Don't mention the "C" word!

I have recently been involved with an organisation that can't say the "C" word: "Cloud". There I said it. Now, that wasn't so bad was it?

So what's the problem? I'll tell you what: organisations, particularly large ones, still don't know what the Cloud means to them... So rather than say it, they skirt around it: "Elastic Infrastructure", "On-demand Provisioning", "Capacity driven", and so on. All the while this further confuses the client as to what Cloud is, and what the organisation's strategy is to move towards all that Cloud goodness, whatever that may be. It's a funny old situation, and I'm wondering if it's unique. Are we all still struggling to define the Cloud? Should we just accept it for what it is, which is whatever you want it to be?

So what is it to me? In a word: differentiation, and in two: business differentiation. So what do I mean by this? In a nutshell it's about creating business opportunity by freeing up resources, and empowering those resources to be innovative. Innovation comes when you have a culture that enables people to not only fail fast, but to learn fast. This learning drives the innovation. Cloud technology allows us to do this in a cost effective, and timely manner. Its really that simple.

Stop worrying about saying the "C" word; just work or what your business goals and challenges are, and then see how Cloud can help you realise them.