Prequel to Genstural Interface

Another taste of what’s to come in the next few years. Been thinking about if using such a medium would make me more efficient and if/how I would use such a medium to interact with the files/documents/pictures/pages on my desktop… and all I can come up with, “I would sure like to find out!”

10/GUI from C. Miller on Vimeo.

Microsoft Courier – Dual Screen Tablet

More cool tech coming down the pipe sooner than you think!

Rethinking Motivation

Another brilliant TED talk and articulation of why the old paradigm and traditional models of work/achieve/reward simply do not play out as expected and will continue to not play out as expected in the years/decades to come. In short, providing human beings with Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose within what they do serves as a far more motivational and productive instrument than cold hard cash and/or fear of losing one’s job.

Evolved Corporate Values & Culture

Though I’ve never worked for NetFlix and don’t know anyone personally working at the firm, I was EXTREMELY impressed with the presentation below as it speaks directly to the type of management I feel is most effective. Most people SAY they understand this way of thinking, however I have seen so very few people and companies actually try and manifest this type of culture in their workplace.

I hope one day to be a part of an organization that truly embraces this presentation at a core level… though I’m sure if I don’t find one that does, I’ll simply create one on my own soon enough ;)

What other companies that you know of actually PRACTICE and CONTAIN some or all of the values and culture posted above?

State of the Santa Cruz Tech Scene – RePost

Yep, another repost, but Jeremy Neuner @jjneuner, CEO of www.nextspace.us, hits it out of the park with this one.  Click on the Title to link to the post itself:

The other day, I spent the morning hanging out with Margaret Rosas, Founder and Chief Strategist at the strategic web consultancy Quiddities. The Santa Cruz Sentinel had just run a story on Margaret and her team (we lovingly call them The Q-Mamas) about how their company—and our town—thrive on collaboration. As we washed coffee cups (a morning ritual at NextSpace), Margaret and I reminisced about the first time we spoke to each other over the phone in October 2007 and how we both lamented the lack of a vibrant, collaborative tech scene here in Santa Cruz. And then we marveled at how far our town and our amazingly innovative tech community have come lately.

So, inspired by my conversation with Margaret, here’s a quick (okay, not so quick!) run-down of what’s happened over the past 18 months regarding the tech scene in Santa Cruz. Please take a look. And if I’ve missed something, please drop a comment and let me know. Meanwhile, I think you’ll be pretty damn impressed with the state of the tech community in Santa Cruz….

Geek Dinners

It all started on November 30, 2007 with the inaugural Santa Cruz Geek Dinner. Local visionaries Margaret Rosas, Sean Tario, and Sol Lipman decided to put a stake in the ground, gather some talented people, and start building a community. One of the attendees, David Beach, predicted that this dinner would be the first of a series of events that would put Santa Cruz back on the tech map.  Beach’s words proved prophetic. Through the Geek Dinners, Beach met Sol Lipman. Together, along with Jakey Knobel, they started 12seconds.tv, the hottest social media start-up on the planet. I think that counts as “putting Santa Cruz back on the tech map.” The Geek Dinners continue to draw dozens of talented Santa Cruzans every month.

Santa Cruz Geeks

Hard on the heels of the Geek Dinners came the Santa Cruz Geeks, a virtual and physical community of local techies. Now over 250 strong, the Geeks form the backbone of the Santa Cruz tech community. Most important, the Geeks prove that this town is chock full of talented, innovative, successful tech professionals who are passionately committed to building great companies in Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz Design + Innovation Center

January 2008 marked the official launch of the Santa Cruz Design + Innovation Center. Recognizing that Santa Cruz is a hub of world-class design talent, the SCD+IC was formed as an advocacy group to promote that talent to the rest of the world. Over 300 people packed into an auditorium at Plantronics for the SCD+IC’s launch event, proving that the design and technology community in Santa Cruz was hungry for opportunities to organize, network, and collaborate. Aside: Plantronics is one of Santa Cruz’s great home-grown companies. They designed the headset that Neil Armstrong wore on the moon in 1969 and have been designing great products in Santa Cruz ever since. Rockstar/Boy-Genius Darrin Caddes is Plantronics VP of Design and is a huge (and remarkably humble) fixture in the Santa Cruz tech scene.

