The phone keeps ringing but there’s no-one on the line. At best, this is annoying. At worst, it sends the sweet woman at hotel reception into a panic four, even five times a day, because the phone that keeps ringing is no ordinary line: it's the Emergency line from the pool.

The beginnings of a psychological thriller you imagine, this ghostly ringing? Enter Alex Cross?

Enter this man, rather: Robert LaBerge, TELUS Telecommunications Technician II, responsible for customer solutions delivery in Ontario.

Photo: Robert LaBerge at his office in the GTA.

Although he and I have each been with the TELUS organization for eight years, chances are I wouldn’t know Robert or what makes up his work day through normal course of business. But this year, 3,000 team members participated in “customers first day,” an opportunity to experience what it means to be on the frontlines of customer service by job-shadowing some of the people who take care of our customers daily. In my case, I got lucky. I got Bob, who has been called to the hotel to fix the renegade pool phone before the receptionist has a stroke.

The maintenance chief meets us at the door of the 20-story commuter and tour hotel near Pearson Airport. We follow him down through the bowels of the building, passing a hum of cooks and housekeeping, laundry, garbage bins and deliveries, Bob clutching his magic toolkit and me happy I’m wearing flats, until we reach a locked grey door. Maintenance lets us in and leaves, closing the door behind him.

Inside it’s the temperature of a meat locker. The space is 6x3 at the most and the wall is a snarl of orange, gray, white, blue wires of all sizes. Later that day, it’ll be the same kind of room at a secure data centre across town, only ten-times the size. These are table stakes for Bob: Rooms with no windows, terminals and keyboards, industrial fans, dust and cold. He considers this for a minute, then smiles. “Some days, I could use a hoodie.”

How can a phone ring by itself, I ask. Bob’s at the computer, the tools are out, he’s back and forth testing, putting the pieces together. My teeth are banging by the time he’s done. There’s a long explanation for what happened and I’d share it if I actually understood it, but I don’t and neither would the customer, which is just fine with Bob.

“When people ask what I do, I say I 'change curly cords.' It’s a euphemism that helps because most people wouldn't understand. It’s too technical. What customers really want is a problem solved. They just want their phone to work.”

From installation and post installation, services repairs, day-to-day move/add/change activity, patching installations for enterprise customers, upgrading systems, testing proof of concepts in the office before installing, Bob is never bored. I spent most of the day mystified; he spent it solving puzzles, bringing 35 years of industry experience to the fore. “The satisfaction comes from solving a problem,” he says. “I think logically and look at things from many different angles. That’s one of the things I love about this. No two jobs are the same.”

A shout out to Bob for making me welcome and to his boss Rick Clifford, NBD - field support manager, Toronto-West, for doing the same.

On that note, all of us at TELUS Talks Business want to take the opportunity to wish the very best of the season to you and yours. This is our last post for 2011; we’ll return with fresh daily content on January 3. Until then, may December and the new year bring you peace, love, joy and hoodies in abundance.

Speaking of joy...have you seen the new TELUS You spot? Click here.

Saturday was the sixth annual TELUS Day of Giving. On the last Saturday in May every year, TELUS team members, retirees, community ambassadors, community board members, family and friends from Victoria to Halifax come together to give back to the communities where they live.

This year more than 11,000 of us took part in almost 300 activities from helping in children’s hospitals to feeding the homeless to completing the fulfillment process at charitable organizations to cleaning up city parks.

I love this day. I’ve been at every one since it started and it’s become a tradition. The husband’s birthday is May 29, which, depending on the calendar, is either the day of or the day after, so he gets short shrift. But he never seems to mind, in part because we feel luckier than usual this weekend.

It boggles my mind that in this city of ours, where we can walk out the door and choose from Thai, Italian, Polish or Japanese restaurants on our street, there remain thousands of families here who are hungry every day. Hungry? When was the last time we were actually truly hungry?

It’s why every year the Daily Bread Food Bank is my TELUS Day of Giving volunteer activity. Here are some pictures and stories from the day, and from others among the thousands of volunteers across Toronto and the GTA who spent Saturday doing what they can to make a difference.

