IT Resources seaking shelter from the "Stormy" Cloud

In my last post I was captivated by my trip to the San Diego Cloud Conference and eluded to the fact that many of the IT professionals in attendance were very concerned about their perception of their own obsolescence in this era of the Cloud. In the past couple of weeks there were some major announcements including Apps.gov and I have had conversations with more and more technical folks who are voicing these concerns.

I would like to put this paranoia to rest, or at least start the process. From where I sit, the Cloud represents more opportunity for IT professionals than any computing advance in history and there are some fundamental reasons why:
1. Access to unprecedented amounts of data
2. Speed to market
3. The number of vendors playing in the Cloud space

First, lets address the major concern that IT folks have about their jobs. The concern goes like this, "My job is to maintain the servers and technical infrastructure of my company, if that is outsourced, I no longer have value..."

With that argument, I am in complete agreement. If, as an IT professional, you perceive your value as simply maintaining the place that data lives, then sign your severance papers right away and take up Bocci ball in the retirement home. But the last time I checked, IT wasn't about managing servers, it was about managing INFORMATION, thus the acronym. It's time that IT professionals rethought their roles. My friend Steve Gerken, former CIO at Chugai Pharma sees it this way, "Nobody in the company understands the importance of the information better than the IT folks, and of them, the DBA usually knows it best."

So assume the difference between successful and non-successful organizations is tied to the way that they manage their resources, than it stands to reason that those who do a better job managing their data (a very critical resource) would be more successful than those that don't. So take a look at the Cloud...

My friend Paul Laskin describes the end point of the Cloud as "One big data mash-up in which information sources will be ubiquitous." It is a great point, in fact we are seeing that illustrated very well in the consumer space right now. I think he is spot-on, and IT folks should embrace this idea. This leads to the first important concept, the amount of data to which we have access..

I look at non-Cloud IT shops similarly a small boat captain, out on the sea. Because he is resource constrained (being he a small boat) he does everything he can to insure that his boat floats. He secures it from leaks...he insures it is seaworthy, he makes certain that the infrastructure, the motor and transmission are well oiled and in proper working condition. When put to sea, he encounters storm clouds. He is overcome by huge waves and large amounts of rain, and his boat starts to flood and sink. Immediately he deploys all available resources to bail the water out and protect his boat. Eventually, he send and SOS to the business. He is overwhelmed by huge amounts of water (data) and can't cope. He sinks and curses the Cloud for his demise.

On the other hand, the Cloud savvy IT organization recognizes the oncoming downpour and invests in a water jet for their boat. Initially, it adds some overhead to their boat, but when the downpour comes, they blast the water aft and propel the boat forward. They have fine grained control over the direction of the blast and can throttle the flow. They have taken advantage of the situation and leapfrogged their competition.

We all agree that there will be a virtual onslaught of new data as a function of the Cloud. IT people are the best suited to transform it into a business benefit. But like the water jet, they need to invest in a proper Cloud foundation which will require extra effort initially. The second question will be how fast can they do it?

IT will certainly not be able to respond if they have to spool up new physical resources every time they get hit with new requests. They need to be positioned to take advantage of existing infrastructure available in the Cloud. I have spoken to many people who are using Amazon to prototype and even host production systems, not because its cheap, but because its THERE and minimizes the usual bureaucracy associated with resource allocation. It allows real time response.

Finally, the main reason that I believe IT professionals are more essential than ever in the Cloud era is their understanding of the actual work that will always be necessary to turn data into information. What I mean by this is that under all the new technologies, there is still work. The Cloud has reduced the barriers to entry for technology providers and opened the flood gates for vendors of all shapes and sizes with slick demos and compelling 'Try before you buy" offers. To the neophyte information managers of the business, all of this can be overwhelming. As a function of this, more than ever the business is going to need its trusted advisers in IT to sort through the glitter and get to what works.

Last week, at the end of his keynote Woody Pewitt from Microsoft predicted more need for IT professionals as a function of the Cloud. I agree, in an era in which technology is becoming more and more abundant, what becomes scarce (and therefore high value) is the expertise to apply it. I predict that expertise in good solid information management skills will command respect and attention from the business. I suggest a return to the MIS acronym which doesn't emphasize the "T" for technology that the IT acronym does. Indeed, Management Information Services sums it up pretty well I think...