Santa Cruz New Technology Alliance MeetUp

Another local visionary, Doug Erickson, started the Santa Cruz New Tech Alliance MeetUp in February 2008. Like many of us in Santa Cruz, Doug has deep professional connections in Silicon Valley. But he knew very few of his fellow Santa Cruzans. Yet, he had a pretty strong hunch that there was a community-in-waiting of local techies in this town. So Doug started the New Tech MeetUp. He had three goals: create a monthly networking event for Santa Cruz high tech professionals, increase our exposure to new technologies that would tickle our geek gears, and stimulate beachhead startups. With humble beginnings (39 attendees crammed into the police department’s community room with no Internet access), Doug has grown the MeetUp into an organization nearly 600 strong.

Approval of the Delaware Addition

In July 2008, the Santa Cruz City Council unanimously approved the Delaware Addition project. Designed by local architect Mark Primack and spearheaded by Craig French from Redtree Properties, this 20 acre, LEED-certified, mixed-use, live/work development on the city’s Westside will provide the infrastructure that the next generation of Santa Cruz companies will need. Most important, the approval of Delaware Addition is the first major piece of public policy indicating that this community understands the direction that the local economy is heading: towards smaller, collaborative, environmentally-minded, high-tech businesses.

Freelance Camp

For a long time, the Santa Cruz tech scene has been famously decentralized. Many Santa Cruzans work as consultants, independent contractors, or telecommuters for larger companies in Silicon Valley and throughout the rest of the world. But independents lack opportunities for community, collaboration, and connection. So Shane Pearlman and Peter Chester (they run a company called, you guessed it, Shane & Peter, Inc.) decided to herd the cats. In August 2008, they hosted Freelance Camp for over 125 freelancers and independent consultants. This barcamp-style unconference provided yet another community-building opportunity as local freelancers shared ideas on how to run a one-person shop. Even better, Freelance Camp has become a home-grown national phenomenon, with similar conferences popping up in places like Miami, Houston, and Austin. Hey, just one more step in putting Santa Cruz back on the tech map.

Digital Media Factory

Santa Cruz is building a new digital information industry. And Marty Collins, CEO of the Digital Media Factory and thirty-year industry veteran, is leading the charge. In Marty’s words, “the Digital Media Factory is a multi-business facility for the design, development, production, replication, management, and distribution of digital information products.” In my words, DMF is pure genius. Why? Because Marty believes in community. He’s gathered over a dozen digital media businesses under one roof to share resources, talent, and opportunities. Even more important, Marty is leveraging the immense talent pool at UC Santa Cruz. He’s developed partnerships with UC Santa Cruz’s Digital Arts and New Media program, as well as the UCSC Baskin School of Engineering. Which brings me to…..

UC Santa Cruz/City of Santa Cruz Legal Settlement

Universities are amazing repositories of talents, ideas, and innovations. From an economic perspective, universities are fertile ground for new companies that can boost the economies of their host cities. Heck, Silicon Valley was practically built by Stanford spin-outs. Why can’t that phenomenon happen with UC Santa Cruz and the City of Santa Cruz? It can. And it will, especially now that the UCSC and the City have stopped suing the bejeezus out of each other over UCSC’s long-range development plan. The legal settlement, announced in August 2008, marks the beginning of what I call “The Great Thaw.” It’s high time for the UCSC to show some leadership in using its pool of talent to help build local business and the local economy. And it’s even higher time for the citizens of Santa Cruz to recognize that UCSC is a tremendous asset to the community, rather than a liability. I’m incredibly optimistic.

