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Years ago in my first full-time job, our company got its own copying machines. One for each floor. It was like Gutenberg’s printing press on steroids. We were in awe. I’m pretty sure they were Xerox machines. At least, that’s what we called them. Anyhow, we were thrilled that such newfangled equipment was available to the likes of us.
The copying machines seemed to run night and day (it was a 24/7 operation). There was nearly always a line at the copying machine. And we copied everything. I mean everything. It was my generation’s selfie, but without the internet to spread whatever we were copying to the four corners of the Earth.
We copied everything, included driver’s licenses, work schedules, photos. Everything.
I mean, according to the rumor mill, everything. Especially the night shift gang. They had more time on their hands, less supervision — plus it was dark outside.
To test the rumors about what was being copied, I waited until one afternoon when there was only one person at the copying machine. He appeared to be copying a telephone bill. I didn’t know him well. I got in line and when he looked to see what was behind him, I said: “I heard the company gets a copy of everything that is copied on this machine.” Long pause, then…
He turned gray, then ivory white. He looked like he was going to faint. “Everything?” he asked. “How do they do it?”
I told him I didn’t know, but that the copying machine was probably capable of making a second copy of whatever was being copied. Maybe it was stored for the big boss to check as his leisure.
I never saw him at the copying machine again. He left a few months later.
Fast-forward to you, now!
The Obama administration has directed that publicly available postings on social media will soon become part of background checks Uncle Sam makes on federal workers seeking first-time or renewed security clearances. Makes sense moving with the times. Many major employers already do it as a matter of course. So what have you posted for your friends, the general public or Chinese hackers to see? And maybe use against you? Or as the basis of whether to hire, keep or fire you?
Social media is now fair game for anybody who cares to check out your profile. Or maybe a photo or comment — about you — that a “friend” has posted on his or her Facebook page. Or sent around the world by other means. People are finding jobs — and losing them — on the internet. No one is immune from problems with social media. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is under fire for her emails. Hulk Hogan, famous for being Hulk Hogan, is also in the news because of some tapes that went viral.
Nobody is safe. So think before you post. Your career could be at stake.
VMTURBO has published the State of Multi-Cloud Architecture survey report. Here is an excerpt from the survey report.
Executive Summary Over the past decade, Information Technology has evolved at an unprecedented rate. Virtualization, in all its various forms and schools of thought, is in many ways the keystone enabling this evolution. Loosely defined, virtualization is the act of decoupling one entity from another entity. In our context, it is the practice of decoupling logic from infrastructure and defining infrastructure behavior entirely in software. Virtualization has introduced incredible efficiencies and economies of scale to the data center, and created a platform for automation and workload mobility.
Each wave heralds a new vernacular, which more often than not, takes root and spreads before the field agrees upon a singular notion of its meaning.
Convergence, hyper-convergence, SDx, the list goes on - but perhaps no wave has engendered and propagated more butchering than “cloud”: a word so nebulously vague and universally applicable that any IT newcomer can apply it as a noun (the cloud), verb (cloudify), or adjective (cloud-built/ native/ready) with a high probability of passable usage.
The purpose of this report, The State of Multi-Cloud Architecture, Part One, is to establish a baseline understanding of the present and anticipated adoption of various cloud formats, and to explore both the approach and challenges organizations have faced in the endeavor. Analysts and pundits contend that IT, as a whole, is en route to a construct called hybrid cloud. Though these sources disagree in some aspects of the path to hybrid cloud - namely the rate of adoption and the characteristics of adopters - they agree that it is an inevitable wave.
What this and subsequent surveys will strive to answer is, what is the truth? How are organizations pursuing the path to hybrid cloud, how long will it take them and how much will it cost them? As a starting point, we assume a bridge to hybrid cloud is a construct called multi-cloud.
To delineate between these models, a set of definitions is in order to ensure consistent and universal interpretation of the data herein.
Elementary French I is a carefully sequenced and highly interactive presentation of French language and culture in a media-rich course environment including new video shot in France and Québec with young professional actors. It is designed to be used as a full course of study.
To successfully use this course, you should be a motivated student with a sincere desire to learn about French language and francophone cultures, and be comfortable with computer technologies. The time commitment will typically average 6-8 hours per week.
For information on studying French online vs. in person, see Who should study French Online? in the course introduction. You will be prompted to create an account to access the course introduction, but you may click the “Look Inside” button to view the course without creating an account.
