nick lumsden @banteringNick

Leadership lesson No. 1: Always consider the context. Of the 100s of maxims I've gathered over the years, this is most often forgotten. The absence of which leads to poor decisions, quick reactions, and irrational behavior. A leader can afford few of these. #leadership

It takes a village. Or a team. Or a community. The point being that going it alone is often the hardest path. I've watched individuals, leaders, founders, and more fall into the trap. Find your village, build your team. Trust them and let them challenge you.

data driven decisions are only as good as the quality of the data. high quality data is: ✅ consistent ✅ accurate ✅ relevant poor data leads to poor decisions. #finops #data #aws #azure #cloud #optimization

In a whirlwind of calls over the past two weeks, I have heard 2 things repeated: ✅ everyone is expecting protracted poor economic conditions ahead ✅ even cash rich, high growth, 0 layoff organizations are cutting costs and hunkering down. 30% is the number. #cloud #finops

When you're stuck on a problem, change your context. Such as: ✅ environment - standing up and getting fresh air ✅ activity - from sitting to the gym or a walk ✅ the tool - from a computer to scratch paper and a pencil It's a simple trick to break linear thinking.

It's a pervasive problem throughout the enterprise and mid-market. #cloud at even modest scale is too volatile for human-management alone. William Anderson does a fantastic job articulating the problem in his latest article: hubs.ly/Q01J1f2c0

How to cut your #aws and #azure bill in half: ✅ Terminate abandoned resources: 10-20% ✅ Right-size underutilized resources: 5-15% ✅ Shutdown non-persistent instances during off-hours: 5-10% ✅ Optimize configuration: 5-10% ✅ Take advantage of commitments: 25% + #finops

Did you know the U.S. passed the “No Surprises Act” that just went into affect? It’s about full disclosure/transparent billing in the healthcare space. Until there’s a “No Surprises Act” for cloud computing, use @tenacitycloud Be the hero, save your company money.

To optimize unit economics, the goal is app modernization. Legacy models can only guess at product economies and are far from optimal. Building apps that respond by optimizing their own cost is the advantage in #SaaS and #cloud. #aws #azure #finops #optimize

80% of extreme productivity is having: ✔️ a plan; ✔️ priorities; ✔️ focus; and ✔️ communication. The other 20% is having a great playlist. 🎧

I have rediscovered great pleasure writing letters and journaling. I can't recall why I ever quit writing in general, but as I get older and the world ever more distracting, I find that it creates focus, relaxation, and space to just think. Somehow the pen in hand pauses time.

My father was a leader and he had an endless supply of quiet examples. In every great leader there is a coach who encourages and builds his players, in every poor leader I've had, this was missing and replaced with "harrumphs" and sharp words and a fascination with the clock.

Listen to understand instead of listening to respond. We will then ✔️ open ourselves up to new perspectives and ideas ✔️ learn from others ✔️ build stronger relationships Make a conscious effort to actively listen and truly understand those around us. #listen #communicate

The point of a goal is to force you into thinking about the plan. the plan is directional, sets a path, creates focus. either may change as conditions change - these are not rigid constructions - but without a goal, you have no plan, and without a plan there is no way to win.

Culture is the key to success. #finops is the culture of marrying finance into the devops revolution. Every competitive organization will undergo this transformation in the next five years. hubs.ly/Q01smWYJ0 #aws #azure #tenacityai

The old tried-and-true approval processes are problem and public cloud fundamentally broke them. It comes back to one of the first rules of business. Who's accountable? hubs.ly/Q01smCdj0 #aws #azure #tenacityai #cloudoptimization

Announcing the launch of the Cloud Cost Optimization podcast! Kicking it with my co-host @jasnoyaeger of @tenacitycloud New episodes every Monday and Wednesday. Check out the first 4 episodes! Spotify: hubs.ly/Q01r78K-0 #podcast #aws #azure

Check it out! @tenacitycloud is on the Ask a CISO podcast with Jeremy Snyder. Full episode: YouTube: hubs.ly/Q01qSf8L0 Apple: hubs.ly/Q01qSbQ70 Spotify: hubs.ly/Q01qSfFC0 Show notes and Transcript: hubs.ly/Q01qS7JL0

humpty dumpty sat on a wall, humpty-dumpty had a great fall, all the kings horses and all the kings people couldn't figure out their cloud environment because it was all in humpty-dumpty's head. Stop relying on brilliance as a tech strategy.

Remember that time when... Fond memories of pallets of servers sitting in the build room. nm, that sucked. coding infrastructure is way more fun. Tenacity #rememberwhen #nostalgia #aws #azure #cloud