NextSpace Grand Opening

Amidst all of this excitement, NextSpace Coworking + Innovation, Inc. officially opened its doors on October 1, 2008. We started with a handful of true-believing early adopters.  But in six short months, our community of innovators has grown to over 100 strong.  What’s happening at NextSpace?  A lot.  Take a look at this post on The NextSpace Effect for a quick rundown. Mostly, I want to acknowledge that NextSpace would not be possible without the vision, passion, and hard work of all of the people mentioned in this post.

Radio Engage

New media? Old media? The smart ladies at Quiddities think you can have both.  They received a Knight News Challenge grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to fund their new project Radio Engage.  In their words, Radio Engage is a platform allowing public radio stations to create a web presence that will draw their local community in and invite them to participate through social media.  In my words, Radio Engage will totally revolutionize how public radio stations interact with their listeners.  Quiddities teamed up with Santa Cruz’s own KUSP as a test platform for Radio Engage.  As part of the project, Quiddities hosted Public Media Camp in November 2008, bringing  public media and social media experts from around the country to Santa Cruz to discuss the future of public radio.  Are you catching the themes that we’re building here: high tech, collaborative, community-based business and innovation.

Pilot Project for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Remember how I said a minute ago that I was incredibly optimistic about the emerging relationship between the City of Santa Cruz and UC Santa Cruz? Here’s the first proof point: The Pilot Project for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Hatched in December 2008 by Bonnie Lipscomb (City of Santa Cruz Director of Economic Development) and Nirvikar Singh (Special Assistant to the Chancellor at UCSC), PPIE brings together undergraduate business teams from UCSC with local business mentors. The first round of projects focused on bicycles and other forms of alternative transportation, a perfect fit for the tech-savvy, sustainability-focused crowd in Santa Cruz.

Launch of CruzBusiness.com

Peter Koht, the economic development coordinator for the City of Santa Cruz, is a man on a mission. Peter knew that the City offered plenty of economic development resources, but those resources were often disparate and hard to find. Seemingly overnight, Peter launched CruzBusiness.com, an interactive, community-based portal for information about starting and sustaining a business in Santa Cruz. Peter’s work is an important step in accomplishing his—and the City’s—mission of recruiting, attracting, and retaining great businesses in Santa Cruz.

The Envision Santa Cruz Summit

In March 2009, Sean Tario (man, that guy is everywhere!) hosted the first Envision Santa Cruz Summit at the UCSC University Center. Sean’s objectives for the Summit were to assemble thought leaders in local entrepreneurship and economic development, to celebrate the amazing companies and resources in Santa Cruz, and to inspire Santa Cruzans to take a more active role in building their local economy. Over 150 people showed up to discuss the economic future of our community. Decades from now, when someone writes a book about the economic history of Santa Cruz, Sean’s summit will definitely be one of the highlights.

Girls in Tech

The latest group on the scene is the Santa Cruz chapter of Girls in Tech.  Founded by Seana Sullivan and Victoria Crimmins, this group focuses on “engagement, education and empowerment of like-minded, professional, intelligent and influential women in technology.”  Their first event brought author and journalist Sarah Lacy to town. More important, this group provides a much-needed acknowledgement and celebration of the critical contributions that women make to our local tech scene.

UC Santa Cruz Business Plan Competition

Right now, as I type, as you read, 16 business teams from UCSC are going head-to-head in the first-ever UCSC Business Plan Competition. The semi-finals are on April 17, 2009, and the finals are in late May 2009. Local investors, bankers, and business leaders are judging the competition. Remember how I said a minute ago that I was incredibly optimistic about the emerging relationship between the City of Santa Cruz and UC Santa Cruz? The UCSC Business Plan Competition is proof point #2. Stay tuned….

