10 Print “What’s Next?”

When I was a kid, I didn’t have the internet or even a phone modem to connect my computer to the world. It was just me, my keyboard, and my monitor. I get in front of my Tandy Color Computer 2 and type “10 Print…” and let the creative juices flow. I’m day 15 of 100 days blogging. That’s this blog post. I don’t have anything to structured to write. There isn’t a concept of migrating SAP to the public cloud. It’s just me showing up as I committed. The act of showing up puts us in a position to be in the moment.

It’s hard

The CTO Advisor as a business is at a pivot point. We are trying to read the tea leaves and understand where the industry is going. I don’t mean from a technology perspective. I mean, from how people make money. Today, we make the majority of our money creating content. We built the CTO Advisor Hybrid Infrastructure (CTOAHI) because we wanted to create content no other organization could create. How we intended looks nothing like where we have arrived.

When it was just an idea, we counted on sponsors such as Intel, VMware, HPE, or Dell bankrolling the data center. We had an $850,000 budget for renting office space, leasing equipment, and a content marketing plan to tell the story of CTOAHI sponsored by vendor x. The only problem, vendor x never showed up. But the vision was still there.

So, Mrs. CTO and I took the plunge. We adjusted the vision and budget to a more reasonable $212K/year run rate for the data center. We built something we could show to potential sponsors. It was our “10 Print.” Fast forward to today; we now have Intel as the named sponsor for the CTOAHI. We’ve had Oracle sponsor a study comparing each of the VMware public cloud options. We’ve committed even more than the $212K this year to the data center as a result.

We are again at a pivot point. I created the MAIN logic of the program. We are at a point where we need to put some sub-routines in to add the application’s value. What is it we are going to create that makes you come back day in and day out.

I don’t know

The bottom line is I don’t know. How I run my business is how I developed code. I show up every day. I sit in front of this keyboard and monitor. Today, it’s connected to the world. Twitter and LinkedIn are now my operating system. I listen to what’s being discussed. I throw some ideas out to see if the stick. If they stick, I try to develop the discussion. Once I’ve established value and interest in that conversation, I shop these ideas as themes for sponsored content. Hopefully, more vendors such as Oracle see the value in the conversations we have.

As we navigate health care, payroll, cash flow, and sales, I want to get on this thing and talk to you. I want to learn some stuff and make enough money in the process to support my family and provide opportunities for my friends.