The end of ‘Fashion-IT’ – customers will only pay for value and not technology – ANONYMOUS

Can IT be fashionable? It requires a huge imagination to think that it is. Surely? But has it been in the past? And if so has it had its day with the cloud moving in.

The general definition of fashion is “is a general term for a popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear, or accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the current trend in look and dress up of a person”.  In computing terms, it has been fashionable to adopt solutions and services that have been widely adopted. Virtualization for example, is a widely considered as the ‘fashion’ for server consolidation and data center optimization. Cloud computing is another fashion.

Now this quote is anonymous so cannot be attributable but I sort of like it. Customers of course only want value. And no they dont want technology per se. Mobile phones are exceptionally fashionable with micro features, colours and interfaces that are aimed at very transient customer base. But mainstream corporations do not want bells and whistles. Nor colours. Nor variety. They want reliability, performance, security and functionality. Cliches but true. Look at vendors. Trawl the press and attend the shows and you will still see an endless road of why this is better than that. Of course vendors dont have a choice really. Its not in their interest to join a debate about the end of ‘Fashion-IT’.

Summarising all this up it makes it all the more possible that in the minds of most corporate IT and business people is the belief that business case propositions for anything other than good honest value based investment will get binned. Sure the CXO may have a fashionable mobile phone for personal use, but there is a good chance that the CXO will advocate strick controls for end point management and data security, regardless of whether staff can have their own devices at work.

But what really intrigues me is the view that virtualization as Fashion-IT is moving away from the on premise datacenter. I see more and more public and private cloud offerings from a growing army of providers who have cracked the economic models and service levels, that now make a very compelling alternative for a data center refresh discussion. CXO people are wise now to the true value from doing this stuff themselves and have as evidence the long list of failed projects, rising training costs to keep exams maintained, drops in customer satisfaction results and more. They look at the alternatives and see that even if they have to ‘compromise slightly’ on a feature by moving to a cloud service they will consider this as good value for money.

My advice? For people looking always internally at their own people and refresh cycles, I would just keep one eye on the mirror. Fashion is a fickle aspect of our lives today.

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Only a crisis – real or perceived – produces real change – Milton Friedman

One of my all time favourites which goes on to say “When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable”.

The IT world is probably not in a crisis in the true sense of the world but definately is in a state of flux, turmoil or trough of disillusionment. Why? It would be easy to roll out with the economic crisis befalling the corporate worlda and the commoditization of technology in general. Global competition and a drain in the skills market probably as well.

Within the context of cloud computing how does this quote play out? Well look at the words. Crisis? For many in IT a crisis is often a very real event. Data loss or security breach can take on crisis characteristics and for sure, produces real change.

However the changes that ensue such a crisis are normal. This is what the IT world does. We have an event and we react. We see a problem and we resolve.

How about the difference between real and perceived? Can you remember the last time there was a perceived crisis in IT? Well for me it was the Millenium and the whole Y2K saga. I think this sums up the perceived crisis and the output of real change quite nicely.

Another one could be the skills shortage. I personally see this not as a crisis but certainly a worry as young people do not view the ‘IT job’ as a career opportunity. And even if the skills gap is only a perception and not backed up by fact ( unlike losing all your sales data because of a hard disk going down ) there could be a view that it is one factor driving the cloud computing paradigm.

The thought process here is that there could be a crisis ( real or perceived ) that drives a change towards cloud computing models. Look back in time. The origins of the internet came from the US defence people who realised that the communications network could not have a single point of failure in its fabric in case of nuclear war. From this decision the concept of a cloud really came to its fore with networks of communications criss crossing nations to ensure that in the event of a break there would always be another route for the data to travel. Clearly this vision has served us well with the internet now totally immersed in a warren of interconnects, redundant links, submarine cables under oceans and so on. There was no real crisis at that time to consider such an action, but there was a perception that at any minute a nuclear strike could occur.

Fast forward and what do we have? Economic meltdown in the Eurozone. Huge rates of unemployment. Dearth of manufacturing. And more. Add in the cost of labour and training plus competitive forces coming at us from anywhere in the world as the planet flattens even more.

Friedman would have been talking about economic and fiscal matters of course, given his background so there is no real similarity to the IT world.Or is there? Well there probably is more than we would think. For decades IT has ridden a wave where there relationship with financial housekeeping, prudent cost control and agility under financial governance were conversations reserved for the Accounts department. Not IT who could spend with abandon, justified on the basis that “this is IT and its complex so we have to have the freedom to buy what we want from who we want.”

