It Will Be a Data-Centric (Cloudy) World

(Or, Where Tomorrow's Clouds Will Form)

Move Mohammed to the mountain, or the mountain to Mohammed? 

In the context of data, applications and cloud computing, this question takes on a new perspective - and the role of Mohammed and the Mountain may soon reverse.


In the traditional application-centric (and static infrastructure) world, the Application is the the immovable "mountain". Like a magnet, the app is permanently-located, attracting to it local data stores and peripheral support apps.  Administrators dote around it like worker bees around the queen.

But for some uses and applications this may all change - altering with it the how-and-where compute and community clouds form.

Observation #1: Apps are becoming mobile

With increased use of a virtualization layer, migration tools, shared storage, fat network pipes, and virtual I/O and switching, we are all now realizing that where the executable application code resides is becoming far less important. Everything is just data - and can be moved/migrated. In mature virtual environments, VMs typically move between between servers because of maintenance windows, because of capacity adjustments, etc.  But when VMs move move between physical data centers (separated by many miles or more) there is often a data movement as well. But there's no denying that the application is becoming more mobile.

We also have the emergence of large data arrays and analytics appliances that embed internal servers that speed queries and analysis. VM's typically run on top of these servers being migrated in-and-out of the arrays as workloads and queries change. Hang on to this visual... we'll come back to it later.

Observation #2: Big Data is becoming bigger

When we start talking about hundreds of Terabytes - or even Petabytes - of structured/unstructured "big data", moving that data becomes increasingly physically difficult. Where it's generated is generally where it stays. Think about financial stock exchanges; retail data warehouses; medical imaging; geologic or climatological data. These stores are now becoming big and immovable.

So, enterprises are now locating these data stores within critical data centers - within which they are co-locating the applications that require frequent access to that data. Sometimes that proximity is sufficient, and sometimes the analytics may even move within the array. But any way you look at it, those data stores are becoming the center of attention, around-which the applications now congregate.

An interesting shift. But wait, there's more...

·     

Outcome: Where Tomorrow's Clouds Might Form

So let's expand this model from enterprise data centers to public clouds. Or even to "community clouds".

Take the example of financial exchange data - NYSE’s Capital Markets Community Platform about which I blogged last year.  Here we have a special-purpose, "community cloud" - optimized for financial institutions, wherein they can locate trading and analytics applications. (Imagine a 3-person hedge-fund startup needing infrastructure). Operationally it's fit-for-purpose, with a high performance, low-latency compute backbone, with a common security/compliance envelope. But it's got another trait: At its core is a historic data warehouse of every tick for every trade. Now that's big data.

If you think of it, the NYSE data store has become the "Mountain" around which applications (supplied by the cloud tenants) now congregate.They run their algorithms and analytics against the local data store. The data within the community cloud has become the anchor, the magnet. The apps are moved to be near the data.... not the other way around.  Remember that data array that had embedded VMs? Well, think of this model as that array on steroids.

So, what might this mean if you want to build a differentiated cloud computing resource - say, targeting a specific industry vertical?  It says to me that the world will shift to a data-centric model. Focus on amassing and maintaining massive high-value data, all (presumably) requiring a similar security/compliance model. And then build a business by allowing tenants access by co-locating their applications in the same cloud as the data resides.

I could see this transforming both the cloud service provider ecosystem, as well as entire industry groups. Consider new Cloud Service Provider models:  What if NOAA formed the Weather and Atmospherics Community Platform? If healthcare companies created federated Medical Records Community Platforms? If the USGS formed the World Geologic Community Platform? If other brokerages created equivalent capital markets platforms? 

Cloud computing is shifting lots of conceptual IT models these days. But while you're considering what Cloud makes possible for applications, spend some time wondering what data makes possible for the Cloud.

Other References

• Data Gravity - In the Clouds by @mccrory
• Defying Data Gravity by @mccrory
• Better Information Management, Better Healthcare Delivery by @ChuckHollis
• Are 'Cloud Hubs' The Way of the Future?  

