Issues that Cloud the Cloud Computing Promise

April 15, 2008 at 8:14 pm · Filed under Cloud Computing, Enterprise 2.0, Google, Web Services, Zombies

I’ve been getting quite a bit of interesting reactions to a post over at my ZDNet SOA site, “Is Cloud Computing Too Good to Be True?” In the post, I discussed Google’s latest entree into the infrastructure-as-a-service space, Google App Engine, and how it competes with Amazon Web Services.

Both vendors offer storage, messaging, queuing, and back-end server scalability that can conceivably offer an alternative to buying and managing onsite software and hardware.

Amazingly enough, access to Google App Engine will be offered for free, versus Amazon’s incremental pricing plans. However, Amazon’s services are priced so low that free versus a couple of hundred dollars per month may not be an issue for enterprises. (Individual consumers, however, will more likely be drawn to the no-cost Google model.)

However, what may be an issue for enterprises are things such as governance, security, privacy, and control — all issues that cloud the Cloud computing space.

In an online poll I am conducting with the post, sentiments are running against Cloud computing for the enterprise: at the time of this writing, 62% said Cloud computing is still too risky of a bet for enterprises, versus 32% saying it is enterprise-capable.

Readers of this blogsite may have already seen my arguments in favor of moving to the Cloud — not having to deal with software maintenance and upgrades, and paying for only what you need. However, there are arguments against enterprise-scale Cloud computing, which include the following:

• Cloud computing may create a dependence on the provider (Google, Amazon) and may make it difficult to move to another platform.
• Google itself admits that Google App Engine is targeted at consumer applications, not businesses.
• Enterprises leveraging Cloud computing may become homogenized — and lose the competitive advantage that may come from custom-built systems.
• There’s always the risk that the Cloud provider may change business models or even go out of business.

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Hi, My Name is Joe and I’m a ‘Knowledge Worker’

February 8, 2008 at 10:57 am · Filed under Enterprise 2.0, Messy World, Zombies

A couple of weeks ago, Jon Husband provided us with some insights on the coming wave of “digital natives” that will be driving our workplaces and businesses, intermingling with the “digital immigrants.”

One thing both many digital natives and immigrants have in common — and have had for at least two decades — is they fall under the category of “knowledge worker,” meaning they spend their days analyzing and packaging information, versus baking bread or restoring houses or fighting fires or flying passenger jets or driving passenger trains. (Though these professionals all require a good deal of knowledge.)

Management guru Peter Drucker — prescient decades ahead of his time as always — coined the term “knowledge worker” back in the 1950s, and the term began to take hold in our imagination in the 1980s.

But, at least 56 million of us knowledge workers in North America can’t go home and coherently explain to our kids or explain at parties what we do. As Johnathan Spira puts it in a recent column in KM World:

“In a casual setting, such as a pub, a factory worker would have no problem introducing himself saying, “I’m a factory worker.” But could you picture a knowledge worker making a similar introduction, saying, “Hi, I’m a knowledge worker”?

Rather, Spira observes, “knowledge workers” are defined by what they are not. But it was also said that “information is the new oil,” so maybe its the right time to be a knowledge worker, whatever it is we do.

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Common Craft Nails Zombies - Everything you need to know to survive an attack

October 24, 2007 at 5:15 am · Filed under Common Craft, Dead Paradigms, Enterprise 2.0, Jevon MacDonald, Zombies

Jevon has been writing about Dead Paradigms - I call them “Zombies” - Now Common Craft - who make the best videos about social media - nail the issue for once and all time

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