People do perceive a crisis and this is a significant driver for cloud computing.  It may start as a traditional ‘lets review where we are with IT and plan for the future’ through to ‘a total reimagining of direction and business alignment’. Each person will be different but ultimately more than ever, the real change will come from ‘big decisions’ and cloud computing as a subject will really come into view. Consider the fact that cloud is all about sharing infrastructure. My last few posts have considered that we are moving into a world where we no longer want ( or afford ) our own computing platforms. They are no longer making us competitive and our cash would be spent better on business development, acquisition or brand marketing.

I suspect ( but with not a shred of evidence ) that across the land and seas many a CIO or CFO are looking at the economics and generating a ‘perception’ that the IT business is in a crisis, and that the people working in these departments are on the clock to come up with change plans. A form of modern day Y2k. What a perfect time to go and talk about ‘what would you do if IT became a real crisis ‘ planning. I think so.

( Quotation attributed to Milton Friedman (1912 – 2006) was an American economist, statistician )

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I can give a ton of flour to two different bakers; one baker is going to create a better loaf – Nicholas Carr

Carr the famous author of books like Does IT Matter and Edison to Google argues that over time IT has gone from really mattering ( giving competitive edge ) to not really mattering ( everyone has it ). He maintains that IT no longer gives a significant competitive lead for a vendor or end user because the markets have accelerated and replicated so much that innovation is mainstreamed pretty much overnight. Consumerization of IT is what they call it. Carr goes on to state that because of this effect the decisions made on IT are to be more about service quality, speed,scale, processes and brand. I will come onto this more in a bit.

Lets go back to the bakery. Flour is not the strategic advantage for the baker. Pretty much everyone can buy flour from the same source for about the same price. The quality of the flour is less the issue, whereas the brand and service is exceptionally more important. The supply chain will have shrunk margins whilst moving to point in time delivery and self service ordering. The manufacturers will collaborate on pricing structures and flatten the competitive edge whilst protecting some USP by offering value add services. Not being a baker means I lose out at this point!

However, the analogy of the flour and the baker is brilliant and could easily be swopped for ” i can give to IT teams a stash of cash to buy hardware and software; one IT team is going to deliver a better IT service.” This is key. One team is goign to deliver a better IT service. The hardware and software ( just like the flour ) is not the strategic advantage. Take virtualization. Perhaps 10 years ago it was a massive difference for people who had taken the plunge and pushed their boat out. They will have encountered issues as they learned the pitfalls but eventually they matured their approach and will have reaped some benefit. At a cost for sure. 5 years ago virtualization was pretty much everyones’ strategy in some form or other. End users, suppliers, hosters, manufacturers all repackaged virtualization services into some form of cloud, with all the benefits of power saving, agility, DR, speed and cost. Again with the flour analogy this ‘advantage’ was erroded because everyone sold pretty much the same stuff, at the same margins and with the same outcome. The concept of IT people being bakers is beginning to worry me!

Moving on the interesting debate is that if you believe Carr is correct with his analogy of bakers and the mirror to IT departments the next question is that does Cloud now become the flour? Cloud is the ultimate consumer product. Whether you are a private individual or a huge bank, cloud gives you pretty much the same experience as your neighbour or your fiercest competitor. With the boom in public cloud and everything as  a service the thought that you are buying strategic advantage must have a limited shelf-life. Market sectors will end up adopting similar SaaS applications from cloud providers as the vendors move their development cycles into utility computing. Organizations will recruit from competitors the top brains in IT, business development, marketing and sales which brings the same thought processes, ideas and innovation, till eventually we all know what everyone is doing and thinking. Zero advantage ensues.

But this cant be true because organizations are not all equal; neither are IT teams. Exactly. The difference belongs to other characteristics of business ethos, leadership, vision, process and business development. In the IT department this inequality is even more obvious as we look at capability and maturity of the IT function from helpdesk, operations, procurement, management and infrastructure teams.

Carr argues that the endless pot of cash spent on investing in this ‘flour’ is a pointless one over time and that eventually IT needs to embrace a consumerzation angle to make IT more of a enabling service. What does this look like? Carr doesnt say but you can work it out. user self service, bring your own IT kit, cloud management of assets and applications, big data clouds, hybrid infrastructures, end to end mobility solutions and so on.

