As someone who has lots of friends in various IT positions in all kinds of sectors, you’d be amazed how often when we chat about cloud that this innate fear of outsourcing. Yes, I admit for some reason Klout rates me as influential about outsourcing…probably a bad sign. But honestly, it’s a pretty rational fear when you think of it. IT shops, especially those who have some kind of security function, have always been been a little anxious with MSSPs constantly trying to add value to their departments. And now cloud comes along, and the same conversations come up: am I at risk of having my department outsourced to a cloud provider? Continue reading
Business Transformation
Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.
It may come as no surprise that I read a lot about cloud and security. I mean A LOT. My Twitter feeds are rammed with representation from all things cloud. As Martha Stewart would say, “It’s a good thing.”. So when I’m not doing my day job, I’m busy writing this daily blog, writing for another awesome Canadian blog, http://cloudbestpractices.net, some vendor sites, and writing whitepapers for various conferences, doing research with the Cloud Security Alliance and the like. I do this so that I can help educate the market, particularly the Canadian market, on cloud. Continue reading
To err is human… to really foul up requires the root password.
I had an interesting discussion the other day with a fellow marketing manager about cloud and business transformation. The conversation centered around whether or not cloud was a discussion that should begin within the IT department, or should it come from the C-level down. It’s a great question, because as much as I like to think it’s a top-down discussion, it really comes down to the fact that cloud will affect the IT department in several ways, including a fundamental redesign of the IT department as a whole. Let me explain. Continue reading
Ah! Curse Your Sudden But Inevitable Betrayal!
The discussion around cloud adoption is a unique one depending on which audience you are addressing. From a high-level, C-level executives are excited about the business transformation possibilities, but as you go further and further down the organization, especially into the IT departments, there is a different type of attitude. Many IT professionals (both infrastructure and security) view cloud as hype that is designed to either make their lives more difficult or will render them obsolete. This isn’t the first time we saw significant change. Remember the mainframe transition? But the great thing about cloud is that it’s not designed to streamline IT inefficiencies from a role perspective, it’s meant to do more with less. IT professionals need to see that cloud gives them the chance to learn new technologies and become experts in a fast-moving market that will rely heavily on those who can adopt these new skills the quickest. Continue reading
Tinder Stratus 