The topic covered by this post is one which you've either been hearing a lot about, or will in the near future. It's an important subject that we all be familiar with, as we will need to address it with our clients and partners, and sooner, rather than later.
Let's start off with a definition:
Cloud Computing is "any situation in which computing is done in a remote location (out in the clouds), rather than on the desktop or handheld device." (Business Week ).
Or
In general, cloud computing builds upon the general concepts of Web 2.0 or software as a service (SaaS) for users to rely on the Internet to satisfy their computing needs.
Examples you may be familiar with are Salesforce.com, Amazon's "Elastic Cloud" or EC2, Google Apps, Microsoft Office Live, and our own LloydCare™ Hosted.
What's the "cloud" mean?
I think it's a cool term developed by the some marketing firm.
Don't get me wrong, we are in for a paradigm shift in how people use, access and pay for data and data processing.
In this new paradigm:
Your data, or a portion of your data, for the most part doesn't reside local to your workstation or servers. Although it may, because sometimes you need to work offline, and sometimes your applications demand that they be local, for either performance or licensing purposes. A really good example of this is the Amazon Kindle. I automatically download the newspapers, magazines, and books I want to read, and they are available to me offline or on. However, if I delete them from my local device, they are still available, theoretically forever, on Amazon's servers, for me to access or download again at will.
Another good example is Google Apps (a whole lot more on this in future posts) working with their Gears application allows you to work both online and take your data offline.
I work the same way with SharePoint, which syncs with my Outlook so I can work offline.
Your applications may not need to reside locally, they run instead in a browser, and therefore have the potential to be device independent. This means it doesn't matter if you're using a PC, a MAC, an iPhone, a thin-client (read cheap PC), or Blackberry. Or even perhaps an Amazon Kindle.
In the long run, you will:
Keep your data where it is cheapest to keep that data. Example, old archive documents someplace cheap, with a higher level of risk of loss of access, keep mission critical data someplace more expensive.
Be able to access that data from anywhere.
Buy application access as you need it, and
You will use a greater variety of applications:
Will you stop using Microsoft Word in exchange for Google Apps? Probably not, I think you'll use both, depending on what's cost, power and reliability are more useful to the given task, or what works best in interfacing with the partners you are working with.
Companies will save a tremendous amount of Capital Expenditures, slightly expand their Operating Expenses, and have a lot more money available to invest in really generating returns from IT.
And in that is a paradox, because I believe that if firms don't reinvest some of that money in improving productivity, their value proposition, or competitive advantage for IT, they lose all ability to differentiate themselves from their competitors, and overall improve their bottom line, through the use of IT. If we are all using Google Apps, and no one is customizing the applications or interfacing them with processes and tools you create specific to you, then you risk commoditization and generating lower returns for your stakeholders.
So, some facts:
This cloud computing thing has been tried before under various circumstances (Time-Sharing, ASP's), why is it now a possibility?
Most of you are familiar with Moore's law, which states that advances in technology will allow manufacturers to double the number of transistors on a given circuit board every two years, thus doubling (theoretically) the processing power. There is a similar law known as Grove's law, which states that the amount of bandwidth available for voice and data doubles every hundred years or so.
The "DOT Bomb" boom broke Grove's law (at least temporarily). During the late 1990's and early 21st Century telecom and other companies laid fiber optic cable. Lots of it. Verizon's desire to stay relevant is laying even more. At this point, all pretty much unprofitably.
Of course, the Obama Stimulus puts out billions more for broadband, so Grove's law will probably stay in place for the next several years, at least.
What fiber optics does for computing is what alternating-current did for electricity, it makes the location of the equipment, data and applications to be unimportant to the user, and allows disparate and formerly incompatible machine to operate together as a single system.
One interesting fact – the two biggest users of bandwidth right now are YouTube and Hulu. If this increases perhaps Grove's law will eventually come back into play.
Because of the above, the "PC Age" is giving way to the "Utility Age" ("cloud" computing")
Virtualization technology is here. For years the processing power and memory on computers has, for the most part, exceeded the users needs, for the majority of the time. In other words, a user might need 10% of their servers processing power at any given time, only once in a while increasing their usage anywhere near capacity. Virtualization technology allows one physical machine to act like multiple machines, and controls which "virtual machine" gets access to processors, memory, and storage based on current needs. We are making extensive use of this in our hosted offering.
Parallel processing is here. Thank you Google. The way Google works is to take thousands (millions) of computers, tie them together, and get them to act like one giant computer, running many things in parallel.
Big companies such as Amazon.Com and Google have built out huge datacenters, with the capacity to handle business at their peak, with redundancy built in. For example, Amazon uses 10% of its capacity most of the year, only using more around peak shopping periods like Christmas. They are now making this excess capacity available, at a price, to the end user.
Web 2.0, which really means that the Web is 2-way. There has been a lot of buzz about Web 2.0.