My Cloudy Nerdy Playlist for 2012

Political movements have their anthems. Starbucks has its background music brand. But I thought it might be fun to collate a playlist that specifically appeals to the techie/cloudy group.

So here goes. Some of these are pretty funny... others leave a bit to be desired.  And if you know of more (or have favorites of your own) send them my way and I'll add them...

Songs about Clouds

• Get Off Of My Cloud - The Rolling Stones
• Clouds - The Jayhawks
• Clouds - Django Reinhardt (awesome rendition w/a Spanish guitar)
• Clouds - The Go-Betweens
• Clouds - The Submarines
• In The Clouds - The Cult 
• Death Cloud - Cloud Control
• Cloudy - Average White Band (not the greatest audio/video)

Other (mostly funny) songs about IT

• Nerd Lust - Schaffer & The Darklords
• She Blinded Me With Science - Thomas Dolby -
• Nrrrd Grrrl - MC Chris. Hi-grade lyrics. Low budget production.
• (Do You Wanna Date My) Avatar -The Guild
• The SysAdmin Song - Wes Borg - A classic.
• IT Administration Song – To the tune of “A few of my favorite things”
• The Computer Song – Dare you to memorize all of these acronyms. And this was just 2007.
• Cookie Computer Song – Classic Sesame Street. Primitive. 1974!
• Happy System Administrator Day - (one of my fave Animes) Features “The SysAdmin Song” above
• Networking Tips – Don’ts - Sheryl Nicholson (a short Hip-Hop style interlude)
• Object-oriented Programming Song - #7 - from Design Minstrel (great lyrics, horrific delivery)
• The Computer Scientist - Code Play (awesome indie creation. but delivery also leaves something to be desired)
• The Computer Error song - A fun sampling/mashup... or listen to the remix. (Windows listeners only) Maybe this'll be the V0geball psyche-up tune next year.
• The Day the Routers Died – Had to end with this one from RIPE 55 conference, 2007. Freakin' brilliant tribute to IPv6. Not sure who sang, tho. But picture a room full of geeks singing the final stanza...

Techy Poetry

• Horton Hears Hadoop - Joe Onisick
• Horton Hears a Hadoop - Tom Keske
  (I need more here... )

Even MORE Links...

• Geek Music: 15 Songs Celebrating Nerd Girls
• Geek Music: 5 Musicians to Get You Started with Nerdcore
• Geek Music – Nerdapalooza 2010 Concert Report Saturday
• Geek Music: 12 More Songs for a Geeky Christmas
• C++ Programmer - Your typical coder interview.

Steve Jobs in 1980... and Cloud + Big Data Today

In 1980, Steve Jobs gave a talk (YouTube) about the early days of Apple.

It's fascinating because it describes events that lead up to the first commercially-available Apple computer, and presaged the movement toward "canned" programs (commercial software) rather than everyone writing programs themselves.

However, around the 12:00 mark, Steve made a really incredible observation regarding the true goal of Apple (at the time) and about how to use the new level of computing power available to Apple computer users:

"As we move into the '80's, the amount of computational power - the amount of raw horsepower - we can get into a small box for a reasonable price is staggering....   One of the things people always ask me [is] 'what we've got right now is just fine; VisiCalc runs fast enough. Some of the database stuff runs fast enough. What are we going to do with this extra awesome power?'

"The answer to that is that we're going to put it [computational power] into applying/solving that problem again: In other words, we're going to start chewing up power specifically to help that 1:1 interaction go smoother. And specifically not to actually do the number-crunching and database management and word processing. We're actually going to apply that power specifically into removing that barrier.... 

This statement struck me because, in essence, Steve was saying "it's not about faster, it's about easier". He was pointing to all that could be possible if the clunky interaction with the technology was relegated to the background and made invisible.

In today's enterprise context, my interpretation of this is "What could be possible if all of that data center technology could be relegated to the background and made invisible?" In essence I thought, what if we could mask the granular time-consuming operational efforts of managing servers, I/O, applications, networking, storage, security etc. and get back to why the data center is there in the first place?  Today, IT operations for 'keeping the lights on" consumes ~ 75% of IT's budget today, and only ~ 25% is left over for innovation and serving the business.

