iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 10/09/2026

The announcement that interested me most at VMware Explore was TrueSource, a collection of products designed to help devs and agents use open source packages more safely. In the vid I talk about the announcement and broader industry trends around it. youtu.be/OpsuNzxKxaY

youtu.be

RedMonk Quick Take: VMware Explore 2026

YouTube video by RedMonk

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 13/08/2026

New MonkCast! I talked with Sehjung Hah from @broadcom.bsky.social about the work they've done to shift the VCF platform from dashboard-centric operations to API-first, programmable workflows.

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 12/08/2026

This is legitimately so good!

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Jake Lazaroff @jakelazaroff.com · 12/08/2026

hot damn this is great

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 04/08/2026

If you’re an AI skeptic, may I please suggest “convert this shitty pdf of my child’s school calendar into an .ics file” as a use case?

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 20/07/2026

Hey San Francisco! @redmonk.com beers tomorrow (Tue Jul 21). We're meeting up at Orbit Room on Market, 7:00 to whenever we're done. :)

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 17/07/2026

I'm in San Francisco for AMD and will be hosting RedMonk beers! Tue Jul 21 - more details to come If you want to get notified when we're throwing down in your city, be sure to sign up at monksignal.com

monksignal.com

MonkSignal — RedMonk City Alerts

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Dennis Detwiller @drgonzo123.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Canadian graffiti

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 15/07/2026

When you cash in your kids’ BookIt coupons and realize that you also deserve a little something for your exemplary summer reading (with a cross-realization that you have grownup money and can order what you want)

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 02/07/2026

one of my specialties is sneezing after applying liquid eyeliner and ending up looking like I lost a fight with a sharpie

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 30/06/2026

Gender policing hurts everyone, and there is no gender equality that excludes our trans friends.

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 30/06/2026

Just FYI that some of the iPad apps use math questions as a parental control barrier to prevent kids from getting to the advanced settings, and you should be wary of your five-year old suddenly asking you "mama, what's six times eight?"

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 29/06/2026

dammit, I am at 10273 Spotted Owl Ave looking for 2+ window replacements this week if only I had the correct hair color for this deal!

Redhead, its Sam. We are quoting window replacements near 10271 Spotted Owl Ave this week. Are you looking to replace 2+ windows?

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 03/06/2026

New on the MonkCast! JSON Schema underpins every OpenAPI spec, MCP tool, and LLM structured output, but mostly nobody talks about it. Come listen to Juan Cruz Viotti as we chat about the power that comes from caring about a technology layer everyone else is ignoring.

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 27/05/2026

our application to the animal rescue said "our house is already baby proofed" with such confidence. alas...

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 07/05/2026

so I know that it's just automated marketing. I know it is completely impersonal. I know they are playing me. but I still like it when my dentist, eye doctor, and former mortgage broker wish me a happy birthday.

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 30/04/2026

There was a moment during this video production where we thought we wouldn't have access to @kateholterhoff.com's picture with Weezer. I made this masterpiece as a placeholder, and I think it's pretty good. But you should probably watch the video and see the real one.

stick figure drawings of Weezer with Kate in the middle

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 30/04/2026

as someone who has battled with the model to try to get it to stop saying 'goblins' I feel somewhat vindicated reading this also... cc/ @quinnypig.com

"Google Doc screenshot goblin" is some shit Corey Quinn would say to me. You're not my nemesis, Chatty, but you're going to be if you keep this up.

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 29/04/2026

I recently filmed a MonkCast episode with Audrey Bian from Broadcom. She explained the features of the latest VKS 3.6 release and talked me through how the platform benefits various roles in the enterprise. Check out the full episode (with visuals!) here: redmonk.com/videos/vks-a...

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 21/04/2026

I recorded a delightful conversation with Jay Thontakudi, talking about how developers and platform teams can benefit from VMware's partnership with Canonical

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 07/04/2026

"I'm just calling to see what the Senator is doing today to prevent war crimes?" is not a phone call I had ever planned to make.