Additional Course Details
Topics Covered:
Introductions, Origins, Studies, Age, Appearance, Personality, Preferences, Activities, Time, The Family, The Home, Work, Meals, Restaurants, and Shopping.
Estimated Time to Complete Course:
15 weeks. The course is divided into fifteen thematic lessons. Each lesson is designed to take one week to complete so working through an entire course will take the average student approximately fifteen weeks. Completing this course and Elementary French 2 will require two semesters or roughly thirty weeks at the university level. These courses have also been used successfully at the secondary level where they can be extended to cover two years or more.
Welcome to our 2nd blog post within our six part series on "48 Hours To Better Manage Cloud For Your Business" from CareerEvolve.com!
We will outline an approach for Business leaders to follow so that they can better leverage cloud computing and maximize their investment.
The series of blog posts will discuss the following topics:
Part 1 - Questions business owners should be asking.
Part 2 - The importance of People, Process and Tools.
Part 3 - 9 Common Pitfalls to Avoid With Cloud Computing.
Part 4 - Pizza As A Service Cloud Analogy.
Part 5 - When is Cloud Computing Not A Fit For Your Business?
Part 6 - What is a Cloud Architect?
In this post we will discuss the importance of People, Process and Tools to aid you in cloud journey. When business owners hear of cloud they can often jump to the conclusion that cloud is all about technology - well that's not completely true. We have stated in the past that cloud is a new business model and that Business owners should think about how their people (staff) and current business operations will be changed by the introduction of cloud computing.
The relationship between People, Process and Tools gives us more to consider than just a tool - it's not just the tool (the technology), but it is the process of implementing it, and the people involved.
You will have to think about the People and the new job opportunities that can exist, in comparison to the job tasks that may be reduced. One example, is around the need for a Cloud Architect role to be bridge between the traditional IT and your business operations. Your staff that are involved with managing the purchase of IT or services will need to create a new model in order to properly leverage cloud as a commodity.
When your Business starts to utilize more cloud services then you will have to start planning for how the disparate cloud services can be connected together so that your Business does not lose its ability to gain more insight into operations. Cloud integration is another aspect of how your Processes can change as your Business develops its cloud exit strategy and enforces the need for data standardization to avoid vendor lock-in.
These are just a few examples of how the People, Process and Tools are impacted by move toward cloud computing.
If you would like to learn more then register for our upcoming online course "48 Hours To Better Manage Cloud For Your Business" from CareerEvolve.com!
(CNN) - If you're on the job hunt, IBM has a few openings.
And by a few, we're talking 20,000.
IBM is transitioning from a software business to a company in the cloud.
As such, it's laying off workers that don't have the skillset needed in the new direction.
Last month, the tech giant said it would pink-slip an unspecified number of people in the legacy businesses.
But, they'll hire just as many.
About 7,000 positions are posted online, and the company said there's more coming.
IBM was a bit late to the cloud party, but is now a major player, raking in over $10 billion in sales last year.
Those new bodies can't come fast enough. IBM has rattled off 16 straight quarters of sales declines and last month it announced its worst quarterly sales since 2002.
It wasn't so long ago that IBM was predicting that its profit would reach $20 a share by the end of 2015. That proved to be way too ambitious -- IBM posted earnings of just $14.92 at the end of 2015. (IBM abandoned that $20 target in the third quarter of 2014).
The company was ill-prepared for its customers' sudden warm embrace of cloud computing. Why buy big, expensive IBM mainframes and servers when you can pay Amazon or Microsoft to house all your data for you -- for cheaper? Why spend money on software for your computers, when those programs can be hosted in the cloud?
Over the past several years, IBM has attempted to shift its strategy. It is now a major cloud player, racking up $10.2 billion in cloud sales last year. And it has poured millions of dollars into big data analytics, mobility and security. Its most notable project that fits the "new IBM" bill is Watson.
IBM said sales of those "strategic imperatives" are growing fast -- up 26% in 2015.
But steering a ship as big as IBM in a new direction takes a lot of time. IBM's executive leadership says it expects that its strategy will pay off soon, but Wall Street analysts aren't expecting IBM's sales to grow for at least another couple years.
Despite all the hiring, IBM is getting significantly leaner. IBM employed about 434,000 people when Ginni Rometty took over as CEO in 2011. Its headcount is now below 378,000.
In January 2016, RightScale surveyed 1,060 technical professionals across a broad cross-section of organizations about their adoption of cloud computing. The company published its annual State of the Cloud Report on February 9, 2016.