The goal of IT Transformation should be to "solve the problem again" and put the computational horsepower on autopilot. Let's get to the point where our interaction with the data center is the ability to ask for the resources we need, and in response, we instantly get fast, scalable, secure services.

If we can get to the point where 25% of the cost is to keep things running, and 75% of the cost is used for innovation about the data, what would be possible for business?

In my opinion, IT is still largely in the Dark Ages. We are obsessed with speeds and feeds, tuning and tiering. The purpose of the Data Center is the Data - manipulating and analyzing it for the business. If we found a way to direct 75% of our computational horsepower to THAT, what would be possible?

That needs to be the goal of IT Transformation. That is why Cloud is such a critical enabler.

Thanks once again, Steve.


Other Resources:

• The Death of Why (Blog by EMC's Bill Schmarzo)

Predictions: What You WON'T See in IT For 2012

While everyone is jumping in with 2012 predictions ('Tis the season) I want to impress on everyone that a dose of sobriety is in order.

IT vendors - and even analysts - are understandably eager to see new technologies and operating models (cloud) adopted quickly. But let's acknowledge the High Tech adage: Not very much happens in 2-3 years, although massive changes occur over a decade.

At any rate, I wanted to highlight things I believe we won't see happen in 2012. Perhaps because we're just being a bit over-eager, or perhaps other enablers have to precede them. Here goes:


An Instant Cloud
Despite claims from vendors, and a plethora of tools and technologies, you still won't see an "instant-on" private cloud solution in 2012. And you probably won't for years to come. I know many folks (mostly vendors) will vehemently disagree with me, but let me challenge you all with this: Cloud is an operational model, enabled by technology. Simply implementing a tool (BTW, most of which are still only tenuously integrated with each other, as well as with hardware and networking platforms) won't solve the problem for you. And definitely not for an enterprise-ready level of availability

Building infrastructure is one thing; knowing how to operationalize it, integrate it into your enterprise, and how to re-structure your service delivery processes are very different. 

However, I do believe that in the next 3 years or so, mainstream enterprises will come to realize that the issue is only partly technology-based. And I hope that change-management and organizational design models will mature to the level of technology models so that "turn-key" process change and skill development will accompany the product sale.

One Dominant Public Cloud
Despite growing use of AWS, Google and Azure, I believe that none of these will be a runaway dominant leader for 2012. Or ever.

Although there will likely be 2-5 very large public cloud leaders who compete on economies-of-scale, I believe the invisible hand of the market will instead cultivate many more "special purpose" community clouds. These players will develop based on knowing their specific market requirements - i.e. competing on security, compliance, use habits, special-purpose applications, performance, etc.  Take for example financial markets (NYSE's Capital Markets Community Platform), Healthcare (varied provider solutions), or even Federal, State, and Local Government (varied initiatives).

The next 2-3 years will definitely see more specific examples of these special-purpose cloud computing initiatives - and perhaps even the emergence of a few 'dominant' community clouds in selected markets. But in 2012, we won't see the community cloud market held back by the presence of large public clouds.

Broad Use of IT Chargeback
Financial chargeback (and showback) have been discussed for years, and are being implemented in greater numbers lately. And although I am a proponent of IT Financial Transparency, we won't see the broad-based use of chargeback unfortunately still won't go mainstream in 2012.

In my opinion, implementing financial transparency tools are second-level initiatives. They don't make sense to implement until and unless the IT department first has other financial controls and metrics in place. And they certainly don't make sense unless IT and the lines-of-business agree on what they're trying to achieve with better IT financial transparency in the first place. Is it really cost-recovery, or merely better knowledge of variable costs and consumption?  Is it an attempt by IT to become more 'competitive' and to measure itself against external providers? Is it an effort by the CIO and CFO to gather better build-vs-buy decisions? The enterprise has to ask these questions before forging ahead with a chargeback program.

So, while 2012 may not be the year of chargeback, it might be the year when IT begins to take a more evolved approach to measuring its variable cost, to metering consumption, and to implementing the goals and strategies it will need to begin these initiatives. Broad-based use of chargeback may still be a few years off, but I hope that IT financial maturity begins soon.