Right, so, that’s the low-down. This has been a long post, mostly because so many cool things are happening in Santa Cruz around high tech, entrepreneurship, sustainability, and community-based economies. We’ve come a long way as a community in the past 18 months. So where are we now?  I think the best benchmark is the number of companies that have started up or are ready to scale here in Santa Cruz.  Here’s a quick list of just a handful:  12seconds, UserVoice, Pergamum Systems, ProductOps, Intuvo, RideSpring, ZoomPool, Verdafero, Zazengo, Studio Cruz, and Digital Media Factory.  Not too shabby for this beautiful, brilliant, creative, innovative little seaside town.

As I said at the top, please comment if I’ve missed something in this lengthy round-up. Meanwhile, what’s next? I have some ideas. What are yours?

Thoughts on “Can Governments Create Entrepreneurial and Innovation Hubs?”

@alexlavidge just directed me to Taylor Davidson’s (aka @tdavidson) insightful post on the topic of how/if governments can go about aiding the process of creating Entrepreneurial and Innovation hubs.  Definitely worth checking out…

Can Governments Create Entrepreneurial and Innovation Hubs?

Personal, I’m yet to see a government program other than the Central Coast Small Business Development Center provide anything substantial when it comes to aiding, encouraging and promoting entrepreneurs to take their ideas and manifest them into sustainable businesses.  I’m even willing to bet that not all SBDCs in California are nearly as effective as the local chapter, as we just so happen to have 2 of the most dynamic people on the Peninsula running and involved with the program who are extremely passionate about what they do and why they do it.  Specifically, Teresa Thomae and Keith Holtaway.

The successful incubator InNOVAcorp in Halifax Nova Scotia also appears to have developed a very beneficial symbiotic relationship between public and private interests, in that a % of their operating expenses and Fund is provided by the government…  but again, this is primarily a result of its founder and CEO Dan MacDonald who simply embodies the entrepreneurial spirit and continuously encourages and supports others looking to create and innovate.

I guess my conclusions then would be that regardless of the program any given government may launch to help create entrepreneurial and innovation hubs, at the end of the day its the people they chose to operate and manage the programs that will largely determine its success or failure.  Clearly some programs may be destined to fail from the onset, but I would bet there’s a direct correlation between the success/failure of any given program and if the people involved with creating, managing and organizing the program itself actually have experience as a SUCCESSFUL entrepreneur in their own right… or at very least having experience successfully innovating or creating anything original themselves.

Anywho, more food for thought on the topic at hand… back to further developing the entrepreneurial and innovation hub we have here in Santa Cruz :)

Sean

Business is Personal – The Twisted Logic of “It’s Just Business”

I believe business should be conducted in such a way that provides for the continued existence, progressive and collective growth and enlightenment of our species. There are clearly caveats as to what progressive means and what growth is and is not preferable, as some growth simply does not benefit the whole or create lasting systemic good or change (such as that which destroys the resources needed for survival of future generations or that which decimates other species).

What I really want to dig into here though is the logic behind a statement such as “It’s just business” or “Don’t take it personal.” Specifically I’m interested in what it tells you about both the person making such a statement and the institution that supports such a statement. IMHO such statements and mindsets are indicative of short term, short sighted and abusive behavior that at its core reflects a strategy that is directly in conflict with the natural law and the very survival of our species.

Again, it all comes back to the law of attraction, or “What goes around comes around” or “Karma” as some may call it. To live ones life without knowing or understanding that every action has an equal or greater reaction is to live in ignorance of one of the very simple scientific facts of life. I like to call it “Wake Theory” when explaining this as it puts things into some tangible visual context. For example, ones life can be viewed as a massive ship pushing through the ocean building a wake behind it, and depending on ones actions, as this ship slows down, the wake generated can either serve to lift you back up and push you forward… or come crashing down on your head, filling you with water, stopping your motion and driving you down. For some, the wake goes back pretty far and can hit you days, weeks, months or even years after the fact… or it can lift you up and drive you forward days, weeks, months or even years after the fact.

Thus, to ignore or write off the human component and reaction(s) to ones actions, regardless of where these actions take place (in the office or at home) is, again, IMHO, very short sighted and ignorant of one of the most simple laws of nature and human behavior.