The 2016 State of the Cloud Survey identified several key findings:
DevOps growing especially in the enterprise.
Docker usage doubles while Chef and Puppet are neck and neck.
DevOps users use multiple tools.
Container adoption is maturing, especially in enterprises.
Docker seeing greatest adoption in Europe, with tech companies, and with enterprises.
Significant interest in containers on bare metal.
Biggest challenge with containers is lack of experience for newbies.
Container focus in 2016 is education and experience.
The top container initiative in 2016 will be getting more educated (62 percent), followed by conducting more experiments with containers in dev/test (44 percent) and production (28 percent), as well as expanding container use in dev/test (28 percent).
For respondents who were experienced using containers, the most significant challenges were security (29 percent), technology not mature (29 percent), and lack of experience using containers (25 percent). For respondents who are not currently using containers, lack of experience was by far the top challenge (39 percent).
The 2016 State of Cloud Survey shows that interest in DevOps is increasing, while the adoption of Docker containers is spreading like wildfire. Unlike many previous technology shifts where enterprises adopt more slowly, enterprises are actually leading the way and adopting Docker more quickly than smaller organizations.
If you are looking for support toward understanding your journey to cloud then be sure to check out "48 Hours To Better Manage Cloud For Your Business".
If you would like to learn more then register for our upcoming online course "48 Hours To Better Manage Cloud For Your Business" from CareerEvolve.com!
Taking the first tentative steps into a career in tech can be daunting, and hearing the guidance of those with years of experience under their belt can help. Stephen Kruger, IBM architect and master inventor, tells us a little about the path that led him to his current role.
What first stirred your interest in a career in tech?
I have always been passionate about technology and its impact on our lives.
What led you to the role you now have?
I obtained a fundamental grounding in the theory of computer science through my bachelor’s degree, but years spent in various research roles has honed my ability to rapidly absorb new technologies, and anticipate their impact within my sphere of influence.
What were the biggest surprises or challenges you encountered on your career path?
My biggest surprise was how cyclical changes are. This allowed me to re-use many ‘old’ approaches – obviously mixed in with some real innovation – to new problems. When applied to current trends, they still seem novel.
Obviously oversimplifying somewhat, but cloud is about the third iteration of the original concept of client-server computing, perfected by the mainframe experts over 30 years ago.
Was there any one person who was particularly influential as your career developed?
My father encouraged a boldness that I often called on when faced with challenges. His mantra was, “The only thing worse than a wrong decision is no decision”. Guided by experience, it’s useful to lean on this when leaping off into the unknown.
What do you enjoy about your job?
Change and challenge. They’re my two main drivers. Without that, I would have no outlet for my creativity, which is the source of my passion for IT.
What aspects of your personality do you feel make you suited to this job?
Curiosity is key to testing areas outside your comfort zone, and has allowed me to develop into areas my immediate job role didn’t really require.
How did IBM support you on your career path?
IBM has a very well-developed technical career path, which doesn’t force senior technical leadership into a path of management.
What advice would you to those considering a career in this area, or just starting out in one?
Be prepared to change, and be sure technology is your passion.
Today's employees use a variety of devices in the workplace, such as desktops, tablets, smartphones, phablets and wearables. All of these devices may make work more convenient, but they also bring challenges, especially for IT teams. Often, employees download cloud applications that are not IT-approved, and many workers fail to recognize the risks. According to a survey by Softchoice, an IT solutions and managed services provider, one in three cloud-app users has downloaded an application without consulting IT. These unsecured, unauthorized applications, referred to as "shadow IT," place networks and corporate data at risk.
However, SoftChoice found that 39 percent of employees have not been told the risks of downloading these apps. Despite the risks, many employees refrain from using IT-approved cloud apps because of poor experiences, distrust, slow function, incompatibility with all devices and a lack of necessary features for work, Softchoice found.
Workers who use cloud-based apps are 10 times more likely to choose them over IT-approved programs and four times more likely to access work files in an unsecure way when out of the office. Storage applications like Dropbox and Google Docs are popular — yet unsupported — selections that many employees believe to be suitable. - See more at: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/9094-shadow-it-issues.html#sthash.AjXXWB5z.dpuf
Prioritize training and communication If employees were more aware of their risky behavior and data vulnerabilities, their carelessness would be less prevalent, said Francis Li, vice president of information technology at Softchoice. "All employees should be trained on the proper ways their organization needs them to access, store and transfer private work files," Li said. "When it comes to downloading and using any applications, especially cloud apps, employees should also be trained on the proper procurement processes and the need to involve IT before they download or purchase anything." Teaching workers the benefits of IT apps will also encourage them to make more valuable decisions in the workplace. Li noted that technology training should be included in the onboarding of new hires and whenever a new technology tool is introduced that you want employees to adopt.