IT is Elevated to a Strategic Business Enabler
Unfortunately, in 2012, we'll still see the vast number of enterprise IT groups continue to report up to the CFO, to be pressured to keep-the-lights-on with less, and to simply be considered a cost center by the organization. As much as IT should be treated as a core enabler of the business, this just won't be so in 2012. It takes time.

But a transformation of IT is taking place, slowly. Saavy CIOs are thinking of themselves as "internal SPs", and beginning to relate to partnering with lines-of-business in a formal manner. To make this transformation, IT first has to adopt new models for services consumption, operations and technology.

In the new context of Business Enabler, IT partners with Lines-of-business to ensure that (a) services are quickly made available to support the top-line revenue needs, (b) IT works with business managers to educate them about potential new services and top-line opportunities, (c) IT adopts a 'consumerized' mindset whereby it supports an "any device" approach to endpoints, and (d) IT is as comfortable with brokering external services as it is with generating its own - doing whatever it takes to support the needs of business users.

But for 2012, let's push IT - and the business - to begin planning for this transformation.

Customers Catch Up to Vendor Vision
As a long-time marketer in high-tech, I've seen the tendency of vendors to push customers to adopt the Next Big Thing. And that N.B.T. is frequently disruptive (or at least discontinuous) with respect to the "legacy" approach to doing things.

To be sure, there are always customers who are leading-edge in their technology adoption. But the mainstream customer adopts technology *incrementally* and rarely if ever discontinuously. This is a byproduct of (a) the human tendency to mitigate risk, and (b) business' tendency to plan change - and budgets - incrementally.

So, for 2012 - and for the foreseeable future -  this trend won't change. Hopefully vendors will be more clear about what's "vision" or what's "for early-adopters", and maintain a healthy dose of sobriety about selling high-brow discontinuity to the mainstream market.

As this relates to Cloud computing, it's clear that more of the mainstream market is adopting virtualization, and has bought into the concept of cloud computing initiatives. But let's be clear: In 2012 the average IT infrastructure won't be completely re-built into a private cloud.  However, I believe that the majority of medium and large IT shops will all have begun their progression toward the private cloud eventuality.


Other (prediction-related) links

• IT's Blind Spots for 2009 (Vol I) Fountainhead Blog
• IT's Blind Spots for 2009 (vol II)  Fountainhead Blog
• Prediction 2009: The Future of Virtualization Fountainhead Blog
• 10 IT Predictions for 2012 Chuck's Blog

Celebrating Innovation at EMC

Can innovation be fostered or facilitated? Can it be measured? Is it a formal or informal process? Can you have an innovation competition? Is it limited to Engineering? 


These were not the topics I was expecting at last week's EMC Innovation Conference. Rather, I thought it was going to be a geek fest with lots of greasy-haired, propeller-hat-wearing attendees drinking diet-Coke and speaking mostly PERL, C++ or Greek.

Instead, the event was attended by a few hundred local Silicon-valley EMC-ers, with hundreds more globally watching simulcast. It was business-casual with execs and technologists alike, and kicked off with none other than EMC's COO Pat Gelsinger (and former Intel CTO) and MC'd by SVP/CTO Jeff Nick. Rather than a siloed techno event, the importance of innovation at EMC was supported at the very highest levels of the company. Now that's refreshing.

Guest stars attended too - one Scott McNealy - in his usual humorous, politically- and sports-charged manner.

But First: Did the COO "Get It"?
Resounding yes on this one. Pat opened with a real command of what innovation means to the company - Innovation can mean disruption... and even destruction of old ideas. And that's good (if you don't agree, read the Innovator's Dilemma). But Pat also pointed out that without being coupled with commercialization/monetization, innovation doesn't count for much. And knowing how to commercialize an innovation can be just as challenging as coming up with the idea in the first place. More on that later.

