XBlog

This Cloud Isn’t Made of Gas

The recession hasn’t done much to slow down the flood of technology splashing down on us since Silicon Valley exploded in the 90’s. After the boom and bust of the dot.com era, ideas were launched worldwide that had been fomenting since the 1950’s in tiny alcoves of academia and industry.

40 some years of pressure build up can cause quite a bang.

Kicking Up the Dust

Today’s “cloud computing” buzz is like the dust kicked up by the tech bubble’s explosion, and despite claiming a “virtual” existence, the physical infrastructure for this “cloud” is an impressive bit of machinery.

Google alone operates out of 36 datacenters and with the global interest in electronic medical records, a national health information network, intelligence sharing centers for law enforcement and emergency management, traffic cameras and all the rest,  the number of data-centers being opened (and needing construction) around the globe is staggering.

Take a quick look at this worldwide map of data-center locations and see for yourself:

http://www.datacentermap.com/

They may call it a “cloud”, but with this kind of physical infrastructure the so-called  “cloud” isn’t very gaseous.

Possible Effects

Gordon Brown, Prime Minister for the UK, recently addressed the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford. His comments on Global ethics in a connected world are even more powerful on a local level.

He asks what the possible effects would be if “the power of our moral sense (was) allied with the communications facilities we have”?

Global Voices, Local Connections

We marvel at communicating with people in China on our iPhones, but in looking so far afield we’ve lost sight of our own back yard. The same technologies that let us communicate our ideas on a global scale are far more valuable in connecting us to the shared experience of our neighborhoods and communities.

What can we do to better equip our communities to begin this kind of dialogue? What can we do on a personal level to insure our worldwide communications networks are mirrored in our local networks?

Building a Base

The power to connect with each other in a shared economic and technological network is a wonderful tool. SMB’s need to leverage and build these networks to insure that the communities they serve remain solvent in these trying times. Entrepreneurs need to build a base, a solid platform, for these initiatives to take off in their communities and then the world.

This great article from the New York Times (posted by @valdiskrebs on Twitter) goes into some of the challenges and rewards that businesses are seeing from collaborative efforts:

Netflix Competitors Learn the Power of Teamwork

What can we do as entrepreneurs and business owners to help foster collaboration not only in our industries, but also in our communities?

Check back later in the week when we’ll talk more about these relationships in a post titled, Phantom Partners.

A New Voice for the XNet Blog

Those of you who’ve been loyally following the XNet blog may have noticed a bit of downtime over the last couple of months. Well, we’re back on track with a new Blogger and I’ll be keeping you all up to date on the weekly happenings here at our Critical Computing Facility.

A short walk

My name is David Metcalfe and I’m the newest addition to the XNet team. Over the years I’ve worked with MaconRaine, Inc. and the former Bradley Wiltjer Marketing Group, both sponsors of the Silicon Prairie Social, so I’ve been on the periphery of XNet for awhile.

Beyond my personal associations with the folks here, due to the fact that I live in Lisle much of what I do is supported by XNet in one way or another. They host services for Morton Arboretum, the Lisle Library and the Village of Lisle itself. As an active naturalist, reader and resident they support services that I use on a weekly basis.

Off time pursuits

A fascination with culture has lead me to explore every aspect of history, music, art, literature, politics and science that I can unreasonably cram into my day.  Outside of XNet I’m the Creative Director/illustrator for The Absurdist Monthly Review, an internationally distributed e-journal that explores avant-garde literary theory, experimental writing techniques and the history of absurdism. I also do a bit of scrawling for my own e-publication The Eyeless Owl and for a variety of bloggers and online authors as the mood strikes me.

On the horizon

It’s exciting to have an opportunity to work with XNet directly rather than just hovering on the border. All the activity around here is giving me a chance to stretch my professional skills and put those nights researching the ebb and flow of culture to good use.

Keep your eyes open for XNet’s newsletter in the next couple of weeks as well as announcements on upcoming Silicon Prairie Social events and an XNet Open House coming sometime in October. We had a blast at the last SPS in April and we’re looking forward to seeing everyone again in September. Also, if you’re a Twitter user, check us out @xnetinfosys .

Welcome to XNet’s new Blog … XBlog!

Thanks for stopping by! We just launched our new web site over here at XNet, and with that comes our first company blog.

So, who are we?

The people: XNet’s bloggers are President and co-founder Arthur Zards, and Tim Courtney, our Marketing Specialist. You can read more about us on the sidebar to the right.

The company: We’re a local, private business. Like many early Internet companies, XNet was founded in a basement. We were one of Illinois’ first ISPs in the early 1990s, and we were founded by Naperville Central High School graduates Arthur Zards, Brian Clark, and Brian Vargyas. Today, Arthur Zards and Brian Clark still run the company.

We’re entrepreneurs. I think that goes without saying, given the previous point, but it bears repeating.

We’re an Internet company (and yes we do think that makes us cool). Even cooler, we enable Internet companies (and all other types of businesses, too) by hosting their servers and providing needed network infrastructure.

Why are we blogging?
We believe that sharing our business experience, lessons we’ve learned, along with writing about what we’re up to will foster new partnerships, strengthen existing relationships, and challenge all of us to personal growth. So, we’re going to  do just that:

• share our passion—winning customer service
• talk up our customers and friends, and
• tell the world what we’re up to.

Since we’re an Internet company, our posts will usually have a little technical flair. From time to time, posts will center around what’s going on in our industry and how it applies to the people who use our services.

A couple things to do before you go:

1. Subscribe to this blog via your RSS reader or via email. That way, our posts will come to you as we publish them.
2. Introduce yourself. Write a comment on this post or any other post … tell us who you are and what you’re thinking

That’s all for now…