The New Mass Migration That May Be Affecting You
The transition from VMware to AWS is accelerating rapidly in 2025, driven by a confluence of market pressures, changing licensing models, and the clear benefits of cloud adoption. For thousands of organizations globally, migrating from VMware to AWS has become not just a consideration, but a necessity to remain competitive, cost-efficient, and future-ready. Why Are Dozens of Thousands of Companies Migrating from VMware to AWS? The motivation for this mass migration is clear: Market Size and 2025 Migration Statistics Why AWS Is the Top Choice for VMware Workload Migration Benefit VMware On-Premises AWS Cloud Relative Advantage Initial Cost $50,000+ $0, […]
Who’s Really in Charge?
Who is in charge? It’s an important question that may keep us all grounded as we Viewing Teams meetings, I’m always reminded that humility is virtuous. Recently, after meeting with our Execs Michael W. Dyer and Skip McCormick for Cornerstone 2.0, I reflected a little bit about this new journey we are on to make Cornerstone great again. In 2018, we negotiated the sale of Cornerstone Technologies 1.0 to Sonasoft Corporation (SSFT-OTCQB). Part of the negotiation was that I would become CEO and perform a capital raise from prospective investors upon closing. But the stress and fatigue caught up to […]
Delegation or Escape? (Pt. 2)
In a former article I wrote about Delegation vs. Abdication, I discussed how the difference between productive “delegation” and weak “abdication” came down to two things: 1. EMPOWERING and remaining invested in an assignment for an employee, show you care and are there to help to the best of your ability VS. 2. ESCAPING a responsibility; simply dishing off an assignment and not providing much in the way of support for who you assigned the task to.To favor the power of delegation, at Amazon Web Services (AWS), we were always encouraged to create mechanisms. Simply, a “mechanism” here is a […]
Delegation or Escape?
Some years ago, while me and my pastor were “breaking the rules” of Christendom (i.e. taking our children “trick or treating” while sipping our bottles of Mike’s hard lemonade), I took advantage of the opportunity to complain to him about the shortcomings of those around me. Namely my complaint was that those about me didn’t run with the assignments I delegated to them and instead would put in periodic efforts to meet the minimum expectation and then hope that I would forget or worst yet, acknowledge the request and then ignore it, which frustrated me. What makes a “Good Leader?” Being […]
Strong Ethos or “Squished Like Grape?”
Strong Ethos or “Squished Like Grape?” What is your ethical appeal? Are you believable or not? Do you have your own personal interests top of mind, or are you equally interested in the goodwill of your customers or your audience? Those with a strong Ethos are credible, trustworthy, knowledgeable and appeal to their audience. Alternatively, those with a weak Ethos are unconvincing and struggle to win buy in with even the least of proposals. What’s interesting is that, hearkening to previous thoughts and posts, I emphasized the paradox of how people can very well come across as credible, while deceiving […]
What Does it Mean to “Hire and Develop The Best?”
What Does it Mean to ‘Hire and Develop The Best?’ | Amazonian Leadership Principles Legally, a corporation is its own separate entity, its own body, acting in the marketplace as an individual. But just like bodies of our own, every company is made of parts and, no matter how small—many moving parts that vary in size and responsibility, and yet all contribute to the same thing: the health of the company. So, how does this idea of the importance that each person is a part of one whole, maybe not acting in unison, but wanting the same things, relate to […]
Earning Trust and The Second Greatest Commandment
The Human Element in Sales Upon first graduating college, I knew two things that might seem ironic to many of you now: I didn’t want to go into sales I never wanted to work in technology This may come as a surprise to many, as throughout my career, those two items have been at the core of what I do for over 30 years now. But before I ever began, I felt like both sales and tech were not for me. The market didn’t seem to reward upstanding character and didn’t necessarily disclose nor punish deceit (i.e. on the seller […]
We all are Biased: Now Let’s Have a Bias for Action
We all are Biased: Now Let’s Have a Bias for Action We’re all biased. But most of the time when we hear that “b-word,” we think of political opposition or media manipulation. But it goes farther than that. Philosophies and beliefs aside, we all have things we favor and prioritize in our lives, and in doing in our daily tasks. As a biased person myself, one of my favorite Amazon Web Services (AWS) principles is a “bias for action.” Like many leaders, our CEO at Cornerstone Technologies, Michael Dyer, former Sergeant United States Marine Corps, inspires our team to think big and deliver results, but […]
Diversity or Agreement?
Embracing diversity will drive growth, but not necessarily agreement In a world that is obsessed with one-sided diversity, a trait I’ve come to highly value from leaders is their ability to listen and consider a difference of ideas and opinions. Even more valuable is a humble, dissenting subordinate. At Amazon (Amazon Web Services (AWS)), they label this under their Leadership Principle (LP) “Have Backbone…disagree and commit.” While Amazonians aspire to own the 16 valued “LPs”, it is easy to let the less appealing or rewarding “LPs” fall by the wayside for the sake of personal comfort and preservation. The most […]