Pat was also insightful in that innovation isn't just about technology. You can have organizational, marketing, and  process innovation, in addition to product-based innovation. And innovation can be top-down and/or bottom-up (EMC does both).  To help accomplish systematic, company-wide innovation, EMC uses the Golden Triangle: Organic innovation, University research/relations, and EMC Ventures. More on these later, too.

Can Innovation Be Measured?
Both Jeff Nick and Steve Todd (Director of EMC's Innovation Network) focused on this question, and there are many perspectives. Patents, for one, are a useful metric for organic innovation, but as Pat pointed out, they don't necessarily indicate that an idea has been monetized. Nonetheless, there is a rough norm of patents per employee per year that the company is striving towards. Intellectual Property in-and-of itself can be valued, as we've seen from recent acquisitions of IP by IBM, Google, and others.

Jeff also pointed out that another indicator of innovation is of course the monetization itself. What's the ROI on an organic development group? Did an acquisition recoup its cost?  Did a a venture investment create a useful return, or even better, might it have been a profitable acquisition? 

While measuring innovation might still be tricky, knowing how to facilitate indicators gets part-way there.  So when Steve pointed out that another indicator tended to be when small groups work together to solve a problem, there was an "aha" moment.  How to constantly encourage groups to form, and information to flow? Therein lies his "day job"...

Can you Compete for Innovation?
Thus, Steve realized that encouraging groups to form with a common purpose might spur organic innovation. And, for the past few years, he's been conducting an annual innovation contest within and across the company. Participation has been growing at a healthy clip. Topics can be many - some were geeky, but some were clearly for social betterment. 

To his credit, Steve also used a dose of data analytics to map every individual and every project across the company. He confirmed, in fact, that finalists tended to work in groups or "Cliques".Which begged the question, how to facilitate and accelerate this behavior in the future.

Formal or Informal?
The other aspect I really appreciated about the day was the intentional mix of formal and informal innovation the company strives to maintain. As I mentioned, the company emphasizes the concept of the "Golden Triangle". In addition to internal/organic innovation, we also work informally with external universities and research... and of course, formally with many prominent VCs and startups.

Mark Lewis, EMC's Chief Strategy Officer and leader of EMC's Venture group, gave a fantastic overview of how we regularly look at the startup community, and place measured investments with them. The ideas is to discover great ideas both ahead of the competition, and early enough such that we don't have to pay huge premiums to acquire should we deem them valuable.

The strategy behind these investments is broad, but what I heard was a 2-pronged approach:
(a) Pursuing the technologies that are complementary to EMC's product set - technologies and ideas that are net-new to the company, yet extend our leadership in the data center market
(b) Pursuing products that might eventually replace or cannibalize existing EMC products.  Like the Innovator's Dilemma points out, better to cannibalize your own products than have someone else do it for you.

Limited to Engineering?
Capping off was another surprising panel... of marketers. Could Innovation extend into how we market EMC and our products? Absolutely.

Two fascinating points stood out, and hopefully made a huge impression on the audience and EMC as a whole.  First, the panel chosen consisted entirely of recently-acquired marketing leadership located locally in the Bay Area. Scott McNealy had pointed out that "Silicon Valley DNA" was somehow different of that from the rest of the country - and EMC (based in Hopkinton MA) was making a concerted effort to graft that DNA into the rest of the company.

Second, was the attitude of corporate marketing. Do things differently. Use metrics. Understand the trends of the "new" buyers... (Hint: they don't pay attention to marketers using traditional email, snail-mail or traditional TV). Innovation here had to do with how social marketing, new/viral media, and fast-paced imagery was the way to both get attention as well as to change the face of the company brand.

For me, this day definitely served to change how I thought of the CTO's office, how I related to the concept of innovation, and how I think of corporate development.  As EMC further pursues these paths, hopefully other leading companies will as well -- it's good for them, for careers and personal development, and frankly for the economy as a whole.



More Resources
Jeff Nick (CTO): About  Article
Mark Lewis: About  Blog 
Steve Todd:  Twitter: @SteveTodd     Blog: Information Playground
Chuck's Blog: The Challenge Of "Innovating Innovation" In Large Corporations

A Marketing Lesson For IT

In an earlier post of mine, "An Image Makeover for IT" I shared about a surprising meeting I'd had with our IT department -- where they were looking to learn how to better market their services within the company. I felt that this was a harbinger for the "New IT", and I think I was right...