Photo (L to R): Robert Southey, VP, Eros Spadotto, EVP Technology Strategy and Joe Natale, Chief Commercial Officer, were identified early by Daily Bread Food Bank staff as those capable of lifting multiple heavy boxes. More than 8,200 pounds of food were organized and boxed by the TELUS team on Saturday - and all of those boxes were moved and stacked by the happy crew above.

Photo: Christine Vale (L) and me at the Daily Bread Food Bank. TELUS Day of Giving is for family and friends as well and this is the third year that Mom has participated. My colleague Kevin Yeung, manager of information services for TELUS Sourcing Solutions, brought five friends and family DBFB - and they’ve done it every single year. This year, we were all on a team that filled "International boxes" with ethnic foods for those people in Toronto and the GTA who are looking for food support that speaks to their culture. We discovered quail eggs in cans and alligator soup and learned to balance out boxes with proteins and fruits and carbs and sweets.

Photo: Karina O, TELUS director of taxation, at the Daily Bread Food Bank packing bags of powdered milk. By the end of the day, the team counted 1,920 of them.

Photo: Cherie Creighton, VP Assistant on the Small Medium Business Ontario & Atlantic team, is fourth from the left at the back. She attended the Heart & Stroke Foundation, Durham Region in Whitby where there were 14 volunteers (8 team members and 6 family members) who wrote tax receipts and counted money for the Jump Rope for Heart and Hoops for Hearts programs.Cherie said she chose this activity because, "While looking through the various activities TDOG had to offer this year, I noticed there were several Heart & Stroke Foundation events and one was in my local community. I decided to sign up for the Heart & Stroke event as heart disease and stokes have affected several members of my family, including my grandfather and more recently my mom. Once we were there, we learned that there are only four staff members that run the Durham region office and that they rely on volunteers to function. Knowing this made everybody realize how helpful our three hours of volunteering where to making this charity function. TDOG is great as it showcases several charities within your local community that you can continue to volunteer with past this one corporately organized day.  I’m happy to participate and give something back to my community."

Photo courtesy of An Nuygen, a senior member of the Marketing Communications team. who took this shot of her colleagues sorting books for the charity bizaar at the West Scarborough Boys and Girls Club. An says, "I chose this activity because it is close to where I grew up. This neighborhood has a lot of kids that are either new to Canada or first generation Canadians. These kids do not have the means to participate in organized sports and this organization gives them a chance to participate in activities that teach them about team work and leadership skills. I personally benefited from being part of organizations like this as a kid and am happy that I can give back as an adult."

These are three voices among 11,000. By the end of the year, all of us and the company as a whole will have contributed $245 million and 4.1 volunteer hours of service to charitable, not-for-profit organizations and local communities since 2000.

The annual TELUS Walk to Cure Diabetes in support of our partnership with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) happens across the country Sunday June 12. Join us and help make a difference: http://jdrfca.donordrive.com/fuseaction=cms.page&id=1027&appLanguage=DEFAULT;en_US&bp=http://www.jdrf.ca/walk

.

The week in 15 Minutes, we'll begin a two-part series with Nitin Kawale, president of Cisco Canada.

Nitin Kawale is responsible for all aspects of Cisco Canada's operations including sales, marketing, finance, distribution, and services. Cisco Canada employs more than 1,200 people and is a leading operation for Cisco as well as a proving ground for many of the company’s most advanced and innovative technologies.

Kawale has been an integral part of Cisco since 1995, both in Canada and globally and has served in a number of key local and international roles. His previous Cisco positions include Worldwide Sales, Strategy and Planning, where he developed and executed strategies around key issues facing the worldwide sales force. He was also the head of sales and operations for the Global Mobile Vertical team of the Worldwide Service Provider Group, where he developed and executed the global industry-specific strategy for one of Cisco's fastest growing businesses.

This is part one of the interview.

Question 1. What's your favourite new technology?

Answer - Nitin –The first is, obviously, the phenomenon we’re seeing around tablet computers and how these are not only changing the consumer but also the enterprise space. I think these devices have captured people’s imaginations in terms of what’s possible. We have our own version called the Cisco Cius, which we’re excited about. But what’s really going to enable computing end devices in an exciting way lies in the background - cloud computing.

