Month: April 2023

Categories
Reflection

Remembrance

Yesterday was Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. As the grandchild of survivors, this is an incredibly important day for my family. My Nana and Grandfather were survivors who picked themselves up after losing everything (children, parents, siblings, and any sense of safety), moved to the US, raised their family with love (and pain), built businesses, and contributed to making this country even better. My generation is the last to know survivors like my grandparents: to have heard their stories, seen their strength, and felt their struggle.

11 years ago, the Shoah Foundation, who has recorded so many stories of Holocaust survivors, sent my family a set of tapes from an interview my Nana did in 1995. It was such a gift. I uploaded them so her story would never be forgotten. She was there on the day the US Holocaust Memorial Museum opened in 1993 (her story is one of the ones you could experience walking through the museum), and afterward they followed up and asked her to record this piece. The Shoah Foundation has recorded the stories of so many survivors and now has posted them widely online. I urge you to listen with an open heart to their stories and never allow ourselves to forget what happened. This day is not just important for me, my family, or Jews across the world; in a time where there is increasing nationalism, hatred, dehumanization, scapegoating, and violation of other nation’s sovereignty, I urge us all to remember that these same conditions are what led to the massacre of 6 million Jews by the Nazis. Very few people wanted to see such things occur, and yet they stood by in silence, and let horrors happen. And it didn’t keep them safe. More countries were overrun, more people suffered. In the words of Audre Lorde, “Your silence will not protect you.”

It is absolutely time for us to come together, regardless of our differences to stop atrocities, not as some world wide police force, but I hope through discussion, debate, honoring our differences, and the right of our fellow humans to choose autonomously that which is best for them and their families. We need to be the change we want to see, and never forget our collective history.

Categories
OCP

OCP 2023 Regional Summit in Prague: What Not to Miss!

It is hard to imagine, but OCP’s Regional Summit is coming up in just 2 weeks. Our last Regional Summit in Europe was in 2019 before the covid19 pandemic, and I’ve been eager ever since joining the board to connect with our European leaders to hear their perspectives, and specific challenges of running data centers and building servers in the European market.

As for every OCP event, I like to write my own “unofficial” guide on what I’m most excited about, and where you’ll find me if you are there. As always, I want to meet with you, so please do reach out!

So, let’s start with Day 1:

  • We will start with Keynotes on the morning of the 19th, and it is interesting to see the regional flavor of this event. At the Global Summit the topics were very much centered on AI (including connectivity for workloads that cannot be encompassed on single nodes), Security, and Sustainability. Here in Europe Sustainability is taking center stage (for Silicon providers, and Cloud companies), and Ethernet for AI/ML and HPC, but we are also seeing discussions about the role and future Open Source and Open Empowerment, standardization of Edge Computing (which is going to be fascinating since I can think of nothing less standardized today), and Quantum Computing.
  • In the afternoon we will transition into several engineering workshops (and yes, as wonderful as the keynotes are, THESE are the heart of the conference). I’ll be excited to see the SONiC sessions from the vibrant European community (Criteo, STORDIS, Deutsche Telekom, Broadcom, Weaveworks, and Credo), and new OCP-Ready systems and contributions from Mitac, Inspur, HPE, Giga Computing, Murata, and 9elements.
  • The other track occurring during the engineering sessions is the Future Technologies Symposium, which once again has a very different regional flavor than FTS at the Global Summit. We are seeing sessions on Quantum computing, Neuromorphic computing, AI/HPC techniques for data center energy optimization, temperature and location impact on overall IT efficiency, heat reuse techniques, and more.

That evening we will have a welcome reception, and no my band is not playing, but we will have an incredible time connecting in beautiful Prague.

Day 2 will bring additional sessions on system management, modularity, and security as well as expanding on the key networking and sustainability activities. Here are the ones I’m so excited about:

  • DC-SCM with OpenBMC compliance suite (I find this personally relevant), TEE-agnostic attestation research, fault management, leveraging ChatGPT for SSD development, scope 3 emissions standards proposals, Caliptra updates, OSF, attestation with Redfish, CXL memory expansion, and immersion (from fluids that are more sustainable to the system designs and reuse methodologies).
  • There will also be updates on chiplets, a session on “SONiC Lite” (which I think is so critical–most of us want to start with a low risk SONiC use case, but if SONiC needs significant memory to run, we will be greatly impacted on being able to leverage it for these lower risk scenarios: console/management switches), and precision time protocol options, which I also think is such an important project for standardization and improved global network management.

Fundamentally our European community is thinking about the future of innovation from the silicon to systems, software, system-level firmware, management, and so much more. I really look forward to learning from everyone and meeting our local leaders and experts.

Categories
Book Club

Radical Candor

This month for book club we read Radical Candor by Kim Scott, both because it is an awesome book, and also because I really wanted to choose a female author in honor of Women’s History Month. I was introduced to the book a while back, and honestly wished I had read it much earlier in my management journey because there were many important lessons that resonated with me personally.

In general most of our attendees really enjoyed the book with some exceptions; the worry was that this framework might not “age well”. As we dug in the concern was that candor without a strong coupling of psychological safety will inevitably lead to bosses feeling empowered to share “toxic” feedback and employees not feeling safe enough to speak up. (I think this concern is real, and highly recommended folks pair this with The Fearless Organization by Amy Edmonson, which reiterates that feedback which can only trickle down is toxic and a waste of talent.)

The overwhelming area people resonated most strongly about was the need to “challenge directly”. Some self-identified as strong in this domain, but working on making sure it was received well, and others felt they likely weren’t as direct in the moment in sharing their actual feedback with colleagues, direct reports, and their management team. All shared how NOT challenging directly and providing timely feedback had repercussions (which Kim Scott labels “ruinous empathy”). The primary issue is that the individual could have learned something in the moment with appropriate coaching, but by trying to be nice/likeable/etc. we miss these moments, and then reserve feedback for more formal sessions (which is far less effective since with time the ability to really recall details and remember the impact is muted, so the value of the feedback is as well). When in doubt, start by SEEKING feedback–create a culture where you show you can take it, and encourage them to give feedback to one another directly (rather than escalating to you). A culture of direct communication enables issues to be resolved in a far more timely manner rather than always escalating, and eliminates back-stabbing. These ultimately make every team more effective.

One of the other critical lessons in the book is to “care personally”. Many people don’t get that coaching coming into management, and it seems like an awful shame. When people know they personally are respected and cared about, they will absolutely feel safer and more secure in sharing their perspectives (which will make your team and your company stronger), and they will also be more secure receiving criticism, which is a necessary part of learning and growing. Showing one cares does not have to involve hugs, or anything that might be deemed inappropriate: remembering to follow up on a difficult item personal or professional that they brought up in a previous 1:1, not canceling 1:1s without following up, showing that you value your people’s time by showing up on time, finding time to connect and celebrate milestones (birthdays, baby showers, etc.), encouraging people to take the time they need (for vacations, or leave if that is necessary) and ensuring that they know you have their backs during that period of time, etc. Ultimately IF you care personally, and your people know that, then offering feedback will land better because they know you are seeking to help them develop and succeed, and not to make them feel badly.

Much of being a good boss begins by knowing your people, and knowing what makes them feel cared for personally, whether in terms of personal development, or just checking in on life. There are great tips in this book for getting to know your people and helping them with their LIFE journeys both within and exterior from their current role. The best bosses I have had have been mentors for life who have come to know me and my skills and been great sounding boards for me on other decisions I made later in my career. I truly hope I can be that for my people as well.