Then last week I was given a draft Data Sheet by EMC's IT department.Whoa, you say. A Data Sheet? Isn't IT supposed to operate down there in the bowels of the data center keeping the "lights on"?

As you know, EMC's IT group has been progressive, from their virtualization initiative to building an internal Private Cloud for the company, to organizing for success, to marketing themselves as if they were a competitive service provider. Which is just the way more IT groups will have to think.

Why would IT Want To Market Themselves?
If IT is to think more "competitively" then they need to organize and act competitively, including driving demand/consumption for their services. This isn't about internal politics (validating their annual budget) but rather about driving awareness, demand, and preference for their services. Because IT's new competition is "shadow IT", the advancing commercialization of IT. More simple-to-use, aggressively priced external services are being offered to users who are accustomed to the convenience.  So IT finds itself having to do the same.

And there is the education component too... because while the enterprise consumer might want to compare internal vs. external services purely based on price (think: AWS, DropBox, MobileMe), IT has to show that there are hidden costs to these: Risk exposure, inability to prove compliance, cost of securing data, etc. etc. So IT turning to traditional marketing devices isn't all that odd in the final analysis.

A Data Sheet for IT...
Back to the Data Sheet I received. The IT dept did their homework - Like all good product marketing summaries, it included components to project leadership and to drive demand:

• Service components: In this case, it is an IaaS style service, replete with the value proposition. It defined the service, the pain-points it alleviates, and why internal EMC engineers should consider using it.
• Overall Value: IT also did a great job of illustrating the *total value* of the service - not just economic value, but the value of agility (time-to-provision) and convenience.
• Value of Risk Avoidance: Some marketers like to market to the paranoid... in this case, IT illustrated the risks of not using an IT-sourced service.Security, compliance, SLAs, etc.
• Competitive comparison: In particular, I like the fact that the internal private-cloud based service full-up cost was compared to that of popular public cloud providers. It illustrated that the actual cost of external services isn't always just the bare-bones hourly cost on your credit card...
• Availability roadmap: I also like the fact that IT set expectations with its customers. What's available now, and what new services/features will be available when.
• And a little bit of Esprit de Corps:Yep, good old pride in what the company is doing, and how the IT department is helping drive the top-line business. 

...And Enabled By New Roles, New Skills
If IT is to succeed as a "competitive" provider to the enterprise, simply publishing a Data Sheet is just one deliverable in a larger story. The organization needs to think, act, and hire like an internal service provider - and ask itself "How do successful SP's drive business demand?"

The process begins with a cultural and leadership shift to a desire to act not as an internal (monopolistic) cost center, and more like a competitive business catering to the varying demands of its internal customers. This is a CIO-level decision, often done in partnership with LoB's and even with the CMO.

And who executes on this new approach? What new functions need to sediment into IT? Well, it's not about technology skills anymore. Rather, IT will need to acquire traditional business and marketing skills. A few suggestions:

• Develop In-bound and out-bound Marketing: This refers to classical Inbound product management (listens externally to customer needs, and helps determine product features, plans, pricing - and classical product marketing, helping drive external awareness, preference and demand. In both cases here, Inbound/outbound functions work as closely with internal lines-of-business to understand their needs, roadmaps and futures.
• Initiate client "relationship management": Somewhat akin to a "sales" function, these individuals are assigned to sit closely-aligned with business users of IT, and work closely with in-bound product management. These folks detect leading indicators  of how IT can better serve the business, and look for ways to add value either with competitive technology, services or analysis.
• Include Pricing and Financial Management: Pricing and costing of services is a shift away from tallying-up gross capital and operational expenses, with a move instead towards activity-based costing. The ability to discern the true usage-based cost of an IT service means that the organization can better align supply with demand, and make better buy-vs-build decisions. This "financial transparency" allows the CIO, CFO, and Lines-of-Business to make better overall decisions regarding using IT to support the enterprise.