Whats the answer? There isnt one clean simple one. But what there though, is a conversation to be had ( with or without the flour! ) out where exactly does IT matter, and whether youre  IT service is making a very expensive loaf of bread!

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All of the biggest technological inventions created by man – the airplane, the automobile, the computer – says little about his intelligence, but speaks volumes about his laziness. ~Mark Kennedy

Laziness? Yes I get this and with a firm tongue in my check I have to say that this post will be short and sweet therefore, LAZY.

What I would say though is that if cloud is the nett result of someone’s laziness ( who is that person by the way – the man who invented WWW – Tim Berners Lee? ), then good on them. I disagree that technological invention is a mark of laziness, especially cloud computing. I believe instead that it is a sign of man’s ingenuity and desire to improve themselves, and being able to focus on things that really matter. Ugh! A bit sickly I know but I believe true.

Man has always driven himself to improve and technologically speaking, cloud is the next phase of development. Just like the automobile and airplane. No difference. Perhaps there were timesaving ( lazy ) desires in the creation of these inventions but for sure there was also a desire to improve our ability to communicate, trade, be safe, and help others. And yes some people got very rich along the way!

( Quotation attributed to Mark Kennedy, American author )

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The person who gets the farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore – DALE CARNEIGE

So this marks a point in this blog where I ask myself whether we are close to the end of inspirational quotes ( to me they are of course ), or there is more to come. And guess what? – we have a beauty.

There is a view ( held quite widely I believe ) that to really understand the subject of cloud computing, and therefore, to exploit its value to a business,  requires one to get out of the ‘sure thing boat’, and push away from the shore. Mr Carneige nails it and perhaps he has something.

Cloud is not for the feint hearted. But then neither is IT. Never has. It always requires a clear mind and ability to move things forward – no matter at times how small the steps may seem. And before you say anything let me say this. Moving anything forward in the world of corporate IT is not an inconsiderable task. Superlative like walking in treacle, cant seem wood from trees, pushing water up hill spring to mind. Let me tell you – ‘iItsy bitsy spider’ has nothing on the world of corporate IT and achieving a small step forward. Believe me.

But Carneige talks about this ‘sure thing boat’. Lets examine this. The ‘sure thing’ comment is fundamentally a safe bet. A quarantee. Something assured. A task you will complete with 100% conviction of success. A horse that will win.

However, a boat is not a sure thing. It may have all the safety design features in the world but you are always going to need life boats and safety drills. Our experiences tell us that a boat and the sea ( at times ) are not easy partners as they battle against each other, and we know the further you go into rough seas the less safe your ‘sure thing’ boat will feel.

With this analogy of sure thing then we can work out that Cloud is not a sure thing boat. In fact, IT as a whole. Was mainframe a sure thing boat? Possibly. Why? Probably because it had limitations but people didnt know what we know now so they were probably more humble and realistic. They knew it would take time to produce meaningful data. They knew costs were heavy but they also knew this made them exceptionally successful and filthy rich. They could afford a big boat and not invite anyone else on their travels.

What about client server? I remember that it certainly wasnt a sure thing boat. Far from it. Each time we tried to push out the boat we had to be prepared for the odd leak. We got good at bailing out and learned that we would make mistakes. However, client server was niche and businesses still had the mainframe sure thing boat so they tolerated us messing around and shouting for help. It sort of worked and we all learned a lot of things.

Then we get to the  early days of the internet Same thing. We all took to this energetically as it felt like being a pioneer in a raft, finding new amazing ways to find information. Modems, bulletin boards, chat rooms were like riding a wave. We took it in our stride and tt was sort of fun being in a boat with a few other people all seeking information from out there somewhere. SUre we got wet and it was cold at times but we really did leave land behind.

Web 1.0? Web 2.0? Again we had pioneering expectations and as time progressed we still had sight of land. We gained a bullish approach to pushing the boat out as we embraced consumerization, ecommerce, social networking and personalised technology.  Our boat was now huge because everyone else was buying a ticket and we felt safer as we pushed out even further

Our boat has now reached cloud and we probably realise we can never get a sure thing boat so what do we do? Do we head back to shore because we are afraid? Do we kill the engine and float about for a bit? No, we crack on because we should have realised two things by now (1) we have been in this boat before but it was smaller, had a few leaks and we were only a few (2) that as we need to be more successful we take risks and push the boat out. This is life not IT.

