👔 How AI could help and harm management consultant firmsFrom Midjourney.Here is a question from Andrew Citera in the Software Defined Talk slack: Do you think this tech will eventually replace consultants or do you think it just adjusts the human capital leverage factor? E.g. an industry company hires an “AI-driven consultancy” and that consultancy has an onboarding process to train / tune its models and then can deliver a project with XYZ less # of consultants in a shorter time period vs.

In Enterprise Software, the Synergy is SalesIn my experience, when a tech larger company acquires a smaller one, the most important synergy is sales. “Synergy” in my use just means “the things that make the two companies more money because they are now one.” In enterprise software (or cloud, or whatever), this means changing the sales people’s compensation plans so that they make more money selling the acquired stuff. So:

A reminder that having fun is possibleIt’s hard finding fun - and especially joy - in life. Family is frequently just about getting through the every day grind and fighting to have some time to “hear myself thinking.” Even getting together with friends can seem like planning an all hands meeting. Beware of Luxury, Jan Steen.I have this picture on my desk to remind me that fun is possible, with family and friends.

Pretty long one below, but fun if you’re into exploring the potential for AI stuff to make work-life less tedious. In case you just wanted something fun, scroll to the bottom to see me become the victim of my daughter’s favorite joke. Coming up with a digital transformation for a pharmacy companyMidjourney prompt: a relaxed and happy female CIO talking with a six armed robot that is gesturing with its arms in the same room to discuss software strategy in a corporate conference room, the room has whiteboards full of diagrams and writing, the conference room table has Chinese food take-out boxes, photorealistic black and white photograph in the style of Wes Anderson, super wide angle.

Suggested soundtrack: I really enjoy the London Eye show. I don’t listen to it enough. This morning I gave my talk on platform stuff - platform engineering, building an app stack on kubernetes, etc. It was fun as always. I think there were some parts that were more shallow than usual, but I like the prattle I have going on. I want to revamp it a lot next week and give a mostly new version at cfgmgmtcamp (see below).

Real quick: I’m giving a talk tomorrow on how to run a developer platform group in large organizations, based on real world stories over the past seven years. You can watch it free tomorrow or just catch the recording: just register for it, free, and you’ll get all taken care of. Share Price = (Revenue X Story)Important: those are just profits for three months. Multiple them by four, friend. From Ves.

Hey there! As I type this, SpringOne is being livestreamed right now! Chances are, you’ll read this when it’s over. But, you can go back and see today’s talks, and there’ll be more tomorrow and Thursday. If you’re interested in development, cloud native, and especially the question “what is VMware Tanzu?” today’s talks are for you. You can watch free, check it out and schedule it in for tomorrow too!

Prompt: A ham sandwich, painted in the style of Pieter Bruegel the Elder.Hey, I have talk coming up on Thursday that you can watch live or see a replay of, it’s my current collection of best practices for running a platform for developers. You know, all that stuff you build on-top of kubernetes (or whatever IaaS). Yes, yes, it’s a “webinar,” but screw that framing: it’s just me giving a talk online with some Q&A at the end.

From The Last of Us.The Children’s GlovesYou are going out with a companion, it’s a bit chilly, and while you put on a jacket, they say they don’t need one. Inevitably, once you’re far away from home, they get cold. You aspire to be a good person, so you give them your gloves. And now, you’re the cold one despite being prepared. Jason Cohen explained this concept to me long ago, calling it “the girlfriend jacket” at the time because we had, well, girlfriends instead of children.

Suggested episode theme song: The Eternal Recurrence of DevOpsEarlier today, I was “seems kind of stupid”’ing us all rebuilding PaaSes (or, here if you prefer). This is a popular response us olds have to “platform engineering.” I mean, to my fellow PaaS Warriors, sure - 💯 and all that. Fist bump. But, let’s YES AND it! As I went over back at DevOpsDays DFW last year, I’m cool with it: smoke ‘em if you gotta ‘em.