DCF Show Podcast: Nancy Novak on Data Center Innovation

Innovation is central to the digital transformation driving data center growth. But how do you build it into a data center development process? This week our guest is Nancy Novak, the Chief Innovation Officer at Compass Datacenters. We discuss how innovation is critical to faster and larger capacity deployments, and helped Compass deliver new projects during the pandemic. Nancy also shares her take on diversity in the data center industry – where there’s progress, and how to meet the staffing challenges to come.

DCF Show 16: Nancy Novak on Data Center Innovation

Listen to today’s show:

Here’s a timeline of topics Nancy and I discuss on the podcast:

• 3:45 – The critical importance of sustainability in data center development.
• 8:35 – How COVID-19 altered the data center market.
• 10:00 – Why hyperscale operators are leasing more data center space, and why this trend may continue.
• 11:30 – How data growth drives innovation.
• 14:45 – Why diversity matters, and how (and whether) the data center industry is making progress.
• 18:30 – Construction tech, and how exoskeletons can support diversity.
• 22:20 – The “Cool Factor” and how it can help build the data center workforce of the future.

Here are some resources that tie into our discussion:

• How Technology Can Transform Data Center Construction: Highlights from Nancy Novak’s presentation at Data Center World, which Rich and Nancy discuss in the podcast. How new technology can make data center construction faster, cheaper, safer and more inclusive.
• The People Challenge: Global Data Center Staffing Forecast 2020-2025: This report from the Uptime Institute, which Nancy highlights in our discussion, quantifies the staffing challenge in the data center industry and provides useful guidance for data center operators on workforce recruitment, retention, training and education.
• Executive Insights: Nancy Novak from Compass Datacenters and Infrastructure Masons: In our recent DCFD Executive Roundtable, Nancy

Be sure to check our our free Annual Forecast, outlining the DCF take on the most important trends to watch this year:

• The Eight Trends That Will Shape the Data Center Industry in 2021

Did you like this episode? Be sure to subscribe to the Data Center Frontier show so you get future episodes on your app. We are on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find quality podcasts. You can also subscribe using our RSS feed, and tell your friends and colleagues about our podcast!

We’ve also just launched the Data Center Frontier Channel on YouTube to showcase our videos, where we explain the infrastructure that powers the digital world. If you like data centers or work in the industry, you’ll want to subscribe!