Tools, Trends & Culture

Last week we caught you up on how Data Center Discovery is helping folks to make sense of the complicated world of finding the right colocation or hosting provider, migrating to the cloud or building and operate their own data center.

Check it out to get the nuts and bolts of the business and their offerings, then read below to hear how Eric Gallant got the idea for it, his favorite collaboration tools, where he finds out about new trends and more.

How'd You Get The Idea For It:
Over the course of 23 years in the data center industry I developed a large network of professional contacts that spans the globe and a wide variety of industry segments. My data center customers came to rely on me and my network to locate the vendors and partners they needed to design, build and operate their facilities. For these customers, tapping into my network produced more efficient and reliable results than an Internet search. I realized that our industry needed an accurate and reliable resource that could help data center developers and owners source products and services. I developed and launched the DataCenterDiscovery.com directory in an effort to fulfill that need.

Collaboration Tools & Processes Do You Use:
The DataCenterDiscovery.com team is currently very small and close knit. As a result, most of our collaboration takes place across a conference table or around a white board. We also use Balsamiq Mockups to create and build on ideas about the look and feel of our website and we use Dropbox to organize and exchange files.

Where do you gain your insights from and how do you stay on top of emerging trends?
Social media and Google Alerts are a big part of our strategy. We follow our customers and prospects on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook and keep an eye out for opportunities to help promote their businesses on our site. We also set up Google Alerts for a number of data center industry related keywords. Reviewing our Google Alerts on a daily basis allows us to keep up with emerging trends in this dynamic and quickly evolving industry.

What's Unique About Your Company Culture?
We are all very passionate about sports. In particular, college football. Last fall, some of our marketing initiatives and important launch dates were picked in order to not interfere with bowl season or other important games. We are also passionate about stretching our knowledge and capabilities into areas that are unfamiliar to us. For example, I’m a 46 year old CEO who’s learning to code in PHP and our Marketing Director is developing serious financial analysis skills.

What You Need Most Right Now:
We need more web traffic. Strong web analytics figures help attract new customers and demonstrate value to existing clients.

[Photo Credit: http://datacenterdiscovery.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Data-Center-Discovery-Logo-on-Top.jpg]