Well, cloud computing has been a discussion topic for either forty or four years, depending on how one prefers to count it. So, it probably shouldn't come as too big of surpise when two of the planet's largest counsultancy decide to examine the cloud computing meme around the same time.
The Promise of the Cloud Workplace, published in Booz & Co.'s Strategy + Business magazine takes a human spin on cloud computing and peeks in on the rising mob of freelancers who are cloud-enabled and are helping all types of businesses increase productivity at a very low margin cost. In particular, the article's author, Andrew Jones, drills down on the idea of co-working which in this context refers to the notion of common workspaces that can be used by freelancers and corporate outliers.
McKinsey & Co. decide to show us where their ball landed, the one they hit thirty months ago when they put some wood on the notion of cloud computing and called it a "technology-enabled business trend" that was "profoundly reshaping strategy across a wide swath of industries." In other words, "We were right."
I don't mind a well-deserved declaration of victory (afterall, I work in public relations) but when the three authors of the article decide to substantion their home run by citing the rapid rise in the population dwelling in the Facebook Nation, ... well, I kind of blink my eyes and cock my head to one side trying to figure out if I'm missing something or Bughin, Chui and Manyka have ganged up on a non sequiter. (If you have any breadcrumbs you can send my well, please write in.)
This is all front matter to McKinsey's annual prognostication-fest on business technology trends and cloud computing checks in this year at trend number seven, "Imagine anything as a service." For the record, these are the ten trends:
Trend 1: Distributed cocreation moves into the mainstream
Trend 2: Making the network the organization
Trend 3: Collaboration at scale
Trend 4: The growing ‘Internet of Things’
Trend 5: Experimentation and big data
Trend 6: Wiring for a sustainable world
Trend 7: Imagining anything as a service
Trend 8: The age of the multisided business model
Trend 9: Innovating from the bottom of the pyramid
Trend 10: Producing public good on the grid
Here, I am tipping my hat to the good people at McKinsey who have quite perfected the art of writing prose that is just a little bit clear, rather intriguing and opaque enough to drive the reader to yearn for more. Really: "Innovating from the bottom of the pyramid," migh be self-explanatory but, honestly, what does "The age of the multisided business model" mean to you?
As I've written before, I am not, at heart a Gloomy Gus, but if we think that private data infrastructures are rife with insecurity, then what happens when we put all our eggs and milk and cheese and white wine in the same refrigerator? Willie Sutton is famous for, among other things, his answer to the question, "Why do you rob banks?" I contend there is probably a new generation of people with huge computer skills licking their chops at the idea of cloud computing, "Because that's where the money is."
