Learning is the essence of life. We don’t come into this world as ready-made intellectuals to take the world by storm and turn it upside down. But rather, we come here to learn and grow with time in different phases of our life. Some of us end up as quick learners, while others take the turtle’s pace.
While that’s completely normal, the point here is not to bore you with some very fundamental and oft-repeated truths about life, but to introduce you to an inspiring personality who is courageous, extremely quick at learning, shrewd in implementation, and perfectly demonstrates the significance of learning in our lives.
Jeff Eiben spent most of his time in technical sales roles in various companies he worked at before starting River Point Technology, a cloud service provider, now his primary business. Starting with Westinghouse Electric and followed by Mallet, Ansoft, and then VMware, he kept switching places from time to time, whenever he deemed fit. But while there couldn’t be any question on his sales performance, he was eyeing something else as well.
Growing up with an interest in science and technology, Jeff was always inclined toward these subjects. His graduation was also in engineering and because of his brilliant performance as a student at West Virginia University, Westinghouse Electric offered him a role soon after completion of his studies. The pay was healthier than his expectation. Everything was perfect. But what made him curious was the use of technology and its role in business growth.
In his following jobs, he observed similar trends in companies and was astonished to see the potential of multiple emerging technologies. Cloud computing was one of them. Though the technology was still at the threshold, a far-sighted person like Jeff could realize its long-term impacts once streamlined. To his surprise, the IT department at VMware chose to cast the idea of the cloud aside whenever it came up.
“Making matters more interesting for me, my employer and colleagues were laughing off the threat offered by cloud computing. In internal meetings, when I was asking about strategy, they were insisting that nobody would run production applications in such an environment,” shares Jeff.
However, Jeff was well-aware of the opportunity that cloud computing presented and eventually left VMware to start his own business, River Point Technology, to assist businesses in adopting the new emerging tech. He knew that it was game-changing. The flexibility and operational ease that cloud computing provided were peerless. The storage, server, internet, and software equipment would have been shunned and the labyrinth of wires gotten rid of.
But the dilemma was, first, companies were hesitant in disturbing their contemporary system in place and replacing it with something utterly new. And second, technologists lacked time to thoroughly deliberate upon the pros and cons of embedding cloud technology in their business. Jeff was caught in the crosshairs of misplaced speculation.
“River Point Technology was founded on the basis of my strength in reading the technology market and being able to see where it was going. Our goal at the outset was to help companies create a strategy and a roadmap for integrating new technology, particularly the cloud, into their organizations,” says Jeff.
But that goal could only see fruition when Jeff developed a model he termed ‘Value Creation Technology.’
It allowed technologists to calculate the risk factor in incorporating the cloud in their business and ‘fail fast and generate small wins’ quickly. And this model worked big time!
It not only catapulted River Point Technology into the limelight of the business sector but also proved to be a game-changer for many businesses.
Creatively made by Jeff Eiben, the VCT model is still in place, aiding businesses in reaching their maximum potential. Truth be told, such gaps have always existed in every era, and every time, someone like Jeff Eiben chips in and uses his skills to close these gaps and set a new precedent for more Jeffs to follow.
But for now, you can follow Jeff Eiben on his LinkedIn here.