Web 1.0 went one-way. You published a page, someone read the page.
Web 2.0 is about interaction. The user can publish or modify. Wikipedia is one example, blogging or Facebook another. One great example to look at is a firm called Threadless.Com, where they've used Web 2.0 to take business process (and cost) and lay it on the customer.
Current competitors in the "cloud computing" space include, among others:
Google
Microsoft
Amazon
Lloyd Group
Billions and billions and billions of dollars are being spent, mostly to build datacenters near dams and other cheap sources of power.
You are going to see the biggest shift in how IT budgets are spent since the PC was invented.
What's the difference between each of the competitors?
Google's offering is centered around Google Apps, a competitive line of products to Microsoft Office and a host (no pun intended) of other applications. It includes storage and comes in both free and premium offerings. To become a Google Authorized Partner we at Lloyd are investing in a Premium Subscription and will look at using Google Apps for some of our business processes. I've begun testing them personally, and am using them to handle some of the functions within my family, communication and planning with my mentee at HBS, and to manage my role as Forum Chair for the NYC YPO Chapter. I'll let you know how these go, and ask for your feedback on how you find the applications to be when used internally.
Microsoft has many flavors, including traditional hosted Exchange and their new Live offering, which is designed to compete with Google. This is a huge effort in which they are investing billions of dollars.
Amazon's offering, or EC2, basically rents out server and storage space (virtualized) inexpensively to companies.
The Lloyd Group has built a hosted offering based on Microsoft Technology. We use virtualization in a way similar to Amazon, and manage our clients virtual environments the way we manage their physical environments today. More information and details on how our offering works will be published over the coming weeks. In the long-term, our offering will evolve to include not only what it does today, but to interface with each of the offerings mentioned above.
Who's going to win? I think everyone, but mostly the end user. In my opinion, there is no "network effect" in "cloud" computing. (A network effect is a phenomenon where there is only one winner, because so many users migrate to that one offering that even if it isn't the best or cheapest there is no way to compete against it.)
More on this topic, especially on Google Apps, in upcoming posts.
My thoughts, reactions and observations on technology, growing a business, and life.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Keeping My Inbox at Zero
This is the first in a series of posts on useful habits I’ve learned from others and practical experience I've picked up on my own. While what works for me does not always work well for others, I hope to use this as an opportunity to share, inspire others to share, and establish a culture within Lloyd of learning from each other.
One of my experiences, which Bill recently reinforced, is the importance of keeping these posts short. So I’m going to summarize as much as I can.
People are often amazed when I tell them my inbox always ends the day empty. While I’m sure many people are capable of managing their lives through their inbox, for me that path only led to anxiety and failure. At one point I probably had close to 1,000 messages in my inbox, and hundreds of sub-folder for storing them. Between tracking the messages I needed to follow-up on and the task of filing every message I was spending hours a day managing my Outlook, instead of using Outlook as a tool to manage my life.
This changed several years ago on a flight to the West Coast .During the six+ hours I cleaned my inbox to zero, reduced the number of folders, and developed a base set of guidelines (which I’ve evolved since) to turn Outlook into the tool it can be, instead of the burden it often is.
If your current system works for you, then read no further. If you’re interested in my experiences, then I’ll highlight them here. If you’d like to discuss further, my door is always open.
The following is how I manage my Inbox to ZERO emails, and my tasks:
1. I cleaned up my inbox ONCE. and swore never to do it again.
2. Setup Outlook for NO NOTIFICATIONS. My Outlook and my iPhone do not alert me to new mail. I find it only to be a distraction. No sounds, no popups. A simple envelope icon is the most I’ll allow.
3. I check email routinely, but not religiously. I look at my email about once an hour. I’ve modified the frequency to accommodate my role and responsibilities at the time, although I’ve learned that I’ve never needed to check it as often as I thought I did.
4. I almost never respond to an email immediately. I’ve learned to mark it for follow-up and file it. When I do respond, I save it as a draft and revisit ymy draft folder before sending. (THIS MEANS REVIEWING MY DRAFTS FOLDER EVERY COUPLE OF HOURS). If it’s an important email, I almost always forward it to someone to review and/or edit for you. Remember that email does not convey emotional tone. People will interpret an email based on the mood they are in at the time. I try and assume it’s a bad one. Therefore I try and be warm, friendly and mention their name a lot.
5. Copy only those who need to be copied. Send it to the proper recipients then forward the sent item to anyone else you think needs the info but isn’t required to be part of the chain
6. Let me repeat: NEVER BCC. Send to the recipient(s) and then forward the sent copy to anyone you wanted to blind copy.
7. Mark everything as JUNK that can be. Scan JUNK once a day or so. Turn off those annoying checkboxes that pop up every time, if there’s an option to not warn me each time, I select it.