If IT is to be competitive, it has to act competitive. Marketing of IT is far from the only shift that needs to be done - and arguably, it probably follows shifts in IT technology and IT operations. But marketing IT is nonetheless an illustrative example of what is to come with a larger IT transformation initiative.

Act Now! Top Opportunities for IT Transformation Services...

It's become obvious of late that cloud computing is not a technology end-in-itself, but rather an enabler of broader IT  transformation. I've heard it from CIOs, CTOs, and even EMC's own IT department. All said, it's clear that IT transformation affects the entire organization - its consumption model, operations, organization, finance and more.It's not just about products anymore.

IMO there is a massive opportunity for leading change-management organizations to work with IT organizations to help them assess and execute this transition. Technology alone will not make IT more competitive.

So I'm a bit shocked that this era isn't a windfall for services providers who will help shepherd IT organizations through the change management process. It should be. To me this seems like thre's a huge investment opportunity to develop service practices. And, it's a huge opportunity for IT organizations to take pause and assess what their structure, operational model and business model will be a few short years from now. And how they plan to get there.

Follows are a few observations - and opportunities - I've made in the hope that a rising tide lifts all ships:

No Show Offs?

Where are the services providers, consultants and change-management professionals at trade events?

Given the tons of IT, cloud, and tech related trade shows, I'm continually amazed at how 99% of floor exhibitors are hardware or software firms. The show managers occasionally include special floor sections for "cloud" or "security" and such, but never for services providers or consultants who would assist the attendees in implementing the technology and change management needed to leverage technology.

I'd like to see an "IT Transformation Services" section in the large shows (i.e. VMworld, Cloud**, etc.) including consultants, organizational design firms, HR firms, IT training and talent management organizations, certification boards. etc. This would be where firms could hawk their services and compete for the non-product enablers for the CIO. Show producers ought to offer incentives to capture these firms and the value they provide.

I'd also like to see more intentionally-produced tracks at the shows that talk about real-world IT transformation successes... without inclusion of product or technology. Topics?  Financial transparency. Organizational design. Service-oriented design. Line-of-business customer focus.

Where Are the Big Guys?

Next, why aren't Accenture, Deloitte, CSC, Cap Gemini, Accenture etc blazing the IT change management trails? Perhaps they have IT change management practices. But I read next-to-nothing from these folks regarding philosophy, approach or successes. I'd like to know more about what they're doing and/or planning.

From where I sit, most System Integrators and management consultants either have 'low-level' practices where they thrown technologists at a problem, or high-level management consultants who produce reports and strategies. I'd like to see the middle-ground, with practices that work with the CIO and their lieutenants, to assess what type of transformation(s) would make the IT organization most valuable to the lines of business.

Where are the books, keynotes, articles and methodologies developed to show-off the IP I *hope* these folks are developing? 

And What of Professional Certifications?

No, not technology certifications; I mean IT Skill certs. Cloud Architect. Cloud Engineer. IT Services/Product Management. IT Marketing (inbound, outbound). IT Business Liaison. IT Financial Services Management. Not all of these are traditional IT roles, but they will be in demand shortly as IT re-tools itself to act and operate as the equivalent of an internal Service Provider.

And while we're at it, I'd *love* to see more business and MBA programs offer technology leadership and change management for CIO's style coursework.  Technology leaders will no longer need to be technologists themselves.


And in closing...

At EMC's recent IT Leadership council, it was clear to attendees that Transformation of the IT org was not about the technology anymore. It was about skills, roles, organizations, culture.

I am continually impressed by what EMC's IT department has done in most if not all of these domains. And I know that our own EMC Consulting arm has deep bench strength in this area. And as a company, we're going so far as to offer professional certifications in these emerging domains.

But as I said above, a rising tide lifts all ships.... I'd like to see broader activity in all of these areas from partners and competitors alike. The best way to make the new cloud computing paradigm successful is to make the IT departments successful in their transition. So, where is the help?

Post-Blog Updates

• Recent announcement from Deloitte for Cloud Service Providers