultures we can identify with – HPE and the NonStop communities being among
those organizations where culture can not only be identified but recognized as
continuously evolving.
Part of the attraction of travel is that we get to
experience different cultures. Some we understand and can assimilate quickly
whereas others take time and a whole lot of patience. The pace of adaptation is
oftentimes helped simply by spending time with local folks be they business
acquaintances or members of our extended families. There is nothing like
sitting down at a meal to get an instant refresher on the culture of a place,
be that a lively discussion over football or the fishing or local politics or
even handbags and shoes.
Culture has become a common theme of HPE and its CEO,
Antonio Neri, has not been shy talking about building, “a culture that
revisited the former glory days under Hewlett and Packard and that energized
the whole company as it tackled some very challenging projects.” These comments
came during a keynote presentation at HPE Discover 2019.
The big news here is the change in culture to be more
inclusive, empowering teams to pursue the vision of HPE in ways that produced
results faster - the fear of doing something wrong had completely left HPE and
according to Neri, “teams were now excited once again by the programs they were
advancing.”
Fast forward to a blog post of November 10, 2022 by HPE
Chief Communications Officer, Jennifer Temple, where she says, “When Antonio
Neri was named CEO in 2017 he declared culture as one of three top priorities
along with innovation as well as customers and partners.” What is this new
culture? “Our ‘HPE Culture Blueprint,’ a framework of shared beliefs and
behaviors that define who we are and how we do things.”
How is it being demonstrated? One aspect of this
culture has featured many times in 2022 as it highlights behavior; “Our team
members are participating in group volunteer activities around the world to be
a force for good, one of our core culture beliefs.”
In the post to this blog of February 18, 2019 Of
culture, and what we take for granted! I wrote of how changing
the culture of the NonStop community and having it embrace NonStop as software
may prove more challenging than simply introducing NonStop to new users, new
industries and new markets all supporting new applications. Mindsets can evolve
and along with changing mindsets, the underlying culture can change too. This
is no longer the NonStop of Tandem Computers but rather the NonStop of Hybrid
IT – the transformation of NonStop in lock-step with the transformation of IT
itself.
As a community, NonStop already has in place the
mindset and the culture that best accommodates even greater change in the
decades to come. This was clearly on display at this year’s NonStop
Technical Boot Camp and if you missed attending this major event of the year,
you missed out on not just the sessions but that magical notion of feelings. It
isn’t just the New York Jets that recognized the importance of feelings but
every culture has within it a recognition that it just feels right to belong.
We have come a long way as a community with a shared
culture centered on fault tolerance as delivered with continuous availability
as it meets the real needs of business. The original attributes of NonStop
listed scalability and data integrity as well, but in the end these two, important
as they both became, played supporting roles to availability.
Just as important, NonStop continues to take meaningful
strides forward. When so much is discussed about old tech versus new tech, we
need to be reminded that NonStop today being offered in traditional and virtual
variations, is demonstrably new tech. Who could have imagined just a few short
years ago that we would be writing about NonStop in the cloud and nothing
screams new tech more than support for clouds!
It is just as important to realize that the success of
NonStop has always been meeting the requirements of business wherever those
requirements might lead. I was reminded of this earlier in the week after
receiving an email from HPE Master Technologist, Frans Jongma. Together, we had been looking at how best to attract
NonStop users to greater usage of NonStop SQL/MX.
“A first step might be to
take a step back and ask “who could be potential buyers? As I read
recently, looking for ‘reasons to sell’ is the seller’s problem and customers
don’t care about that,” said Frans. He then quoted from The 7 deadly sins to avoid in crossing the chasm - “The catalyst for driving adoption by mainstream
customers is to understand the target customer’s ‘Compelling reason to buy’ –
the real mission critical point you are solving.”
This strikes at the very
heart of how culture really works and how the NonStop community has excelled in
this regard. As a community we have never shied away from difficult
conversations just as we have never shied away from understanding that we exist
only because we address real requirements.
Not in the simplified
manner we so often encounter, “we are customer driven,” which seems to apply
more to car manufacturers than to IT but rather, as a positive outcome of the
relationship that develops between the enterprise, IT and the NonStop
community. It is part of our custom, a key element in our culture, to strive to
provide value and that being, value from not ever failing. And with that
anchoring our culture it becomes understandable why the NonStop community
continues to thrive. To be an influence on our actions, culture requires work
and it should never be forgotten that embracing culture is a must if we believe
it anchors what we do.
Our attempt at returning
to the road with just three bags failed miserably. Not only did we have to add
a fourth but the combination proved difficult to manage. But we tried and we
now have plans to revisit and choose another option. For the NonStop community,
nothing could be simpler.
System upgrades and
migrations are a way of life; we don’t continue relying on a foundation when
something better comes along. We have those tough conversations and we make
those hard calls but ultimately, we all continue to provide the value our
enterprise needs.
What better way to end the
year than in the knowledge that NonStop continues and that what first attracted
each of us to NonStop remains at the heart of all things NonStop today. Our
customs and yes, even our traditions, combine to ensure our culture thrives and
passes from one generation to the next.
Where will this take us in
2023? The only answer to that is to make sure you find a way to attend major
NonStop events worldwide as it will be visible in Scotland and Colorado and you
just can’t afford missing seeing culture at work for yourself!
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