On the Road the Next few Weeks…

I will be on the road a lot the next few weeks for Plexxi.
Plexxi will also be engaging in a host of events as well.
 Here is a list of events:

• March 5: Credit Suisse Datacenter
Conference in SF.  I will be on an SDN panel with two friends
from Big Switch.
• March 7: Plexxi presents at Network Field Day
#5.  I will be in NYC/NJ that day presenting to
customers.
• March 13: I am on the Cloud & Software-Defined
Panel at the Pacific Crest Technology Forum event in Boston.
• 
March 15: Plexxi and Boundary at SDN
Central Demo Fridays.

Plexxi is my fifth startup.
 At my first startup, we did some early development
outsourcing to Poland in the 1991 time frame and I was Ciena when
the company began the transition to a development center in India.
 I have worked at companies with development teams resident on
both coasts.  I have worked at large corporations in which the
majority of the management team had to fly to a common location for
an in person meeting.  Having been an early adopter of
out-sourcing, then insourcing as well as telecommuting, I find the
negative reaction to Yahoo’s no working from home policy to be
misinformed. It is a lot of work to lead and keep productive a
distributed system of employees.  The most creative and
productive teams I have been a part of work at the same location.  There is value in hallway conversations and spontaneous
interaction.

At Plexxi, we opened an SF office in January of
this year and we hired people to work out of it.  Some people
in our SF office are on their third trip to the east coast this
year.  I have been to west coast twice already with another
six trips planned before the end of May.  I think all the
modern tools of communication are nice when unexpected events in
life happen such as car problems, sick children, snow days, weather
disruptions, etc., but nothing takes the place of being in the same
physical presence with people.  Creativity, drive, effort,
leadership all are derived from being in the presence of others.
 I think Ms. Mayer was also sending a message about the
seriousness of her intentions. The most successful technology
companies have a very high work ethic and that ethic comes from
being in the presence of others.  If you read the book Hard
Drive, there is section that talks about the competitive,
driven nature of company culture and how the executives would brag
about an eight or six hour turnaround from office to home and back
to the office.  You can read the same in books about Intel.
 I know life is not all work and no play and people work at
different paces, but I am convinced that people achieve more when
they are together — rather than working from their home offices in
their bunny slippers and dialing into conference calls.

/wrk