As if simply saying “Don’t take it personal, it’s just business” somehow negates or softens the reality of the situation at hand. “Oh, ok, well, he/she says I shouldn’t take it personal, so I’ll just pretend the conversation never happened or isn’t as serious or insulting as it is.” When I hear people say “It’s just business” or “Don’t take it personal” I’m always reminded of Will Ferrell in Talladega Nights, who repeatedly insults his boss and the owner of his racing team, but starts each insult with “With all due respect…”. Eventually the boss calls him out on it but Ricky Bobby simply doesn’t have the capacity to understand why what he’s saying is still insulting. Well folks, you tell me, do these statements sound any different to you?

• “Your ugly” vs. “With all due respect, you’re ugly” vs. “Don’t take it personal, but you’re ugly”

• “I think you’re a total slacker” vs. “With all due respect, I think you’re a total slacker” vs. “Don’t take it personal, but you’re a total slacker”

• “A 2 year old could do a better job than you” vs. “With all due respect, a 2 year old could do a better job than you” vs. “Don’t take it personal, but a 2 year old could do a better job than you”

Is there a difference? Would hearing one of these over another make you feel any less insulted?

I think not.

So what’s the solution and point here? Well, understand that BUSINESS IS PERSONAL and every action has a reaction. Next time you’re in a position where you need to have a tough conversation with someone, or you feel the need to make a business decision that may put someone off or hurt someone in some way or another, take a step back, try and empathize with how the person you’re speaking with might receive what you’re about to tell them, and treat others the way you would like to be treated.

Also, understand that if someone ever does say something like “It’s just business” or “Don’t take it personal”, they’re more than likely coming from a place with little/no previous life experience that affords them the capacity to manage their relationships or job with compassion or empathy… much like Ricky Bobby. Understand that this is the type of person or people you’ll be needing to work with and deal with moving forward at your job and if you feel the management and owners of the company your working for follow a similar philosophy, then understand the chances of you getting screwed over, mismanaged and generally abused by your work place are extremely high. Those who tend to have no qualms with a statement like “It’s just business” or “Don’t take it personal” lack an understanding of “Karma,” “Wake Theory,” or “what goes around comes around” and very likely only view you as a disposable asset that can be replaced without thinking twice.

Personally, though I may not know you, I think your life can be spent in a far greater capacity than serving as a slave to people or an organization that lacks a longer term, more realistic and honest understanding of how the world works… Don’t you?

Server Hosting Options – A Rough Guide

Potential Customer: “I have a startup/website/application in development and launching soon and am looking into hosting options. How cheap is hosting with UnitedLayer?”

As someone who frequently hangs around and associates with entrepreneurs and small growing businesses, I get this question nearly 2-3 times a week. In truth, it is a very good question as there is a lot of confusion around “uptime guarantees”, “Cloud Computing” and exactly what someone gets when they have a “managed server.” This is mostly due to the ridiculously large marketing dollars companies like RackSpace, MediaTemple, GoGrid (aka ServePath), Amazon Web Services and others have dumped into the Web 2.0 space and Blogosphere coining catchy and sexy phrases that make it sound like all your hosting troubles will be solved in the glorious, wonderful, happy, and lucid Cloud.

Below is my attempt at answering these questions as objectively as possible having spoken with hundreds of developers and systems engineers who have been through the ringer leveraging almost every conceivable method of delivering 1’s and 0’s across the internet. Though I work for a Hosting and Colocation provider myself, I fully understand and can admit that UnitedLayer is most definitely not the answer to everyone’s needs. …and for what it’s worth, I am also not subject to the bias I have seen in most developers and systems administrators who have spent their whole life doing one thing, and therefore believe it is the only and best way for everyone to do things.

“I HAVE LITTLE EXPERIENCE SCALING APPLICATIONS AND HAVE NOT SPENT MUCH TIME LEARNING SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATION”

If this describes you, or the person on your team in charge of managing your application and the hardware it exists on, it would be extremely wise for you to learn about Amazon Web Services.

