The March to the Clouds

About a year ago I stopped going to a Blockbuster to rent movies. And it’s no surprise to me that last month they filed for bankruptcy. CompUSA is gone, Gamestop could follow, and pretty much in a few years so will everyone who sells or distributes any form of media or information in a brick-and-mortar store. Because media and information will stream from the “Clouds”. Media will be “ubiquitously consumed” and not be ”personally owned”. And that will signal the march into the clouds – for software, for entertainment, for collaboration, and eventually for all forms of media.

Remember the song “The Video killed the Radio star” from the Buggles in the 80s? Here is the sequel . “The Cloud killed the Video star“

I read my newspaper on an iPad early in the morning. I next check my email from my iPhone which sits on my nightstand.  We use a Wii  and an iPad  to stream Netflix movies in the house. I can pause a movie downstairs and go watch the rest upstairs on a completely different device. Why? Because the movie is in the “Cloud”. The same way you can save an email at work and go finish it from your home. Because your email is in the “Cloud”. Just like I can start writing this Blog at an airport kiosk and complete it when I get home on my home computer. Because this Blog is in the “Cloud”.  All music in my house is streamed using Pandora Radio on an iPad or Iphone. I can start a song at home and finish listening to it in my car without carrying any media with me. Because all my music is in the “Cloud”. My  pictures, my dictionary, my thesaurus, my kids homework,  my friends (think Facebook), all of you reading this, and even all my personal information now sits in this cloud! Even my bank is in a virtual cloud.

And So is Yours. So it’s time to pay attention to this March to the Clouds.

Will this create a new world order, I often wonder,  and redistribute knowledge and eventually wealth and power differently than today? Does the child in Chad, Africa now have the same opportunities as the kid in Cuppertino, California?  Has the playing field been finally leveled? Will it fundamentally change how we collaborate and alter relationships? Will it make us even more transient? Its now easier to just “get up and move” and have most of your “relevant stuff” show up at this new place even before you do. Because most of your “relevant stuff” exists “everywhere”.

Here is a prediction. Distances will further collapse. The world will grow flatter. Economies will change. The only constant may be the service sector – since certain services have to happen locally and not in the Cloud. After all, you can’t outsource a hair cut. You can outsource finding a salon, making a reservation, choosing your style, and paying the stylist but you still have to show up to benefit from that service.

So what should we do differently to participate? Firstly, stop fighting it and embrace it. Facebook is ok for your kids. Twitter is not bad either. Texting is great. Consistent and connected collaboration is what that generation is going to teach us.

Encourage this also at work. It kills me that most companies today ban social media at work places. They probably even have time-clocks to check in and check out employees. Free your people from the clutches of the confined cubicle. Because if you don’t someone else will. The world has just opened up.

Open your windows (and your Macs) and look outside. You will see the Clouds.

See you there.

Advertisement