During two jam-packed days at Data Centre World in London in March 2024, I spent most of the 48 hours engulfed in data center conversations, presentations, booth tours, press interviews, analyst briefings and debates—and I am including breakfast, lunch and dinner. Any time I was not sleeping , I was consumed with every topic related to the IT industry that I could imagine.
Unfortunately, as I settled in and fastened my seatbelt, I discovered it's hard to turn off your brain after so much stimulation. I was looking for ways to put data centers out of my mind when I spotted Bruce Springsteen's full-lengthYes, the original 1975 album that I had grown up with, that I knew all the words to, that I had listened to on vinyl dozens of times. I even saw his concert in 2023 in his home state of New Jersey, where he played every song onexcept one.
That was just the start, as I kept relating his lyrics to the world of IT. I had turned to Bruce Springsteen for an escape, as I had done before when I saw him in concert and on Broadway when he played solo on guitar and piano, performing his music and sharing stories from his life. I wanted him to take me away from work for a bit. Instead, the man who has probably never been in a data center unintentionally took me to the heart of what is happening in our industry.