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 31/03/2026

The world feels particularly cruel right now so I want to say this again with my full chest. To the amazing transgender people I know and love (and all those I haven't met yet): you make the world better. Thank you for being you in an increasingly hostile world. We are so lucky to have you. 🏳️‍⚧️💕

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Valerie 💖 @sevenohthree.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

Using this opportunity to talk about my really cool clock again

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Wiredferret! @wiredferret.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

A system always includes the mental model of the people using it, the people, the tools, and the dialogue. Numbers are scary because they change how the world affects people. Show your working Be correctable, not just correct Extent existing mental models Design for safe failure

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Ricardo J. Méndez @ricardo.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

Double-entry accounting as observability and verifiability for money is a sensational parallel. “Don’t just be correct - be correctable.” @ashley.rolfmore.com #monkigras

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 19/03/2026

kicking off #monkigras with @monkchips.com! (this year’s conference is about preparedness, with a decidedly RedMonk amount of chaos mixed in)

James in stage, sponsor signage in background. Thank you sponsors!

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 19/03/2026

I love that @nathenharvey.bsky.social is making sure we all have enough fucks to give

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David Pollak @dpp.me · 17/03/2026

Spice Labs is giving away tastes of its Post Quantum Cryptography discovery and inventory tools Get PQC compliance information on post-build artifacts (CBOM, static call analysis, runtime call analysis) as well as a crypto-agility rating without burdening eng www.einpresswire.com/article/9000...

einpresswire.com

Spice Labs Launches 'Amuse Bouche,' a Free Taste of PQC Discovery/Inventory Tools

Security pros can receive a free analysis of their Post-Quantum Cryptography posture in minutes

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gaby berkman (she/her) @gabyberk.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Video evidence of the time we ran around London @monkchips.com talking about all things #observability. I love this video. It highlights that context is king, how you approach observability matters, and how to understand what you are looking at. Relatable for both data AND life! @redmonk.com

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 14/03/2026

from now on i will now be introducing myself as “rachel with technology“

Spam text message that starts, “hey Rachel, this is Pasqual with technology”

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 04/03/2026

from an outsider's perspective, I spent 20 minutes this morning booking appointments. but that myopic view erases the 6 months of avoidance, denial, and general anxiety it took to get me to this 20 minutes. please respect my art.

It always reminds me of the story about the woman who approached Picasso in a restaurant, asked him to scribble something on a napkin, and said she would be happy to pay whatever he felt it was worth. Picasso complied and then said, “That will be $10,000.”

“But you did that in thirty seconds,” the astonished woman replied.

“No,” Picasso said. “It has taken me forty years to do that.”

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 24/02/2026

There are always so many gems in this newsletter.

First of all, Algorhythm is an incredible name for a karaoke-pivoting-to-AI company. Second, here is its announcement that “its SemiCab platform in live customer deployments is enabling its customers’ internal operations to scale freight volumes by 300% to 400% without a corresponding increase in operational headcount.”

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 24/02/2026

a joke from my preschooler for your timeline: What does a penguin call its water bottle? … A waddle bottle

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 19/02/2026

Databases aren’t going away, but how they fit in the modern data landscape is shifting. Here's how we're thinking about the unbundling of storage, compute, and interface layers at @redmonk.com redmonk.com/rstephens/20...

redmonk.com

The Disintermediation of Databases

The database has been the center of gravity in data architecture for decades. It owned the storage, the query layer, and the interface. That center of gravity is changing. We’re seeing this structural...

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 18/02/2026

me, feeling sick over the weekend: Ugh, why am I always the one who catches the preschool colds? me, getting licked on the nose while putting my son to bed: Ahh, I see.

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 17/02/2026

If you're a technical IC who cares about application performance, you should check out Monster Scale Summit. I had a great time keynoting last year, and the speaker lineup this year looks excellent! youtu.be/eon5E356kNE

youtu.be

RedMonk Quick Take: Monster Scale Summit 2026

YouTube video by RedMonk

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 12/02/2026

I'm trying really hard to replace unnecessary apologies with gratitude (in the vein of "thanks for your help" instead of "sorry for the trouble") The problem is my muscle memory around apologizing is strong And so sometimes I ask a server for extra napkins and then say "sorry very much"

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 10/02/2026

Can everyone building agent orchestration tools *please* stop using the term "overseer" to describe human oversight? We already learned this lesson with master > main. Words matter.

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Wiredferret! @wiredferret.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

Maybe "Sisu".

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Rachel Stephens @rstephens.me · 16/01/2026

New video up: a conversation about how the observability market is evolving and the role vendors like @dynatrace.com are playing. Worth a watch if you’re thinking about tooling and data strategy. redmonk.com/videos/obser...

redmonk.com

Dynatrace and the Observability Market

In this conversation, Rachel Stephens, the research director at RedMonk, discusses the evolution of observability in the tech industry. She highlights: – the shift from traditional monitoring to a bro...

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