"But regular communication to reinforce the rules and to tout the benefits of IT-approved processes — particularly when you identify a pattern of certain risky behaviors — will help to reinforce the right technology habits," Li said. Address careless behavior at the source It is important for IT to understand employees' reasoning for their behaviors and preferences. For example, why don't employees like a specific, sanctioned application? What makes the unauthorized program seem more appropriate to them? Addressing the issue will not only sort out possible miscommunications, but it will also strengthen the relationships between workers and the IT team, Li said. Manage the sprawl of apps and connected devices To avoid the risk of employees using unapproved applications, IT team members can regulate a "safe list" of assessed apps on an identity-management or single sign-on platform. "Managing the sprawl of devices and apps is about encouraging all employees to work within that environment and use the apps that IT considers secure for work," Li told Business News Daily. All programs will then be accessible to employees in a single location with a set password.
This way, IT can screen application use accordingly. "The benefit for employees is they only need to remember one password to access all their apps, and they can access them from virtually any computer or connected device," Li continued. "The benefit to IT and to the organization is the private data employees work on remains in a controlled environment, and IT can de-provision an employee's access when they leave the company or if they accidentally lose their mobile device." Don't have an IT department? Check out this Business News Daily article for everything your small business needs to know about DIY IT. - See more at: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/9094-shadow-it-issues.html#sthash.AjXXWB5z.dpuf
Malicious, intrusive software can take many forms. Yesterday’s computer viruses that were developed to simply cause harm, have now evolved in to malware designed to steal money. Of all the potential security vulnerabilities that could affect a company, a malware infection is potentially the most likely to occur. Some forms of malware are fairly harmless, other types such as ransomware are much more sinister. When a successful ransomware attack is executed, user data is hidden, encrypted, or otherwise made unavailable. The user then has to pay a fee to restore their data. In an enterprise environment, loss of this data can have serious repercussions. Below, are 7 ways to ensure that you are protected from ransomware.
1. Educate Employees About Ransomware
Make sure that everyone knows that downloading unknown files or opening odd email attachments is a no-go. Put simply, if the ransomware is never executed, it can cause no harm. User education is the first line of defense when it comes to blocking malware. Such education also needs to cover what a user needs to do if they suspect a malware infection. This means laying down a plan for reporting the issue to the right people, in a timely manner.
2. Backed Up Data Can Never be Lost
Establishing a robust and comprehensive backup regime is a fundamental requirement for using business technology. However, when it comes to ransomware, it is possible that infected data is newer than backed up data. Therefore, it is imperative that key data is backed up frequently. Backups should be isolated, so that no risk of cross infection is possible.
3. Operate Redundantly
If business critical IT systems are potentially exposed to the risk of ransomware infection, it is advisable to operate redundant systems. This will minimize the risk faced, and also ensure business continuity of a successful malware attack takes place.
4. Consider Using Snapshots
Here we are speaking about a more advanced kind of backup regime. Instead of physically backing up data at fixed times such as nightly, regular data snapshots are taken at much shorter intervals. Put simply, if data snapshots are taken every hour, then only an hour’s worth of data can ever be lost. For some applications, this is surely the best option.
5. Authenticate Inbound Mail
Actually filtering out not only SPAM, but other potentially dangerous emails is now very easy to do. Most email servers allow for the checking of flags such as reverse IP lookup, SPF, DMARC and DKIM records. Flagging any incoming mail that does not pass these kinds of tests, is a major roadblock for ransomware distributors.
6. Invest in Enterprise Grade Desktop Security Software
Running a free anti-virus and anti-malware suite at home might work fine. But when the stakes are high, it is not worth skimping on deploying a proper, commercial desktop security suite. There is a cost attached, but is saving that cost worth gambling against the loss of business critical data?
7. Automate Software Updates
Most malware developers, try to stay one step ahead of the game. They expose and then exploit vulnerabilities in the OS, and also the application layers, such as office suites and even web browsers. Therefore, the developers of the OS and the applications, are always playing catch up, plugging security holes once they have been discovered. Automating the patching process for the desktop, makes sure that critical updates are installed as soon as they become available. Security is a major issue for every enterprise. The trick to maximizing protection, and reducing overheads that lead to a higher cost of ownership, is to work smart. Following the advice above is a good start to minimizing potential security issues. For even more information, watch the Scary Facts About Online Security You Need to Know on-demand webinar.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned Coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But 10 years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backward 10 years later.
Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents’ garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down — that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world’s first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.
This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: It was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
Welcome to our 2nd blog post within our six part series on "48 Hours To Better Manage Cloud For Your Business" from CareerEvolve.com!
We will outline an approach for Business leaders to follow so that they can better leverage cloud computing and maximize their investment.
The series of blog posts will discuss the following topics:
Part 1 - Questions business owners should be asking.
Part 2 - The importance of People, Process and Tools.
Part 3 - 9 Common Pitfalls to Avoid With Cloud Computing.
Part 4 - Pizza As A Service Cloud Analogy.
Part 5 - When is Cloud Computing Not A Fit For Your Business?
Part 6 - What is a Cloud Architect?
In this post we will discuss the questions that every Business owner should be asking regarding their planning for cloud computing or their current investment toward cloud computing.
Cloud represents a new business model and it is promoted as providing several benefits for Business, but has this idea been taken too literal and many Business owners are actually lacking the proper planning or properly associating how their Business may even require cloud in the first place?
If you are a Business owner then ask yourself the following questions:
What goals do you have for your Business?
Does your Business face a gap between business expectations and actual Information Technology (IT) delivery?
Are you missing business opportunities due to unsupportive technology investments, poor productivity of IT and misuse of resources?
How will cloud computing help your Business meet its goals?
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MOOCs, as with most other technologies, have stuck quite firmly to the notorious hype cycle that originally saw them destined to change education in profound ways.
Indeed, back in 2014, it was believed that the MOOC would not only disrupt higher education, but also executive education, with none other than the World Economic Forum backing MBA ala MOOC.
Alas, that revolution hasn’t really happened, with drop-out rates remaining very high, and student enrollment remaining largely the preserve of people that already have a good education.
A New Approach
As is common with the hype cycle, once the initial bluster dies down, organizations tend to tinker at the fringes and produce something better and more robust. This may be happening with the SPOCs that are being developed by the EMERITUS Institute of Management.
SPOC, which stands for Small, Private, Online Courses, are online courses that provide the “byte-size” nature of a MOOC but much better peer-to-peer learning that is more commonplace with a classroom-based course.
EMERITUS have teamed up with academics from the business schools at MIT Sloan, Columbia and Tuck to offer a range of classes on management and leadership. Whereas a typical MOOC might have many thousands of students, a course from EMERITUS will have maybe one to 200. These will then be further divided into small learning circles that will allow students to both put their learnings into practice and share expertise from around the world.
The courses typically require three to four hours per week, so in that sense are similar to MOOCs, but roughly 75% of this time is devoted to the application of ones learning, so there is a real attempt to ensure what is learned is absorbed. The hope is that this will ensure that completion rates are considerably higher than on MOOCs.
Technical Innovation
The platform offers a number of innovative technical approaches to help students get the most from their course. For instance, they use gamification to provide students with a simulated environment where they can test out what they learn.
There is also something called the Meeting Mediator, which is a smart technology that measures the speech and general energy levels in virtual groups to try and gauge their effectiveness.
It’s an area where the university partners are bringing a lot to the table, withMIT in particular having done a considerable amount of research into how online learning can be made more effective.
Executive Education
It’s also interesting to note that the platform is making a distinct charge into the executive education market that business schools have cornered so well. It’s an area that has seen some movement by MOOCs, without really much success.
For instance, back in 2014, the World Economic Forum launched Forum Academy in an attempt to change executive education for the better. They wanted to provide executives with the chance to learn from the best minds in their field, at a time and location of their choosing.
It’s not entirely clear that the project has been successful, and it’s something that EMERITUS hopes to surpass. They hope to do this by focusing specifically on the corporate market, with thousands of leaders from a particular company enrolled at any one time.
A nice example of the potential is provided by GE. Their Crotonville leadership program is widely touted as one of the finest facilities in the world, yet a relatively small proportion of the 170,000 GE managers can access it due to physical constraints as much as anything. So being able to use an agile, online platform such as EMERITUS could allow big companies to significantly scale up their leadership training.
“EMERITUS opens the doors for tens of thousands of working professionals who cannot enroll in full-time business programs. In international business, with employees working in various locations throughout the world, standardizing executive training is essential to effective global leadership, and doing so without pulling key leaders from the office is imperative. EMERITUS makes continuous, on-the-job improvement in management and innovation a reality, and we anticipate that this unique approach to executive education will have a profound impact on the global economy,” founder Ashwin Damera told me recently.