Cloud computing makes the network the computer. When you couple tablet systems with cloud computing, it’s going to dramatically change how we live, work, play and learn. Without a doubt, the marriage of these technologies is the most exciting innovation in technology happening today and it is my personal favourite.

Question 2. Successful business people often reference the ways in which their personal experiences enrich how they work. Is this true for you when it comes to technology and if so, how?

Answer - Nitin –Video is a great example. Whether it comes to sharing ideas, having conversations, collaborating or simply doing video chat sessions with my kids, video has become a routine part of my personal and professional life. For many years I travelled the world with Cisco. During those times I had three small children and it was important that they knew where I was, what I was doing and, most importantly, how I was doing. That was made possible through Web-based tools. Simple things like using a webcam kept all of us connected.  I might hear them say, ‘look, daddy’s in Hong Kong, here’s Hong Kong harbour’ or ‘here he is in Mumbai.’ Using simple tools and technologies showed my kids the power of video.

When Cisco aggressively moved into the greater utilization of video it was a no-brainer for me and the leadership team to embrace, adopt and accelerate business video. It has dramatically changed the way we work and has increased our productivity. It is a tremendous illustration of how to translate personal experiences into business activities.

Question 3. Did technology play a role in growing your business in the last 12 months? And, if so, how?

Answer – Nitin – Absolutely it has. One of the things we constantly focus on is how to significantly raise productivity while also ensuring our people maintain a work-life balance. We equip people with complete home/office environments, allowing and encouraging them to work with a complete set of business resources – as they would in the office. Now they can have the business tools they need where and how they want.

Layer business video on top of that – things like telepresence, multimedia collaborative tools, and social media – and we not only gain the benefits of cost reduction, but we dramatically improve business processes. We can deconstruct old business processes and reconstruct them based on new technologies, which raise productivity and improve innovation, employee and customer satisfaction. The way we work today at Cisco and the way we worked only a short time ago are dramatically different.

Question 4. If you could invent a technology to solve a current business problem that you personally experience, what is the problem and what would the technology do to solve it?

Answer – Nitin – If I consider our organization, and I suspect other enterprises likewise share my view, I conclude that technology doesn’t solve everything. There is more than enough technology to solve most challenges in business. What’s essential is business-process and human behavioural change. If there was such a thing as a technology that could drive human behavioural change quicker and easier, well I’m all for it. We all have ways in which we prefer to work and transitioning to a different and better way often takes a long time. Consider business process change from the perspective of employees who need to effect that change, and realize the productivity gain, greater efficiency and ultimately employee satisfaction. Adoption is more likely to successfully happen if those things are apparent. The  real trick is to shut down old processes so that newer processes can be completely embraced and adopted. Behavioral change is critical to that happening, but it is the hard part.

Question 5. Does your team as a whole know how to maximize the use of technologies, which are key to your business processes? What is your best training 'tip'?

Answer – Nitin – I’m certain that our team absolutely understands how to utilize technology for business benefits. I think my best training tip is to suggest that as you migrate to new processes, it is absolutely necessary to turn off old processes. If that doesn’t happen then the cost becomes accretive as do the efforts to maintain new processes, which only adds to everyone’s workload.

Let me illustrate through the simple example of Cisco’s travel costs. We previously had people shuttling back and forth between Montreal and Toronto. We asked ourselves, ”Why?” There are smart people in both cities, yet people continue to fly back and forth to solve customer and internal problems. When we introduced Cisco TelePresence into those two cities, we mandated  that travel for internal meetings should not happen. That decision compelled people to use technology to collaborate with remote colleagues. The result was that our cost structure around travel was dramatically reduced, and it also drastically improved our ongoing business processes. You need to have the management discipline to turn off old processes and drive adoption of new ones.

Question 6. In your position, are you aware of technology that has yet to come to mass market, but that you believe will eventually emerge and change lives?

Answer – Nitin – Absolutely! That’s the exciting part of our business – and what gets us excited each day. There are technologies in trials or that have been released in other parts of the world, which we are working to bring to Canada with service provider partners. For example, technology in the home is going to change dramatically. It’s already changed over the last few years. Today we have wireless access, IP telephones, set-top boxes and gaming devices that are more and more intelligent. And we have new entertainment and media distribution devices. All of these new services and technologies will require greater management – and that’s an opportunity.

