Growth Strategies

Google’s Kevin Marks talks about the Social Cloud. This is not to be confused with Cloud Computing. The World Wide Web (WWW) in essence is a cloud and this is what Kevin refers to. In the www-cloud we use standards like TCP-IP and HTML. He talks about new standards for making social data in the WWW-cloud standard. When we standardize social data it becomes interchangeable between social media platforms and also enables us to build a mind maps of our social profiles. It enables us to visualize our social networks, the tools we use and the content we generate. This opens up a new opportunities for social analytics.

The social cloud will require incorporation of an electronic social identity… universal sign on. I’ve written on this topic in the past. How do you allow separate systems to share your social profile and access your network data? The example Kevin uses is why can’t a user just transfer their network from a Facebook into a Myspace. A lot of apps exist, but they always require you to key in your account user name and password for the site you are transferring from and your account credentials are unique for each system.

It will be interesting to see what Google comes up with to solve this issue.

Source: Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship, by Danah Boyd and Nicole Ellison in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.

Yeah!!! This is what I am talking about!

Now where is a similar plan for national e-government portal that will cover all federal, state and local services reducing complexity and increasing efficiencies?

Where is that energy bill that will kick start all those nuclear power plants, solar/wind farms and geothermal plants that will power all the electric cars that will come to market in the next few years?

Where is the comprehensive national strategy on wireless networks making this nation a leader in high-speed communications? In the 2008 Global Broadband Household Penetration Rankings USA ranks 20th. Broadband and mobile broadband are the backbone to an information society.

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Visionaries see U.S. high speed rail; critics see subsidies - Jul. 2, 2009

CNN money writes about DOW loosing over 200 points due to worse than expected jobs report. The President comments that the figures are... "sobering".

I've written on this issue a number of times. The number one enemy of a recovery is UNEMPLOYMENT. Now you can argue that unemployment is the results of a number of other factors and those need to be fixed before unemployment can be reduced. The reality is that it is not about the lack of lending... no one is buying. People are not buying, because they are saving... because they are either unemployed or waiting to be unemployed.

Health care reform is important, but why are we not looking at the funds that have been allocated for the Recovery Act. I recently looked at a visualization of stimulus spending from the New York Times (http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-STIMULUS0903.html). There are so many line items across so many states that I am just wondering what portion of those funds are being used, what their employment effect is and how much waste there is? How much of the infrastructure spending will leave something behind that will make us more competitive in the years to come? We will have the most modern network of emergency shelters in the world, which will require maintenance and but will not generate a single dime after they have been built. Where are high speed rail lines, the next generation high-speed wireless networks, the new nuclear power stations, the national e-government platforms, etc. These are all initiatives that will make the nation more efficient and more competitive for years to come. They will also generate jobs today and put money back in the pockets of consumers? Where are the bold initiatives that will shape the nation for generations?   

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CNNMoney.com Market Report - Jul. 2, 2009

Cloud computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure in the "cloud" that supports them.

The concept generally incorporates combinations of the following:

–infrastructure as a service (IaaS)

–platform as a service (PaaS)

–software as a service (SaaS)

Other recent (ca. 2007–2009) technologies that rely on the Internet to satisfy the computing needs of users. Cloud computing services often provide common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers.

(Source: Wikipedia)

In summary: The major difference between traditional solutions and cloud solutions is that solutions developed for the cloud support multiple tenants within a virtual architecture. Traditional solutions only support multiple accounts or user within a single tenant.

Macro versus Micro

An example of a Macro Cloud is Microsoft’s Azure. As an analogy, it is a wide open field with a single set of construction guide lines. We can add as many houses from the same mold in the field as we like and charge the tenants a monthly fee. They can furnish their home to their liking, but not alter the layout of their home.

In the future Macro Clouds could support a large ecosystem of Micro Clouds. Continuing the same analogy, the field could be carved up into zones with family homes, town homes and condos. Now the tenant can choose from a list of available floor plans to fit their needs.

Virtualization enables multiple solutions to inhabit a single server. If these solutions support multiple tenants, we can build Micro Clouds that are uniquely tailored to a specific group. In terms of the analogy, we can now tailor our home layout exactly to our needs without having to wait for the zoning to happen.

Creating a Micro Cloud for just one tenant doesn’t make sense, but when we have a small group with synergistic needs, then we can achieve significant benefits. Micro Clouds enable us to customize applications for small groups of tenants that have common highly unique needs… vertical needs. When the tenants in a Micro Cloud interact and share data Partner-To-Partner (P2P) we can multiply the returns of the cloud.