Innovation

Re-establishing a Broken Cloud

This week, I cracked open Tableau to log into my Amazon RDS instance and noticed that the connection wasn’t working. Logging into the AWS console, my AWS RDS instance had disappeared (along with all the data in it). On perusing my emails, I noticed that I had an unpaid bill in my inbox from Amazon from ~1 month prior. So…along with the instance no longer running, I had lost all data contained which I had been collecting over the past 3 months which is more than slightly disappointing.

This does present an opportunity though. My EC2 instance is still running, and has been trying to push data to a server that no longer exists, meaning I need to set the RDS instance backup. This was an opportunity to document setting up a new RDS instance on AWS from scratch, with all necessary users, objects, and privileges and document how long it took.

Here’s the process form start to finish;

Start: 4:12 pm

First step, logging in and getting the instance created. You’ll notice during this step that I flip from free-tier to get more storage, then flip back to free-tier. Why pay more money to get increased storage I won’t need for a couple weeks? All I need to do to up the storage is change a configuration which will cause my RDS instance to be down for a couple minutes.

Second step, making sure security privileges are setup. After my first project a couple years ago, and getting my web server destroyed by a script kiddie, I now only open specific ports (which I should have been doing all along).

The third step. I should be able to login to the server using the account that I set up as admin. Once I log in, all I have to do is execute all the create scripts I have.

The way that I created the DDL for my tables and schemas means that I can copy and paste them into query window in PgAdmin4 and execute the scripts. You’ll notice I have a couple semicolon issues that I’ve resolved.

Finally, looks like everything has been created. Just need to validate that my different accounts can login to the server and have appropriate privileges, which they did.

Finish: 5:17 pm

successfully back up

Connections exist from my EC2. With no alteration to any code on the EC2 server!

This process did not include any alteration of the EC2 instance and allowed me to go from a web server scraping the internet and sending files into the ether (nowhere) to having a full database stood up with all objects. This was done in a little over an hour, and ~30 minutes of that was spent executing sql, copy and pasting sql into the query editor for execution, testing to ensure objects/configuration was successful, and fixing minor syntax issues. All of which could be automated away.

I was debating whether or not to get a personal server for my projects, but this in my mind firmly helps cement the cloud as being a better choice when it comes to infrastructure. Comparing to my experience setting up a local SSAS and SQL server instance, this took about 10% of the time and was extremely easy to get running.

A Framework for Innovation

Creating change. A fun subject, and an admirable goal according the American Ethos and the media our society has spawned. Even though the innovative ideas may go against the grain or the way that things are currently being done, many consider it a virtue to pursue

innovation-vs-no-innovation

The macro effect of innovation on a company

them. With so much positive emphasis on innovation in our culture, why is it so difficult?

There thousands (if not millions) of reasons why this is the case and I couldn’t hope to answer in a short blog post. Looking at the reverse of that, “how do successful innovations occur?” many insights are available. There are many theories with many names, but reading many of these there is a correlation across the different materials which boil down to two things from what I’ve found and read.

  1. Let people know how the innovation will effect them
  2. Make things easy for the people who are going to be using the innovation

Switch lays out the best framework (in my opinion) for accomplishing these two goals.

Framework for Change

The basic idea is conveyed through the idea that every person can be pictured like a rider on a top of an elephant going down a trail. In order to change where the rider is going to end up, there is the ability to alter three things. You may have guessed it. We can change the rider, the elephant, and the trail.

The Rider: In the idea of the rider and the elephant, this is the logic. Everyone has logic (although some riders may be weaker than others) that helps to form how they behave. The rider’s the part of the person who when starting a new habit, like running in the morning, will cause people to set an alarm.

the-rider-the-elephant-and-the-path_50290b0771b02_w1500.pngThe Elephant: Emotions and subconscious drive. At the end of the day, the elephant dictates where the rider is going to go. The average ~150 pound rider will only be able to control a 13,000 pound animal for so long before coming exhausted.

The elephant is the reason why the planned morning run will be cancelled by multiple pushes on the snooze button. The  elephant is also the reason why people work 90 hour work weeks and are excited to do so.

The Path: The final component for creating change is the external environment in which every individual operates. These are the external forces which effect behavior. Shaping the external forces and how they act upon elephants and their riders, getting the rider to move towards the desired end location.

All in all, it’s pretty straightforward right? Well, it is definitely much easier to conceptualize and talk about then it is to implement. So many people fail, myself included, to implement all three at the same time, leading to great ideas being dropped to the wayside.

For those who want to change things for the better, hopefully this framework can help you get to actualization of innovation.

Inspiration vs Manipulation

A few weeks ago I was lent a copy of the book Start with Why. The ideas around the use of manipulation vs inspiration to change human behavior is one of the ideas that struck a chord with me thus far. Looking at companies today, there is a clear differentiation in the way that organizations position themselves based upon where they fall with when using manipulation vs inspiration.

Inspiration

These are the companies that get the best employees, deliver innovative solutions, and much of the time have higher margins and growth compared to competitors. How is this achieved? You guessed it. They have a great and inspiring vision of why they do what they do.

spacex mission.PNG

This vision and end goal above is lofty, and certainly something the people (especially rocket designers) can aspire to. Having such a vision for where the company is headed has apparently worked to Spacex’s advantage. Spacex has managed to steal significant market share from the much older Arianespace. There there must be something behind Spacex’s success.

commercial_launchers_web_1.12.151-879x485

The focus on a lofty vision of “why” an organization does what is does not only drives profits, but also clear and concise decision making and motivations for all who are involved with the company. Driving behavior towards a goal that is inspiring and internally motivated is much more effective in the long-term  compared to manipulations.

Manipulation

Price, promotions, fear, aspirations. These are the tactics that are potential changers of human behavior. When making use of these strategies, a company has most likely lost sense of why it exists. The reason for this? When a company is offering to cut price, or market to customer aspirations, there is no longer an internal motivating factor that drives the company. The company compass for decision making has been lost.

The great (or terrible depending on your perspective) example of this is General Motor’s use of promotions to drive sales. In the 1990’s General Motors, along with other US auto manufacturers relied on offering of sales incentives to retain market share when faced by an onslaught of foreign automakers. By taking this route, the US automakers effectively weakened their brands. This may have allowed the automakers to retain higher market share short-term, but it obviously didn’t help the long-term growth and profitability of the company.

Manipulations create addictions for companies that may create some short-term value, but it is at the expense of harming the organization in the long-term. The more fear, promotions, prices cuts, and aspirations a company uses to sell products the cheaper the brand perception will be.

Bottom line, knowing why a company exists provides in internal locus of control which has been proven to be a motivating force compared to the use of manipulations. There’s a reason that Apple customer’s pay more than a 20% premium compared to competitor products, and it’s due to knowing why.