Also consider energy conservation and the smart grid. Intelligent devices, like the Cisco Home Energy Controller and Cisco Network Mediator for larger buildings, allows you to manage and monitor energy use. We have new partnerships with Mike Holmes and the Holmes Group as well as others focused on changing construction standards and the way homes are built and designed. It will make a huge difference to sustainable living.

Then there is TelePresence for the home – a set-top box technology we call Cisco umi – that will use high definition televisions for home-telepresence sessions. The technology is absolutely fabulous – vastly beyond what a webcam can deliver. It will change the home and how entertainment, healthcare, educational, personal and professional services are consumed in the home. Video technology will allow us to dramatically change these services so we move from, not just having a connected home, but to living in a smart and connected community. It’s just around the corner. In fact, we have projects in Smart and Connected Communities all around the world. It’s coming to Canada and will bring a sort of Jetsons’ vision to our everyday life.

Question 7.  We've seen an incredible wave of innovation over the past 20 years. How would you describe the current state of innovation?

Answer – Nitin – I believe we are poised for a cycle of innovation, unlike the world has ever seen before. We often find that innovation cycles accelerate during challenging economic periods, and innovation has a compounding effect that fosters even more innovation. Think about how people collaborate around the world, using social media to create conversations and effect change. That brings to mind a quote from Thomas Friedman’s book, The World is Flat, where he said: ‘What can be done, will be done. Will you do it or will it be done to you?’ I think that sums up what’s happening today - if it’s in the realm of the possible, it’s going to get done fairly quickly. And, I find that exciting.

But when we look at Canada, I think a lot of people are concerned about the poor level of innovation and productivity happening in our country. We have a huge challenge ahead. The OECD ranks us 14^thin innovation and productivity. We’re 18^thin the world in the ability to absorb information through communication technology. That’s a frightening statistic because that puts us in the bottom of the G20. But as little as 10 or 12 years ago we were near the top. We Canadians have work to do if we’re to stay global competitive and not become a mere resource for the rest of the world. I think we can absolutely do it - government and major corporations are on the right track, but we ALL need to act and act quickly.

In Part 2 with Nitin Kawale: Driving behavioural change. New market opportunities. Look for it here at TELUS Talks Business on May 18.

This week in 15 Minutes is Brett Marchand, president and CEO of Cossette.

Vision 7 International is among the top 25 international marketing communications companies in the world, with some 1,450 employees in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. It has two operating divisions: Cossette (http://www.cossette.com), an integrated agency that occupies a leadership position in Canada, and Esprit de Corps Communications, a group of discipline-specific marketing agencies. Cossette has offices in Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and Halifax.

This is the conclusion of a two-part interview.

7.            How do you define innovation and its current role in the business world?

A: I define innovation as anything that improves people’s lives, improves productivity or improves financial performance. Innovation can be new products, better processes, and ways of thinking about problems.

8.            Do you foster a culture of innovation in your workplace, and if so, how?

A: It’s our raison d’etre. It’s everything that we are. Our clients expect it of us. Do we foster it? For sure. It is one of our key tenants in our strategic plan: we call it spectacular product. It’s also in our performance reviews of management - innovation has to be one of the key attributes they demonstrate in their leadership qualities. We also have time set aside for doing all kinds of things that inspire innovation. We also have one of the most comprehensive training programs in our industry. We are committed to constant learning.

9.            Social media has grown exponentially in a very short time, yet some business owners are unsure how to optimize these tools.  Has your company invested resources in social media as a communications tool?

A: That’s kind of an interesting question for us because we’re in the social media business. Yes, we’ve invested resources in it.  Approximately four years ago, we bought a company called Rocket XL, which is our fastest growing business. It was based in Los Angeles, we expanded it to New York, and it’s now in Toronto. It’s growing so fast that we’re constantly having to move it because there are not enough desks for the whole team. We’ve invested very heavily in social media on behalf of our clients.

10.            What book are you reading for business?

A:  The last book I read, which I actually re-read, was Good to Great by Jim Collins. Just before that I read a book called The Marketing Accountability Imperative by Michael Dunn. I also recently picked up a book that I had read a long time ago called the Myth of Excellence: Why Great Companies Never Try to Be the Best at Everything, by Fred Crawford.

