billso.com

One of the country’s largest web hosting companies, The Planet, is still down after a fire knocked out their main data center’s transformer. To their credit, Planet managers have been providing regular updates on a web forum. Here’s update #2, which is a good example:

Today at approximately 5:45 p.m. [CDT], a transformer in our H1 data center in Houston caught fire, thus requiring us to take down all generators as instructed by the fire department. All servers are down.

The Houston Fire Department ordered Planet staff to shut down the data center’s electric generators. Approximately 7500 9000 web servers and 9000 7500 customers are affected.

One reason that I use DreamHost.com to host billso.com is the incredible level of transparency that DreamHost provides. DreamHost is employee-owned, which helps explains their reporting policy. I’ve never had a major problem with DreamHost, but I know that I can check the status reports for the data center and most of their servers at any time, on the Web or with RSS

See Center Networks for more comments about the Planet fire. I agree with Allen Stern - given the number of servers and clients affected, I expected to hear much more on the blogosphere this morning. The outage affects Planet’s Server Command, ResellOne, and legacy EV1 customers.

The Hosting News posted an excellent article on 29 May 2008 about several recently completed projects at The Planet. It’s tempting to think that this project and the fire are connected, but there’s no indication of that yet. The Planet used to be known as EV1. I remember EV1 from from my years in Austin, when that company offered cut-rate dial-up internet service and web hosting. Their radio commercials were just awful.

The Register and Broadband Reports have posted very brief reports, and here’s the Wikipedia page for EV1.

The annual SXSW (South by Southwest) music show has wrapped up in Austin, Texas. The New York Times has a great article about the show. When i lived in Austin, I never went to SXSW. The crowds and traffic around downtown were insane.

The record companies look more and more like they are waging an endgame battle. When buyers no longer want or need what an industry offers, companies must reinvent themselves or die. Lou Reed tells a packed conference hall that bands need the Internet more than a record label. Daniel Lanois raves about his ability to sell music the day he recorded the session. REM performed its entire new album at a listening party, and no one questioned whether the songs would be posted to file sharing services. The only question was how long it would take before the tracks were freely available.

Bits vs atoms

Something smells inevitable here, and it’s not teen spirit. It’s the ubiquity of digital distribution, and how quickly North American and European consumers have embraced the new business model. Consumers still buy CDs, but sales volume continues to drop while legitimate online sales volume grows every quarter.
There’s another Times article this weekend about free music downloads, with these two quotes:

“Of course a panel on online music-business models was going to degenerate into a food fight,” wrote Joseph Weisenthal of paidContent.org.

The stew boiled over when Ted Mico, the head of digital strategy at Interscope/Geffen/A&M records, declared, “I need more marketing and promotion on the Internet like I need a root canal without anesthetic.”

With an attitude like that, I’m sure Ted was thrilled that blogger Perez Hilton hosted his own listening party at SXSW this year. According to this article on the AP, Perez merely attended last year’s conference. This year, he’s an industry player who may announce his own marketing and promotion deal with Warner soon. That’s another sign of endgame desperation. The day I need Perez Hilton to pick my music will be a sad day indeed.

William A. Sodeman is an associate professor of information systems in the College of Professional Studies at Hawaii Pacific University in Honolulu. He was promoted to the rank of associate professor in 2005.

He teaches graduate-level courses in the MSIS, MBA and Executive MBA programs, with a primary focus on the strategic management of technology, innovation and information systems.

He teaches several online courses each year. He currently uses this blog and TurnItIn.com to manage his courses, and he has also used WebCT and Moodle to manage sections.

His current research interests include social networking, stadium naming rights agreements, and socially responsible investing. His recent publications include 6 articles in the Encyclopedia of Business Ethics (Sage, 2007) and the CIW Foundations Study Guide (Sybex, 2002).

He has directed several MSIS student research projects, and has taught several research methods courses.

Dr. Sodeman has also taught Java programming courses, although he does more work with PHP these days.

Dr. Sodeman was the chair of the HPU Faculty Assembly for the 2007-08 academic year.

From 2003 to 2006, he was the program chair for Information Systems at HPU. He also directed the first two cohorts of the MSIS Professional program.

He was the secretary of the Honolulu chapter of the AITP from 2004 to 2006, and is a director of the chapter.

He has taught graduate and undergraduate courses on management, business policy, business & society and international business at Marquette University (visiting assistant professor, 1993-1994) and the University of Southern Indiana (assistant professor, 1994-1997).

Education

In 1993, Dr. Sodeman received his Ph.D. in business administration from the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia. His major field of study was strategic management, with a minor in management information systems. Dr. Sodeman also took courses on entrepreneurship, technology & innovation, business & society, and research methods. He was inducted into Sigma Iota Epsilon in 1990, and Blue Key in 1992.

While he was a doctoral teaching assistant, he taught over 20 undergraduate sections of business policy and principles of management. The university was on the quarter system, and doctoral students were regularly given solo teaching assignments for sections of 30 to 50 undergraduate business students.

His dissertation, Social investing: The role of corporate social performance in investment decisions, examined the decision making processes that socially responsible investment (SRI) managers use. His dissertation chair was Dr. Archie B. Carroll. The dissertation was nominated twice for the annual best dissertation award of Social Issues in Management division of the Academy of Management. Copies of the dissertation are available for purchase from UMI.

He earned his MBA and was inducted into Beta Gamma Sigma in 1988 at the Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. Crummer was and remains one of the few AACSB-accredited graduate business programs in the USA that focuses exclusively on its MBA program. The Crummer School does not offer an undergraduate business degree or a doctorate.

While he was at Crummer, Dr. Sodeman served as the secretary of the MBA Student Association and hosted a weekly alternative music radio show at WPRK-FM. He also completed a student internship with the Orlando Utilities Commission, during which he wrote a software simulation for the commission’s electric generation network.

In 1986, Dr. Sodeman earned a BA degree in fine arts at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. He worked in several media, including painting, intaglio, and photography. He hosted alternative and classical radio programs at WCWM-FM, where he also served as chief announcer and training director. During this time, he also assisted in planning the station’s move from Phi Beta Kappa Hall to its current location in the Student Center. He also worked as an intern at the Muscarelle Museum of Art. He was inducted into the Society of Collegiate Journalists in 1985.

Interests

Dr. Sodeman has completed 5 marathons and a 50km ultramarathon.

He lettered in track at Jesuit High School of Tampa, where he ran 1 and 2 mile events.

My last name

My last name is very easy to pronounce and spell.

Here’s a handy pronunciation guide from PronounceNames.com

My university email address includes my entire last name.

There is NO “R”.

There’s only ONE “N”.

Austin: The Register reports that AgitProperties has Fox News parodies, Ted Rall t-shirts, and other amusing items.