Suffice to say, there have been various attempts to significantly change education over the past few years, and we still learn in much the same way as we always have. It’s an area that is long overdue for change however, and hopefully EMERITUS will go some way towards driving that change.
The Digital Accountability and Transparency Act is touted as a law that will change the way federal spending information is reported and shared between agencies and the public, and the right people are needed to help with that transparency.
But to get those people, that might require a change in the skill sets and job descriptions for data experts, according to technology and information officials.
“If it’s not usable data creating value, if we can’t communicate it to all people, then it won’t have value, it won’t exist,” said Kristen Honey, policy adviser to the U.S. Chief Data Scientist and Chief Technology Officer in the White House. “I think the … communications and just the human dimensions; we may not have the best analysts, the best economists, the best mathematicians on staff, but one skill set is people who can recognize and network to those people.”
“Thinking very broadly of what is data science, I would involve anyone who is using data itself or the outcomes of data, and really be inclusive so that we’re not excluding the softer sciences, the human dimensions, but actually really bringing them in,” Honey said to an audience gathered April 21 at an Association of Federal Information Resource Managers event in Washington. “Because if we can’t communicate the value of big data, open data, government long-term investments to people who aren’t technical on the Hill, to every single taxpayer, this will fizzle and it can’t fizzle, it’s too important for that.”
A hiring challenge
The Treasury Department and Office of Management and Budget are leading the governmentwide implementation of the DATA Act, which has a full roll-out date of May 2017.
Officials from both major agencies recently told Congress that they are not sure if every agency will be able to meet that deadline. Some agencies have started submitting data but officials and stakeholders have wondered how and what to do with the potential avalanche of data that will be made available under the law.
Johan Bos-Beijer, director of the analytics and services office at the General Services Administration, said government fraud has been the driving force behind some innovation, but now, while fraud will continue, people are looking at how to get ahead of the curve.
“Usually, citizens are applying to the government for stuff,” Bos-Beijer said, like Social Security benefits, veterans benefits, loans and grants. “It’s all a certain direction, I’m reaching out and asking for something. Citizens … today are very used to having things presented to us on our mobile device. I don’t wait to ask for stuff.”
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“So the new world that we’re presented with, and the skills that we need are ones where presentation becomes important. So the types of skills you really need to blend … you really need an interdisciplinary approach,” Bos-Beijer said. “That’s not going to be in one person. I’ve heard it repeatedly, there’s a hiring challenge in all sectors. And we need to educate [the Office of Personnel Management] a little bit, too, but there is a need for us to have that multi-discipline approach.”
David McClure, lead analyst for open government data at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said it’s important not to get too technical about titles.
“Ask what is it you want to know,” McClure said. “I think on the road to the skill sets, we need to be asking the question what is it we’re trying to do.”
It’s not about hiring a chief data officer using a specific job description so that an agency can check a box and move on, McClure said.
“I would think it would be you start with let’s go talk to people who have hired [data officers], ask them what was it you thought you were looking for, what do you think you got, what are you getting, where are you getting what you wanted and where are you getting something different than what you expected to get,” McClure said.
Peter Aiken, an information systems professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and founding director of consulting firm Data Blueprint, said the first thing to recognize is that the term “data scientist” is too abstract to be helpful.
“If you want to talk to me about an actuarial data scientist, I can talk about the knowledge, skills and abilities that you need to have,” Aiken said. “We’ve really got to change the level of the conversation.”
No one size fits all
One of the roles that can help agencies as they work to handle more data and transparency is a chief data officer. But those positions can differ in responsibility and need, depending on the agency.
“Yes, we do need them, but I will caveat that we also need to define for their effectiveness what their delegated authorities are, what their sphere is, respective agencies are going to be different in the CDOs,” Bos-Beijer said, cautioning that one size does not fit all.
“It might be the information guru for the agency that knows where to get the resources, they don’t do anything else. They may set the policies for what’s internal and external information and that’s all. They may be the ones that utilize a whole range of tools.”
McClure said that while NOAA does not have a CDO, that role would be focused for the agency on “taking us up to the next level.”
“I think in a lot of other organizations, chief data officer is going to be more the educator and the one to inspire to get people to focus on if you’re going to be a data-centric organization, you need to think about how you’re going to use data.”
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