The Planet Blog

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that little more than a year ago, and for the four years prior, I worked in sales for a company called EV1Servers. The news that our happy little family was being sold to a private equity firm came as shock to say the least, but the real surprise was when rumors started to surface that this private equity firm had also purchased The Planet, our largest competitor and arch nemesis.

Few entities in history have been as fiercely competitive and fearful of the other as our two organizations. Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, Lex Luthor and Superman and Khan Noonien Singh and Captain Kirk are a few examples that come close, but still don’t quite capture the essence that was the rivalry between The Planet and EV1Servers.

We had several proud and storied traditions, one of which was the Sumofan, a big plastic sumo wrestler holding a foam desktop fan. Aaron Conklin, whose blog appeared on Tuesday, had acquired him at a white elephant gift exchange and he became a trophy, bestowed upon the person who had given the last good burn (the term “burn” in this instance refers to “insult”). As the last person to give the other a good burn – although I can’t for the life of me remember what it was – the Sumofan has been in my exclusive possession since I moved from the call center to the corporate office late last year.

When our merger was made official and our two sales teams joined forces, we identified a commonality very quickly. On a visit to Dallas, Aaron spotted a Sumofan on the desk of another sales executive Jeff Reinis. Turns out our Dallas Sales team used him as sort of an anti-trophy, he was the Sumofan of Shame. He was the albatross around the neck of the last salesperson to lose a deal. This striking similarity was really groundbreaking for us and our relationship with Dallas, and we now had cultural ambassadors, Houston Sumofan and Dallas Sumofan, to bring us even further toward our goal of absolute mutual understanding.

When we had our first company-wide corporate meeting in Crockett, Texas, this past April, Jeff brought his Sumofan and I brought mine. We traded, allowing our Sumofans to travel and experience life at the other offices. Dallas Sumofan seems to be enjoying his time at the corporate office, and he’s always good for keeping things cool.

I haven’t gotten any calls from Houston Sumofan begging to come back home so I can only assume things are going alright for him as well. At the next company-wide meeting we will exchange them again, and so on, until the end of time.

- Brooke

As I prepared to contribute to The Planet’s blog, I tried to think about what topic to cover. Would I dredge up open source vs. COTS, .Net vs. J2EE or the promise of SOA? That’s when it came to me.

It really doesn’t matter about the technology topic if you weigh in on the importance of the upcoming U.S. holiday. Without the 4^th of July, there probably wouldn’t be a number of the technologies we all enjoy today. Not every technology comes from the U.S. since a great number of our customers are from locations around the world. There are brilliant people spanning the globe, and technology is responsible for opening doors and removing international barriers.

If you are an American, regardless of political affiliation, you understand how fortunate we are in the U.S. We have the freedom to pick our favorite sports team, programming language or auto manufacturer. And we can fuss and fight with our peers about which is the best. Even if you don’t agree with me completely, we have the freedom to discuss it vigorously.

I look forward to celebrating the birth day of the United States on the 4^th of July. My family and I are planning to meet friends at the lake. I’m sure I’ll to eat too much and will do something stupid like attempt to water ski beyond my ability. Most of all, I look forward to spending time with family. And for a brief time I don’t have to think about technology.

After all, technology is what I do for a living!

The 4^th is a good time to think about those who came before us and sacrificed so much for our country. Based on what this holiday represents, you have the freedom to disagree with me too. I invite you to add to the conversation.

- Bryan