Leveraging AWS, you’ll be able to:

1. Only pay for what you use (CPU, RAM, HD, Throughput)
2. Not be limited by a physical hardware components and have to upgrade your server if/when traffic starts scaling
3. Start generating hard metrics on utilization of CPU, RAM, HD, Throughput/Bandwidth so that you can accurately predict and forecast hardware and transit needs as your user base and traffic increases

Once you’ve got a firm grip on how each new 1,000 or 100,000 new users/transactions effect your site, you have a few options depending on how important Security and Stability are to your production environment.

• Option 1: Stay with AWS
• Option 2: Migrate your production environment to a manged or dedicated hosting provider
• Option 3: Buy a bunch of hardware and colocate and manage your production environment yourself

If security and stability are low on your scale of priorities, go with Option 1. If security and stability are important to your production environment however, option 2 and 3 are really your best options.

If security, stability AND cost are important, Option 2 is really your only option.

Why is Security and Stability an Issue for Cloud Computing?

For an excellent conversation on why Security is a HUGE issue within the Cloud Computing platforms currently being offered, you should definitely READ THIS and talk with or read comments from some other senior IT executives at Fortune 1000 firms who have to walk through an IT auditing process.

In regards to Stability, Cloud services like AWS are definitly getting better, and starting to wrap Service Level Agreements around their offering so that if they do bite it, you get something (though always marginal) in return. It is important to realize however that Cloud Computing is still a relatively new science with few generally accepted standards, limited experience from those actually behind the scenes architecting how to physically scale this to accommodate millions of users, and a BOAT LOAD of marketing dollars behind it. AWS went down just last week in fact, AGAIN, and admits they don’t have everything perfected yet. (Personally I don’t think anyone will “prefect” it any time soon or even think it even can be “perfected” on the type of scale it’s on.)

What is the Difference Between a Dedicated and Managed Server?

Simply put, a Dedicated Server is a server that YOU DO NOT OWN but effectively rent on a monthly basis that is pre-configured to your desired specifications (example:  Quad Core, 2 GB RAM, 2 x 250 GB SATA Raid 1, Debian OS, Apache) and then full root access to the machine is turned over to you.

For these types of offerings, hosting providers try to lock you into a 12 month contract as they likely won’t see a lick of profit until @ the 8th to 10th month you’re actually using the machine.  And, for what it’s worth, you would rather work with a company that is in fact MAKING MONEY, as this means that they have the capital to invest in building out their hosted environment leveraging best of breed business practices that in the end will only ensure your machine never looses power or a connection to the internet.

A Managed Server is also a server that YOU DO NOT OWN but effectively rent on a monthly basis that is pre-configured to your desired specifications.  Access to your Operating System and “full root access” however is managed by your provider.  For some visual representations of what this actually means, check out HERE and HERE.

When you have a managed server, you are effectively paying a little extra to have an outsourced person or team serve as your systems administrator for your server(s).  They are also, in theory, suppose to help you architect your environment as your needs grow over time.  For example, you may eventually need to add a Firewall or Loadbalancer into the mix or separate your DataBase from your Web Server as traffic grows, or add a SAN or separate storage device for backups… and your systems engineer is suppose to PROACTIVELY manage your environment in this way.

Again, same theory applies, in that you want to work with a company that is in fact MAKING MONEY, as this means that they have the capital to invest in not only building out their hosted environment leveraging best of breed business practices that in the end will only ensure your machine never looses power or a connection to the internet BUT also hire systems engineers who are both good at what they do and PERSONABLE!!!!

How many engineers do you know that are brilliant at what they do, but totally incapable of explaining anything to you without either you or them losing their sh*t?  Why does this matter?  Try calling in at 3am and working with someone over the phone that you likely have never met before to get your site back up and running.  (Personally, in all the years I’ve been working with and around engineers, I know very few, and have made a point to befriend those that have both a right and left functioning brain)

“OK, SO I GET IT, AND NEED A HOSTING PROVIDER FOR MY PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT… NOW WHAT?”

