The Soft Pitch

It used to be that that quote “Good things come in small packages” made me think of the ruby bracelet my husband bought me for our 10^th wedding anniversary. Nowadays I veer off to thoughts of an iPod Shuffle the size of lapel pin or my newest toy, a Flip Mino HD.  I decided to give it a try and jump into video blogging after I heard Brad Whitworth from Cisco talk about how the ease of use convinced a top Cisco executive to blog for employees and customers using it.

 My first try? Definitely shaky cam style. I used it to interview the judges for the Avnet Marketing and Communications Awards.  I haven’t heard of other companies doing this – but Avnet has been holding an internal awards competition for its marketing professionals for more than 10 years now.  It recognizes the best of our marketing efforts, but also encourages Avnet marketers to try new things and benchmark themselves against their colleagues globally.

 (Hold on there Avnet employees – I’m not giving away any secrets here of who won.  You’ll have to wait for the awards ceremony to learn that!)

I wanted to write about Avnet’s award for the “greening” of its data center, then I saw that one of our IT directors has written about it internally and he has provided a much better write up than I could – so this comes from Bruce Gorshe, IT Director – Data Center Operations.  The list of small and big things show, Kermit the Frog got it all wrong. It can be easy to be green, you just have to be a little bit innovative:

Green Computing, Energy Efficiency and the Data Center – Avnet won!

Avnet was selected as the winner of InfoWorld’s 2009 “Best Practices in Green Computing, Energy Efficiency and the Datacenter.”

Jennifer McConnell (Director, IT) accepted the award for Avnet at the “Storage Networking World” annual storage convention held in Scottsdale, Arizona. The award represented the cumulative efforts of multiple teams and demonstrates how Avnet is a leader in the Green IT space.

Jennifer McConnell Accepting SNW Award

The winning entry included these main points, specifically, Avnet:

• Consolidated more than 300 pieces of hardware by retiring or collapsing systems into larger vertically-scaled servers.
• Created a heavily virtualized environment with 24 VMware ESX hosts supporting 378 virtual guests
• Deployed 15 product AIX frames, representing 538 systems across only 39 physical systems.
• Installed StorageTek’s Virtual Storage Manager system to move a storage area network environment.
• Replaced older less efficient air conditioners with newer air conditioners, which were more power efficient.
• Re-foamed the ceiling of its datacenter roof and applied additional insulation.
• Installed “subzero” air flow leakage cubes and high-flow perforated tiles.
• Replaced 250 T12 lighting ballasts with more efficient T08 ballasts.
• Developed a script that would run on all desktop and laptop systems connected to the datacenter to automatically place idle systems in hibernation.

The gains from these changes included:

• Avoided spending more than $5 million to expand the power supply to its datacenter.
• Decreased power consumption by 44% per image through its vertical scaling and virtualization efforts. It also freed a considerable amount of valuable raised flooring space within Avnet’s datacenter. Avnet now has 5,000 square feet of available raised flooring, up from 1,000 square feet, allowing Avnet to avoid structural build-outs costs.
• The new room air conditioners are 20% more efficient.
• Re-foaming the datacenter ceiling and applying additional insulation lowered Avnet’s datacenter cooling costs by $7500 per year, and increased the longevity of the cooling systems and roof.
• The “subzero” air flow leakage cubes and high-flow perforated tiles helped improve air flow by 90%.
• The new power efficient lighting reduced related costs by 30%.
• By placing idle computers in hibernation during non-business hours, Avnet will save an estimated $150,000 annually. Also, it significantly reduced Avnet’s power consumption. A desktop PC consumes approximately 137 watts of electricity; however, by placing it in hibernation, it only consumes one watt.

It’s been several weeks since I’ve posted and Al has been taking up the slack.  While I’ve been offline (so to speak – I’ve been e-mailing like crazy these last few weeks) I haven’t been out of touch.  In fact there’s been lots happening to share.

My first thoughts go to innovation.  It’s becoming a pretty big push here.  We recently named a global head of innovation – Greg Frazier.  We’re asking customers, suppliers and just anybody to share ideas, and we’re already getting them too.  If you haven’t seen it, there’s now a button on our website where you can share your thoughts on ideas on how Avnet can serve customers and suppliers better. Innovation is one of our core values, so it should come as no surprise.  But we’re adding a dash of discipline to what had been more like spontaneous combustion.  We’ve got training classes in place that will coach senior leaders on how to encourage and support innovation.  While I’m on the topic, our Avnet Technology Solutions team in the US has come up with a way to extend financial terms to their resellers’ end-users – helping them manage through the credit crunch.  It wouldn’t be the first time Avnet was described as a “banker to the channel.”

My second thought of the day is around community service.  We are heading pell mell into the holidays, and no matter which one you celebrate this seems to be a heady time of year for all.  Al mentioned the military videos we hosted this past weekend.  We didn’t have as many people show up as we have in last year (I heard a rumor that someone else in town was offering the same thing to military families, copying is the best form of flattery I think.), but those who did show up were so very grateful that it was worth every bit of the effort.  From families with their dogs to families singing their own version of “The Night Before Christmas,” it was a great day to bring the resources of Avnet and its partners Metro Studios and Modavox, to help people stay connected with smiles (and not just e-mails) for their loved ones.  This commitment to our communities isn’t something that just happens at Avnet, Inc. headquarters, last week I read about one of our branches in Massachusetts that invited customers and suppliers to an event that raised more than $10,000 and $4000 worth of toys to donate to the annual Toys for Tots campaign.  More smiles all around!

Steve Phillips is our CIO…the Brit is becoming very well known man in PHX after just a few years…I think not only because he is talented, but his personality is as interesting as his accent and humor.

Last night he was introduced as the Arizona Tech Council’s new chairman in front of approx 900 attendees of the Governor’s Celebration of Innovation awards in PHX. The Tech Council has 500 members and is one of the most succesfully assocations in the state. I’m proud to say and willing to bet he will do a great job

A few of his opening comments…”Innovation is what fuels American business.  And this same positive energy that innovation creates is what draws us all together here tonight….in fact at a very innovative time slot and with a diiferent approach to awards programs

The Governor’s Celebration of Innovation is a great opportunity to come together once each year to recognize some of Arizona’s best and most exciting technology-driven innovations that our state has produced over the last 12 months. 

I can tell you that the quality of the submissions has absolutely gotten better, year after year. I can also tell you there is a tremendous effort being given by many of you in the room to ensure that the trend continues. 

This is no easy task.  Arizona is in serious competition with many other established and growing states and metropolitan areas.  Our goal is to attract the most innovative thinkers, entrepreneurs and business leaders needed to build a diverse, growing economy. 

This effort requires that state and local governments, secondary and tertiary educators, non-profits, and the private sector must all work together to meet this goal. 

This combined effort will be all the more important as we enter what many predict will continue to be a challenging business environment.  The innovation required will need to extend beyond technology.  We need innovative partnerships.  Innovative approaches.  Innovative strategies to help ensure that Arizona emerges from this downturn stronger and more diverse than ever before.    

But that’s work for another day.  Tonight, let’s take a moment to turn our backs to the wind for a moment.  Let’s celebrate together the amazing and inspiring things that can take place when world-class talent and imagination is given the opportunity to fully express itself.”