To close, as I feel seasick now, I ask myself whether people like Babbage, Turing, Gates, Jobs, Olsen, the Google and Facebook boys all would think about their journeys as being ‘sure thing boats’. I doubt it but it didnt stop them. Thank god.

 ( Quote attributed to Dale Carneige (1888 – 1955) was an American writer, lecturer. and the developer of famous courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training,  public speaking, and interpersonal skills. He was the author of How to Win Friends and Influence People, a massive bestseller that remains popular today. One of the core ideas in his books is that it is possible to change other people’s behavior by changing one’s reaction to them.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Carnegie )

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We eat food that others have grown, wear clothes that others have made, live in houses that others have built – ALBERT EINSTEIN

As we seek confirmation from greater authority on whether cloud is the right thing to do or not, we tend to latch on to any anecdotal comment, newspaper article, blog ( oops ), analyst report, TV documentary or meteor activity in the sky. So when I read this comment in Einstein’s book I couldnt stop my mind wandering and carrying out a little word search and replace, and came up with the following.

……we share fibre connections that others have laid, we rest our data where others rest theirs, we use applications that others have made, use data centers that others have built and operate …….

When we survey our lives and endeavours we soon observe that almost the whole of our actions and desires are bound up with the existence of other human beings. Einstein again, But is cloud any different? I dont think it will be.

After all mankind has pretty much become masters of following others and making use of reusable materials and goods, to both survive and prosper. So the next time you are in a meeting about cloud versus traditional computing think about this play on words, and seriously ask yourself this “is cloud just inevitable. Is your role is not about finding what is wrong with cloud computing, but about finding ways to take advatnage of cloud computing to help survive and prosper. You see eventually mankind will take this journey into cloud. Not because its written in the tealeaves or similar. Not because someone makes us do it. No. Because eventually ( and its started already ) cloud will become the place where we use what others have built, and rest in place wheres other rest.

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There are three constants in life…change, choice and principles – STEPHEN COVEY

 Technology writer Stewart Alsop wrote, ‘I predict that the last mainframe will be unplugged on 15 March 1996’. However, despite the predictions of client-server gurus throughout the 1990s the mainframe didn’t disappear. In 2004, the IBM mainframe celebrated its 40th birthday, and in many walks of life, the mainframe is doing very well thank you very much.

Now way back in the 1960s and 70s people probably didnt think about choice of computing platforms with the dominance of the mainframe at that time. They also didnt think much about changing direction probably because of a lack of choice, and because the investment made in their treasured mainframe was often thought as being the only computer they would need. Were they principled? Probably because of the needs of high performance computing demands for their business, people back then had a close empathy with selecting technically sound components based on selecting the best possible IT for their business. Of course the vendors available back then were far and few, and as a consequence, market share was divided up neatly between them.

Now of course in 2012 we do have exceptional choice, and therefore an amazing scope to change our mind. Look at IT. The long tail of solutions, vendors and products is very long. Cloud is the new shop window for this. Vendors are looking at their on premise offerings and ‘cloudifying’ them. This makes for great customer choice. Or does it? The cost economics between a mainframe back in 1970 and a cloud service today do not compute. Back then you could spend $ millions on a single mainframe. It was for life. Now you look at IT as a $dollar commodity where you can move from one supplier to another at a whim. Not many principles here.

But is this true? The vision of drag and dropping your services from one cloud vendor to another perhaps using a cloud broker seems totally reasonable,yet cloud does not easily represent the change aspect of Covey’s comments.  Negotiating a cloud service is demanding an equally focused approach as it would when deciding on a mainframe contract. It certainly isnt straightforward and requires a combination of risk management, business engagement, corporate governance and legal validation. After all data is now in someone’s elses cloud datacenter so a new breed of principles need to be addressed. It is safe to say also that these principles are being challenged daily with the volatile commodity world of cloud computing, economic downturn, data legisation concerns and legacy IT co-oexistence needs. With cloud being very much a hybrid concept at present as people battle with ‘how much cloud can I purchase’ alongside legacy IT environments, the reality of exercising real change and choice may be not as free as the quote suggests. So perhaps principles have not disappeared.

