Oppa EMC Style!

Here by popular (infamous perhaps – it’s pretty bad :-) demand… “Oppa EMC Style” from the 2013 EMC Kickoff.

Click below to watch some bad dancing (on my part) – the rest of the team was sharp and hit their mark :-)

People sometimes ask “when do we do this?” and “who are these people?”

The answer – they are all hardworking EMCers like all of us out there!

This was recorded in the waning hours of Q4 in late, late December (was the last thing I did before flying home for the holidays), after the bulk of the SE work starts to wrapup.   In fact, it takes about 9 hours to record, and I was popping in and out to meet with customers and various folks at Cisco as we recorded it at the EMC campus in Santa Clara.

The folks in the video represent a cross-section of EMCers – great, smart, hardworking people.   We try to not make this represent “somebody”, but more “everybody” – a cross section of the great technical folks at EMC that work with customers.

• Heather Boegemann – a MidTier Specialist SE.   In the shot above, she is on the left (to my right).   Heather is one of the smartest folks I know – passionate about VMware, knows EMC’s “MidTier” (not a great name) platforms – VNX and Isilon inside out.
• Jay Cuthrell – member of the Office of the CTO at VCE.  He’s the guy during the “backwards dance” with Fred and I during the “car scene”.  He knows Vblock like nobodies business, and works and travels around the globe to meet with customers like mad.
• Nga Nguyen – Nga heads up our application specialists for the central division in the US.  She joined EMC from Microsoft, and is furiously passionate about the fact (which I agree with) that no one buys infrastructure for infrastructure, they do it to support apps – ergo, it’s all about the application.  Brilliant, hardworking, and passionate.  in the shot above, she’s on the right (to my left).
• John Lockyer – the tall dude in the “Greenplum” “big data!” bit.   Also part of the Office of the CTO at VCE.   John – you rock!
• Fred Nix – part of the Global SE team – works on training, enablement.  He’s the guy who says “giddy up” in the video (and a lot in general) :-).   Fred is a core force in our updated onboarding and associate programs, to get new EMCers into the culture, the spirit, the principles of the EMC Presales Manifesto.  He’s also the “minister of fun” – and does a lot (with many others of course) behind the scenes for the SE conference at EMC World.
• Jeff Thomas – Jeff (“JT”) leads the BRS specialist SEs that focus on virtualization and VMware.   Not only smart, hardworking, but I’ve grown to understand him as a great leader too – steady, balanced.   Anyone who has enjoyed the hands-on labs at EMC World over the last 2 years – thank JT :-)  He’s also lead the EMC efforts to support the VMworld hands on labs for the last 3 years.
• Stephen Hunt – Stephen is a vSpecialist that came from the Smarts side of EMC’s technology portfolio.  Smart, flexible, doing a lot behind the scenes on our work around management and orchestration.
• Eoin O’Keefe – a member of the Global Solutions Center team in the EMC Solutions Group.  One of my favorite moments was that during set changes, he’s logged into an older EMC NS array rebuilding the platform via the Control Station manually… and he can dance :-)  I can do the former, but clearly not the latter :-)

Fred Nix is the the creative start behind these sort of things for the most part.   He writes up the lyrics and then he goes to a recording studio (which is really awesome fun) called Patchwerk.   Now, Fred has a great relationship with the folks there – so he does it on the cheap after everyone else closes down (it’s usually 11pm-1am ish).  We’ve also got a great “backscratching” relationship – they needed storage for all the audio and video editing – a great set of Iomega kit helps them get their creative work done :-)   Thanks Fred!

For the recording – one of the most creative dudes I’ve ever met - EMCer Greg Gotts – who is the mind behind all the awesome and funny videos EMC folks see, and the mind-blowing videos at EMC World helps, and Bruce Hamady and crew (both also are key for Chad’s World – episode 16 is up!) do all the recording and editing.

It’s done on a shoestring budget, after everyone does their day jobs, and most importantly – on a spirit of EMC fun :-)   I hope you enjoy!

PS – it’s hard work on your quads :-)

Comments

[Tomas Bob]

GREAT VIDEO!!! GREAT JOB!!! Thanks for make me laugh

[Marie Nix]

Dear Stars of Work and Video,

Fred Nix is my Son. I knew all along he would make good, someday. What a video! And, oh, how adorable he is in his little bow tie! (Somewhere, there's a looong-ago Easter Sunday morning picture of Fred, that cutie pie; wearing a bow tie almost exactly like the one he wears in the video [suitable for blackmail, perhaps?]. Give me a call but make it worth my while.)

Thanks,
Marie Nix

[Jason Boche]

Top shelf Chad & gang.

[Idan]

Hey Chad,
I met you at a conference of EMC Israel as a customer, in that meeting you seemed like strange bird in the IT world.
This is the stuff that encourages creativity.
Great personal example and respect for the video, you made ​​me want to work at EMC!

[Ben Hinkle]

There are certain things that can never be un-learned; a gorilla dancing on top of Chad @ 2:05 falls into that category. Definitely a video that will live in infamy. Nice work!

[Charles Hockenbarger]

Chad, really? :-)

What in the world were you thinking, man? You never cease to make me laugh.

Nice job.

[Nag]

This kind of thing makes me glad I work at EMC!

[Denise LeBlanc]

Your video got a mention in the Boston Business Journal:
http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/mass_roundup/2013/01/emc-gangnam-style.html

[viral]

Chad
you rock man!

Sincerely
Viral Patel

[Jim Millard]

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