11.           Based on what you learned in 2010, what will you do differently in 2011?

A:  In 2010, we experienced a massive change as a company.  We fought through a takeover, we took the company private, and ultimately we restructured... putting a new five year strategic plan in place.

We had a massive amount of change in 2010. From our past year’s learnings, I’d say that I’d like to slow it down a bit in 2011, and allow our organization to build upon all the changes we introduced.

12.            If we were to speak again in a year, what would you hope your greatest accomplishment would have been for 2011? Other goals in 2011?

A: I’d like to see even more of our clients be successful and really stand out. I’d also like to see us start expanding more aggressively, attaining an even higher level of international clients.

I have a whole list of other goals. After a couple of years of turmoil between the recession, what happened with the advertising business, and what our company has gone through corporately with ownership changes, my resolution is to get back to basics and focus on what matters: our people, our clients, our product and business development. The goal is to make sure we’re focused on those four fundamentals.

TELUS Talks Business is celebrating 2011 with a series of one-on-one interviews with executives at enterprise-sized companies to gather their thoughts and perspectives on business this year. Technology, innovation and opportunities are the focus.

Is there an executive in your company with a unique perspective on leadership, technology and innovation? To nominate him or her for a 15 Minutes interview, please leave a comment here requesting the survey.

Cell phones, smartphones, BlackBerry, laptops and tablets: with them comes a new flexibility. In Canada, 46% of workplaces currently offer a flexible work program. But customers are telling us that they need some help managing the mobility services that they’re deploying within their organizations.

In Toronto today at the last of the PlayBook ‘Sneak Peak’ events from TELUS and RIM, more than 100 customers from enterprise companies attended to explore the potential role of a tablet in their mobile technology mix. By a show of hands, about 20% of the audience was currently using a tablet. About 50% of them said they expected to be using a tablet by the end of the year.

Jeff Lowe, our Vice-President, Marketing, told the morning crowd that flexible work is a “measurable, predictable venture” that cuts costs, improves employee productivity and helps the environment. It’s a message that resonates with a Toronto audience given the city’s dubious distinction of having the worst commute times in North America.

RIM’s Mark Keating talked about ways in which the PlayBook is built for business, concluding, “The real magic – like the magic of any technology – is that you can change the nature of how you’re doing business, and in doing so, you can make your business more efficient in delivering value to your customer base.”

Here’s what some in the audience had to say afterwards…

“The presentation answered a lot of my questions. We’re an engineering firm so the mobility aspect of working with pictures and data at the site is compelling.” Robert Welsford, with Alison McCurdy, Morrison Hershfield

“Very informative. I loved the technology. This piece compliments the BlackBerry; you can use it in tandem or as a stand-alone.”  Marie Kumabe, PricewaterhouseCoopers Management Services with colleague Ian Mouldey (centre).

“Of my client base, 99% are using BlackBerry. It’s excellent to see the PlayBook first.” Michael Winters, MobileAXS Inc.

“It’s good to see the physical, real world details and a get a feel for the PlayBook before the official launch. There are questions that’ll need to be answered before it really hits the street - like how to manage liability when you have a device that is both a business device and personal device - but it’s got great functionality and capabilities.” David Nesbitt, City of Toronto (centre).

“Interesting presentation. The question is, is it a full-time mobile device or is it an in-between mobile device. We’re thinking about this.” Peter Chu, The Ontario Trillium Foundation (right)

“We’re excited. We’ve been looking for someone to be a leader. There are patients on the move and patients at home. Tools in the home are vital for healthcare.” Saagar Walia, Lawson Health Research Institute (L)

“I’m intrigued. On the health side, we’re looking to see how it will integrate with other solutions.” Matthew Legassic, Lawson Health Research Institute (R)

“I enjoyed it. They could be very useful at site inspections.” Edwin Lang, Ontario Ministry of Health

“I liked it. It’s a little bigger than I thought. It has an exciting future.” Jeff McDonald, CIBC

Josh Quirola, President and CEO, Next Gen Wireless, and Lynn Holloran, account executive for TELUS in the health sector.