Covey wouldnt be talking about cloud, and  of course correct that change, choice and principles do always exist, but i think for cloud computing we need to be careful that we are not sacrificing change, choice and principles purely because of a $ price.

( Quotation attributed to Stephen Covey ( 1932- ) is the author of the best-selling book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Covey )

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You always pass failure on the way to success – MICKEY ROONEY

Sitting on the fence usually hurts. I mean physically it would of course but emotionally it must be stressful as you try and keep both sides in your vision. This can mean juggling different points of view, balancing one argument with the other and overall probably keeping the peace. In IT terms this happens every day. Users, suppliers, stakeholders are just a few of the people demanding decisions and too often force an IT person into a defensive position. Hence the fence.

Cloud computing is one of these moments in IT evolution that cannot be a sitting on the fence situation.  I mean it doesnt offer a half way house. Your data and your apps are either on your side or the other side. Cloud doesnt let you have the best of both worlds ( Ok perhaps it does but hear me out ).

Now I dont know why Mickey Rooney uttered these words in the title. It could have a reference to his time entertaining troops in battle conditions during WWII, or the battles he has had an actor. Or the fact that he was married 8 times! But I like the words because they are not meant for people who like sitting on the fence. No. Rooney’s words are aimed at people prepared to get off the fence.

Cloud computing is relatively new. It has immature characteristics. No one suggests you should move all of IT into the cloud tomorrow. But people ( and Im one of them ) believe you should have a plan. It may be a Plan B for 5 years time or next week, but a plan nonetheless. Taking Rooney’s words it means there will be failures. They may be yours or they may be someone elses. There will be costs. There will be anguish.

But step back. If you work in IT, or purchase IT to run your business ask yourself this – in your experience of IT have you ever had a time when things just worked first time, every time. Never I reckon. Cloud is just the next thing and the people who will get the most out of a cloud decision are those that are prepared to get off the proverbial fence and deal with the failures on their way to success.

What does this mean? It means discussing with others. It means assessing what you have today and what could be ready for cloud. It means testing. It means testing again. It means planning and planning again. What it doesnt mean is throwing common sense out of the window and stumble blindly into something.

People need to be prepared to fail. They should be used to this. The scars are deep. But experience tells us that we have learned from these events.

Cloud computing is nothing to sit on the fence for.

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This is the best we can do; this is how we now do it best – ANNOYMOUS

The undercurrent theme of the whole journey to the cloud is that people believe that it is the answer to the perpetual issue with IT – people. Cloud isnt about servers, storage, backup etc. Sure it consists of these things on a massive unimaginable scale and no doubt will continue to grow during the decades just like the electricity grid, gas pipelines and the good old internet itself. No what cloud really is about people or more accurately the lack of people.

Who is tired of the People Process Technology chant uttered by know it all consultants who flippantly use the words to demonstrate that they arent trying to just sell you some new technology but that the investment somehow will help ‘the people’. Of course they probably mean the end user ‘people’ ( for many the jury is out ) but they really mean the IT people. Sure we have all our acronyms like ITIL, COBIT, ITSM which are all unquestionably very important to control processes and ensure ‘things get done’.

But my point ( perhaps over laboured for 6am in the morning ) is that for many IT departments the plea “this is the best we can do” is heading them down the cloud road inadvertently. They issue this plea because they have a heroic mentatilty born from years of fixing things and always being there come rain or shine. They will always use phrases like “we did our best” or “if only we had the right tools we could have done an even better job” or the killer “next time it will be right”. Lessons learned and debriefing is of course an essential part of IT lifecycle to help us learn where we could have done better.

Now consider cloud. We may all have different views of what cloud is. For me I think cloud is not necessarily a catch all word for Software as a service, Platform as a service etc. I think it is wider than this and embraces the next place for an IT organization to go to. Let me explain.

I doubt you will ever meet a business owner who is bothered what the next step is called so long as it meets their needs. Rarely ( if at all ) will the word cloud appear in a business plan or stakeholder presentation. Instead words like rationalisation, consolidation and optimization are all in the cloud dictionary, and sum up a whole host of IT functions. Take service management. Yes the helpdesk and all the characteristics within i.e. customer care, feedback, customer satisfaction, self service and so on.

