Expertise in the Cloud
February 3rd, 2010
Anyone who has seen the Jack Bauer saving the world with the help of CTU on the TV Show “24” or how the government chases down Jason Borne in any of those famous movies, has a great visual picture of the power of technology in the hands of superior expertise.
In the hands of a highly skilled practitioner, there is seemingly nothing that cannot be achieved with superior technology. In fact they make it look so easy. But it isn’t so easy is it? In fact, great technology only makes the great practitioner even more effective. At best, lack of expertise renders great technology worthless…unfortunately; the incompetent use of great technology can wreak havoc creating horrific unintended consequences.
There is a reason why we put highly trained pilots in the cockpit of the F-18 on the aircraft carriers. There is a reason why you need a lifetime of study before we let you perform surgery. Even fixing the bathroom sink commands the expertise of a professional plumber. Certainly one can quickly learn the mechanics of the job in a book, and technology can mask the complexity, but only to a point. Superior technology to be superior needs to be harnessed by superior expertise.
It never ceases to amaze me when highly accomplished corporate executives forget this truth of major technology. With nearly 70% of technology projects considered a failure (More see ZDNET blogs http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=1175) on the short list of many of these failures is “poor requirements” or “poor communication” or “weak project management”. The root cause of all however, links to lack of expertise.
Cloud computing is mainstreaming. There is an explosion of technology available to the world with unbeatable economic considerations. It will become quite easy to acquire very sophisticated enterprise class technology, but it will not be easy to deliver next level business performance. That will require expertise. Wouldn’t it be great if that expertise was also available in the cloud?