If all you want/need is a few dedicated servers, there are 100’s, if not 1000’s that can offer you this service.  Of these however, there are only a hand full who actually know what they’re doing on the backend and have architected an environment that you can actually grow into without causing major headaches, downtime, ridiculous expenses and/or a jerryrigged system.

What you should be looking for is the following:

1. Blended and Managed Transit – Provides redundancy in your network so that if one carrier goes down, traffic simply routes across the next best path from another provider
2. 24/7 Systems Support – Best way to know if the company your planning on hosting with is playing in the big leagues is if you can call in at 3am and speak with someone who actually knows what the status of your account is, if you’re a registered person on your company’s contact list, and can actually help resolve your issue within a timely manner while keeping a smile on their face and not sounding like they just woke up.
3. A Stellar Uptime Record – Great thing here is that if a provider goes down regularly, you can count on other geeks harping about it online, so definitely check references and check forums online for what other people are saying about a company’s uptime record.
4. A Clean Facility – If there’s any way you can actually see the facility you servers will be hosted within, do it.  Hosting is extremely technical and complicated stuff when done correctly and though a company might have a brilliant looking website, their datacenter might be a POS, meaning they aren’t interested in investing in maintaining standards, their equipment, or truly SERVING their customers once they’re signed up.
5. Tools That Make Your Job Easier -  Documentation and accessibility are key, as a company that invests in the tools that allow them to communicate effectively with their customers and their customers to communicate effectively with them is also a company that, more times than not, communicates effectively internally and has their operations and suppor team running a happy and motivated ship.
6. Experience - Check the BIOS of the key executives, especially those running and managing the onsite support teams and systems teams.  If they’ve been there and done that successfully before, they’ll likely be able to repeat the process.

“OK, SO WHO DO YOU RECOMMEND?”

Well, since you asked ;)

If I only needed a dedicated single server to host some basic websites with decent traffic, I would work with SoftLayer.  These guys successfully grew ThePlanet from scratch and bounced when the company was bought out and new management came in.  They’ve now built, over only the past few years, a rock solid infratructure that is solely dedicated to servicing the specific nitch of those needed DEDICATED SERVERS.  They DO NOT do Managed Servers however, or any other managed infrastructure, so if you need someone to manage a firewall, loadbalancer, switch, router, ect. you’ll want to look elsewhere.

If you need someone who can not only provide you with a hosted environment, but also provide a level of systems expertise so that you really only need to worry about your application layer, I would highly recommend giving UnitedLayer, RackSpace, ThePlanet and Savvis a call. There are likely other providers worthy of being on this list but I can only speak from my experience.

…and here’s my sales pitch :) …

At the end of the day, I truly believe UnitedLayer has a pretty stellar team of extremely technical and forward thinking people that are actively trying to make the service and services we offer best in breed.  This being said, we don’t have a staff of 1,000’s like RackSpace and Savvis or a marketing budget of $10-100,000 a month like most of our competitors because we are still a privately held company, having closed @ $7M in revenue last year and received NO VENTURE CAPITAL.

This means we’re still working on getting our “3am rule” service up to something to be proud about and still developing many of the communications tools (rolling out in the next few months) allowing our customers to find any information they need and do pretty much anything they want remotely.

On the flip side, we don’t have 20,000+ customers and our people know all our customers by name.  Our hosting environment has also had only one minor network outage in the past 2 years that was very short lived.  We also know the specific types of companies we want to be working with, given most of the people at the company have been entrepreneurs at one point in their life and can spot talent and great ideas when they see it.  Really, this means we prefer to work with fewer companies that have great ideas and growing needs, than a ton of customers who have minimal needs and are just starting to figure out a business model.

Well, if you’ve made it this far, I hope this data dump helped clarify a few things.  If you have any further questions or comments, feel free to contact me directly!

Best,

Sean

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