Now if cloud is the ‘next place’ for an IT organization to move towards then the quote ( annoymous or I made it up ) sums up the difference in my opinion. In the world of cloud, the only comment you would hear from the ‘man in the cloud’ is ‘this is how we do it best’. Being average or doing things by best endeavours do not compute for this ‘cloud man’. He has built routines, disciplines, processes, workflows in such a way that they are transparent and most importantly, just work. Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft all get ‘this is how we do it best’. Why? Because they have scale. They have sufficient demand to build fully resilient infrastructure. For sure they have issues and usually very public and embarassing. But for 99.999% of the time they do it best. How many IT departments can get anywhere near that? Nor should they. They are humans with real world issues not witnessed in the Google cloud bunker or the Amazon control room. Can you imagine if the roles were reversed? No that would be horrendous!

The point of this post is that understanding that the IT department despite their collective years’ experience and ‘go get them’ spirit can only ever reach ‘this is the best we can do’. To achieve more is either unachievable or so expensive in terms of human investment that any organization would say ‘hang on we have to think about this’. Cloud is this pause moment. Cloud promises ‘a best’ environment and even if the functionality of cloud applications may lack all the bells and whistles it is the lesser of evils given the cost of running your own IT with the only outcome being ‘the best we can do’. Scary and thought provoking.

Not all IT departments are like this but if it were me I would be taking a hard look at the ‘capability’ of an IT team and making a view on their ability to move over to ‘this is how we do it best’. Going to the cloud isnt the only option. It is not inevitable. There is more choice. Understanding where the IT department fits is part of this discovery journey and you know what? it may surprise many businesses who leap into the cloud because of the ‘IT person gap’ that they had the skills and desire sitting in their department all time. They just didnt know it.

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Nothing is particularly hard if you break it down into small jobs – HENRY FORD

The last post was all about doing ‘IT things’ simply and not so creatively. Of course, this is a vast oversimplification of the IT world but perhaps it served its purpose. However, there has to a rhyme and reason for making an IT decision, and a cloud decision, is perhaps the mother of them all. Why? Well as we all know cloud has its fingers in many pies – contract, service, performance, capacity, remediation – and has a lot of moving parts as a result.

So pause the thought and think about Henry Ford back in early 20th century as he revolutionised car manufacutring through his focus on products that were easy to assemble, clean and maintain. By taking a commodity view of the motor car with common parts and processes, Ford managed to create robust production line capacity that meant prices were competitive, and therefore, attractive to more and more customers.

He was in essence building a motor car ‘cloud’ where through economies of scale and simplicity he could produce a revenue model that stood the test of time and made Ford one of the most successful organizations in the world both back in the early 20th century but also today.

His famous quote ( very cloudesque I feel ) says a lot –  “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black”. Doesnt this sound like a lot of cloud vendors today? And why not? Cloud vendors are not too disimilar to Henry T Ford. Both realised that to get mass you need to create products that are easy to assemble ( cloud computing is very easy to assemble ) , very easy to manage ( cloud computing fits proactive management very well ) and very easy to scale production up and down ( cloud does this in its sleep ). At the end of the day, if your IT is delivered by a cloud provider who can only see you one colour of cloud, then so what? What are you losing? And if are losing 10% of something I bet you are gaining 50% of something else.

By examining the journey to cloud in small jobs allows you to simplify the way you approach things. For example, storage is a big issue. People talk dismissively nowadays of ‘Big Data’. But how do you break it all down into small jobs that allow you to reach say a storage consolidation? For sure it is crazy to view the problem as a big lump of data without consdiering the various aspects of storage such as data classification, auditing, backup, Service levels and so on. In return people will create mini R&D groups to examine specific issues and test solutions. Or they break teams down to work across discipline to get knowledge sharing and idea generation. Breaking it all down is complex to manage, but very rewarding.

Henry T Ford would have made cloud work. You just know he would. Absolutely. He wouldnt be fazed with all the barriers the modern day ‘expert’ throws up. In his day Ford would have gone to battle ( and won ) with peers who didnt see only having black for example, as a good thing. How must they have eaten some humble pie. Cloud is no different. There will be people who will embrace the Ford mantra; others will choose to treat cloud as  a big heavy lifting job that means they need to roll up the proverbial sleeves and just get stuck in. If these people worked in car manufacturing? Each car would look different!

( Quotation attributable to Henry T Ford ( 1863-1947) was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford )

 

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