8. I remove myself from every mailing list I can.
9. I find that not everything needs to be filed.
a. You don’t need a folder for everything, Outlooks search feature rocks!
b. Clean up Threads: Outlook 2010 will clean up threads, getting rid of lots of emails you just don’t need anymore.
10. Establish each emails priority. Is it?
a. Not Important or Urgent
b. Important but not Urgent
c. Urgent but not Important
d. Important and Urgent
11. Based on the above ratings, I Delete or Deal With the email.
a. Dealing with involves Delegating and/or Tracking
1. When doing this, I always try and remember to establish an expectation on time, urgency, and what my needs are
2. Tracking
a. I set a task for myself, or
b. Create an assigned task
12. I manage my task list, not my inbox.
a. Categorize tasks appropriately.
b. Set due dates based on your calendar availability and urgency
c. Change the status as I work on it.
d. Only look at today.
e. Clean up the task list at the end of the day
f. Reexamine the task list first thing in the morning
g. I keep my thoughts and long-term items in the “No Due Date” category and create a recurring task to “Review No Due Date Tasks” or use OneNote for general thoughts
i. If they have moved up in category, assign a due date
ii. If they no longer have any relevance, mark them complete or delete them
More on this in future posts, or feel free to ask.
One of my experiences, which Bill recently reinforced, is the importance of keeping these posts short. So I’m going to summarize as much as I can.
People are often amazed when I tell them my inbox always ends the day empty. While I’m sure many people are capable of managing their lives through their inbox, for me that path only led to anxiety and failure. At one point I probably had close to 1,000 messages in my inbox, and hundreds of sub-folder for storing them. Between tracking the messages I needed to follow-up on and the task of filing every message I was spending hours a day managing my Outlook, instead of using Outlook as a tool to manage my life.
This changed several years ago on a flight to the West Coast .During the six+ hours I cleaned my inbox to zero, reduced the number of folders, and developed a base set of guidelines (which I’ve evolved since) to turn Outlook into the tool it can be, instead of the burden it often is.
If your current system works for you, then read no further. If you’re interested in my experiences, then I’ll highlight them here. If you’d like to discuss further, my door is always open.
The following is how I manage my Inbox to ZERO emails, and my tasks:
1. I cleaned up my inbox ONCE. and swore never to do it again.
2. Setup Outlook for NO NOTIFICATIONS. My Outlook and my iPhone do not alert me to new mail. I find it only to be a distraction. No sounds, no popups. A simple envelope icon is the most I’ll allow.
3. I check email routinely, but not religiously. I look at my email about once an hour. I’ve modified the frequency to accommodate my role and responsibilities at the time, although I’ve learned that I’ve never needed to check it as often as I thought I did.
4. I almost never respond to an email immediately. I’ve learned to mark it for follow-up and file it. When I do respond, I save it as a draft and revisit ymy draft folder before sending. (THIS MEANS REVIEWING MY DRAFTS FOLDER EVERY COUPLE OF HOURS). If it’s an important email, I almost always forward it to someone to review and/or edit for you. Remember that email does not convey emotional tone. People will interpret an email based on the mood they are in at the time. I try and assume it’s a bad one. Therefore I try and be warm, friendly and mention their name a lot.
5. Copy only those who need to be copied. Send it to the proper recipients then forward the sent item to anyone else you think needs the info but isn’t required to be part of the chain
6. Let me repeat: NEVER BCC. Send to the recipient(s) and then forward the sent copy to anyone you wanted to blind copy.
7. Mark everything as JUNK that can be. Scan JUNK once a day or so. Turn off those annoying checkboxes that pop up every time, if there’s an option to not warn me each time, I select it.
8. I remove myself from every mailing list I can.
9. I find that not everything needs to be filed.
a. You don’t need a folder for everything, Outlooks search feature rocks!
b. Clean up Threads: Outlook 2010 will clean up threads, getting rid of lots of emails you just don’t need anymore.
10. Establish each emails priority. Is it?
a. Not Important or Urgent
b. Important but not Urgent
c. Urgent but not Important
d. Important and Urgent
11. Based on the above ratings, I Delete or Deal With the email.
a. Dealing with involves Delegating and/or Tracking
1. When doing this, I always try and remember to establish an expectation on time, urgency, and what my needs are
2. Tracking
a. I set a task for myself, or
b. Create an assigned task
12. I manage my task list, not my inbox.
a. Categorize tasks appropriately.
b. Set due dates based on your calendar availability and urgency
c. Change the status as I work on it.
d. Only look at today.
e. Clean up the task list at the end of the day
f. Reexamine the task list first thing in the morning
g. I keep my thoughts and long-term items in the “No Due Date” category and create a recurring task to “Review No Due Date Tasks” or use OneNote for general thoughts
i. If they have moved up in category, assign a due date
ii. If they no longer have any relevance, mark them complete or delete them
More on this in future posts, or feel free to ask.
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