For more on the Sneak Peak events, see blogs from Paula Cusati in Vancouver and Peter Hartl in Calgary. TELUS Talks Business will have more news and information about Flexible Work at enterprise companies in the weeks ahead. If you’re thinking about starting or expanding the mobile working capabilities at your company and want more information about the program, just fill out a contact form.

Part 2 of this week’s 15 Minutes for enterprise with Yogen Appalraju, vice-president of TELUS Security Solutions:

5. Does your team as a whole know how to maximize the technologies that are key to your business processes, or do you struggle to communicate technologies that are running ahead of learning?

We adopt technologies because we want to be more efficient in how we work. Everyone faces the constraints of time - there simply is never enough of it. The challenge is that unless you build work processes around technology to enable you to work the way you need to work, sometimes it is difficult to unlock the value of the technology.

That is a key issue, not just for me, but for everybody. In our day-to-day jobs we need to work to ensure we’re achieving the maximum from our technologies. A large part of my team deploys security technology solutions for our customers.  They go through formal training on implementing new technologies all the time so they can be experts on the technology and how to implement at customers sites.

6.  In your position, are you aware of – or even an early adopter of – technology that has yet to come to mass market but that you believe will surface eventually and change lives?

I think the answer to that is smartphones. Today they are devices that allow us to communicate from anywhere and multitask from a voice and data point of view, but we’re using them in fairly rudimentary ways.

We need to be able to build smartphone technology into organization’s business processes and workflows, so we are enabled to do things like take a picture of a defective product and send it the repair team for diagnosis in real time, scan a product to do a price check and update the back-end inventory system, and so forth.

I think that’s coming.

7. We've seen an incredible wave of innovation over the past 20 years. How do you define innovation?

Innovation that allows us to be able to challenge ourselves and interact with technology for entertainment is tremendous. But with everyone being so busy, and the amount of time we spend working, I also believe true innovation enables us to be more productive through technology.

8. What do you envision being added - over time - to products or services in your industry that will expand their market potential?

Today, there are still a lot of old technologies that you see in companies: IT departments are strapped for resources and funding that will enable them to be more effective and facilitate change quicker. So I think the cloud is a big piece of what’s going to happen in the future. There is a lot of work being done there, and I think it is going to change how we do things – at a personal level, but more importantly, at a corporate level.

Tomorrow: Security across mobile devices

TELUS Security Solutions was formed with the merger of TELUS business resiliency and the strategic acquisition of Assurent Secure Technologies in 2006. Today, TELUS Security Labs is a leading leading provider of security research, backing security vendors, large enterprise, and government organizations in North America, Europe, and Asia. In Canada, Yogen Appalraju (pictured) leads a national team of more than 165 that specializes in managed services, security products and consulting,supporting organizations in designing and implementing world-class security capabilities.

TELUS and the Rotman School of Management just released their third annual study on Canadian IT security. For a copy of the report, go to TELUS.com/securitystudy or leave a comment here and request it.

Today we join Adam Famularo, GM of CA Technologies’ Cloud Computing Division for the conclusion of our 15 Minutes conversation.

8. Social media has grown exponentially in a very short space of time yet business owners are unsure how to optimize social media.  To what extent has your company invested resources in social media as a communications tool, or are you waiting for a more robust success model?

AF: I’m very big on social media. Whether it’s using Facebook or Twitter or Youtube, I’m a big fan of social media sites. To be able to get the message out to the population. You’ll see the up and coming Generation Y population, that’s how they consume their technology and share their thoughts today. For instance, “Charlie’s Chocolates” was training video that introduced every employee across the company, to the concept of cloud computing. Eventually we put it on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eqRtETu1xM. We felt it was good for CA and all our partners and customers. It shows that we are thought leaders in this space and are about helping everybody understand what’s going on in this new world of IT.

9. What book are you reading for business?

AF: Extreme Dreams Depend on Teams by Pat Williams.

10. Based on what you learned in 2010, what will you do differently in 2011?

AF: It’s all about speed. From what I’ve learned in 2010 people are moving faster and faster in cloud computing and we have to move there faster. We have to make sure that all of our products are operating in cloud computing environments. We have to make sure that we’re working with our customers to build out their own private clouds and to be able to manage their external cloud environment.

Do you have a New Year’s resolution for your part of the business?

AF: I’m not one to set them. I don’t do it personally and I don’t do it for the business. I’ll actually answer what the goal is. It’s for us to be able to take to market the cloud platform with 3Tera and for us to deliver new cloud products, like Cloud Insight that can help people manage this new complex IT environment in the cloud. 3Tera is a private cloud platform and we’re working on bringing out a new release in the second quarter. The big change there is it enables us to use multiple hypervisors. Today, it’s built on our own version of Xen hypervisor. We’ll be releasing a version that also runs on VMware. The second is role-based access control so they have different levels of authority based upon different users who are accessing the application. Those are the two big feature adds we’ll be releasing in the new version of 3Tera AppLogic.

In a global position with 150 direct reports, Adam Famularo oversees the technology that CA is building to manage cloud computing based environments. CA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA) is an IT management software and solutions company based in New York. CA has more than 13,000 employees and reported revenue of US$4.353 billion in fiscal 2010. www.ca.com.

Are you building a piece of your customer strategy around the web? Any tips on how to use it to stand out with potential customers? Did anything Adam said about the cloud make you think about how you're using it - or whether to use it - for business? As always, your insights and comments are welcome.

This week in the 15 Minutes series for enterprise, we hear from Adam Famularo, GM of CA Technologies’ Cloud Computing Division.

In a global position with 150 direct reports, Adam oversees the technology that CA is building to manage cloud computing based environments. CA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA) is an IT management software and solutions company based in New York. CA has more than 13,000 employees and reported revenue of US$4.353 billion in fiscal 2010. www.ca.com.

1. Successful business people often reference the ways in which their personal experiences inform their work. How do your personal experiences with technology influence your professional life?

AF: I love technology. When something comes out, especially on the consumer side, I’m usually the first in line. I have everything from the latest iPad to the latest iPhone. I usually change phones every 3 months or so. I try to use a lot of cloud computing based services as well. I’m a big Gmail, Google user, even through their Google docs, I use their Picasa for pictures. I try to store as much stuff that’s personal even on the cloud so that I can see it and actually feel what it’s like. I get a little security conscious when I send some of my sensitive word docs or PDFs to Google but I realize after I do it that it’s more just in my mind than anything else. Think about it, what’s safer? Somebody’s ability to hack into my PC at my house or somebody hacking into Google servers?

2. In what specific ways did technology play a role in growing your business in the last 12 months?

AF: We bought a company named Hyperformix for virtualization management. We also bought a consulting company named 4Base to help our customers transition to building out private clouds. We’ve also built a stack of Software as a Service (Saas) offerings. A secondary route for a lot of our customers is going to be working with local MSPs [managed services providers] that they are close with or that they’ve built a good relationship with, where they’re not concerned with security or management. We bought Nimsoft, a network monitoring company, they had roughly 300 MSPs and now roughly 400 MSPs. So we’re bringing our technology out to those MSPs so that they can provide a service to their customers.

3. If you could invent a technology to solve a current business problem of yours (micro or macro), what is the problem and what would the technology do?

AF: One of the challenges CA has that CIOs speak to, is that there are all these choices. Different services to acquire whether it’s an MSP, an SaaS, a platform as a service (Paas), an infrastructure as a service (Iaas). How do they actually measure these against each other and understand what is the best choice for them? We bought a company called Oblicore and the product is Oblicore Guarantee, it was a service level management product. We’re transitioning that product line into something that can help you mange the services that you’re getting from external service providers and working  with companies like Carnegie Mellon to create industry standards around what we call service measurement index  or SMI. Companies can rank what’s more important to them like quality, agility, risk, cost, security and then compare against other services that are out there to determine what is the best product for them. That by far is one of the coolest things we’re working on to help solve a real business challenge that’s coming from this ever changing environment. We’re going to call it CA Cloud Insight.

Tomorrow: Innovation in business, part 2

Friday: Social media and enterprise, part 3

If you could invent a technology to solve a current business problem of yours (micro or macro), what is the problem and what would the technology do? As always, we'd like to hear from you so leave a comment and share.