Cloud things: The new norm

 

 

The way I see it, there is a race into the clouds. This is more than a metaphorical expression. I mean we are literally relocating into the cloud. I will explain in very plain terms how this is the case. Many have come to terms with technology and its attendant impacts. What is for certain unclear is where this is heading to. Evolution is the name of the game. In the future as it seems already, our lives will be lived predominantly in the invisible realm. In the next 20 years, a lot of what we prize as golden today will belong to the museum of aged artifacts. The future as we know it is very ubiquitous.

 

 

I travel back in time to when I was a kid. Back then, there was nothing like cable TV. The local TV station ran from about 4pm to 12pm mid night. The popular cartoon back then included Spider Man, Tom & Jerry e.t.c. We had very limited content and had to make do with what we had. Back then, having a color-TV as we referred to it was real privilege. I remember the first time I saw a fully accessorized spider man in colors. OMG! I was exceedingly euphoric. It was such an ecstatic feeling. Don't blame me, all I ever got to see was "black and white" expression of the spider man. What we had back then were VHS players. CDs and DVDs were like uber futuristic. When my friend's Dad took delivery of their new tear rubber color-TV and VHS player, it was a huge drama. Kids and elders actually assembled to catch a glimpse of the new machines.

 

 

So every generation seem to bask in the thoughts of the good old days. Truth be told, there are now things I sincerely miss from way back but today is not bad at all. All the things that seemed futuristic are stack realities today. Back in the cartoons then, the idea of a digital bill board seemed off the reach but today, everywhere you turn, you are greeted by majestic billboards with super resolution. A lot has sure changed over the years. I remember the lousy NITEL lines that disfigured the visual landscape. Of a truth, tomorrow changes yesterday.

 

 

We are now in the third productivity era often referred to as the Information Age representing the hallmark of the times we live in. Some have referred to it as the #IndustrialInternet era while many bask in the buzz words such as #BIGDATA e.t.c. Call it whatever, the stock in trade of this era is so much about the invisible. Every productivity era has a unique attribute that defines it. The Industrial mechanization era being the first productivity era was predominantly about physical machines. This era was the rise of the machines. The second era saw a dramatic shift away from the physical world. This time around, we moved into the invisible world of the Internet (Web 2.0). What must be clear is that each productivity era comes with a radical change in the frontiers of the global society. Today, the world has evolved into a flat structure. The lines of distinctions that existed with respect to national identities and practices are closely thinning out. A young person from a region of a country today doesn't only define in terms of his local roots, he sees himself as a global citizen. Erwin Williams mentioned this in his book; The Global Entrepreneur.

 

 

One very clear realization is that we are gradually moving from the very physical world of machines into an infinitesimal invisible realm. Today, there is hardly any industry that digitization or shall we say virtualization hasn’t affected. Almost everything we see in the physical world has a digital equivalence. An attempt to examine some key industry and lifestyle categories will reveal in deeper details how indeed we have moved into the invisible order of things.

 

 

In the future virtualization will reset the entire value chain within the all industries paving way for an entirely different world of things. Marty Neumier in his recent book demystified the future as well positing the skills that would be key in the future. A key takeaway I often charge leave with friends today is the need to be more virtual when thinking about a business idea because already leading companies like Apple are tweaking their strategies to explore this path. Back in the days, the Apple’s digital hub strategy was based on making the Mac a hub for other Apple devices. Today, that has changed remarkably. Apple  now has one of the most robust cloud architecture (data farms) in the world. The latest suite of products is built on the new strategy which now makes the data farm (cloud) the hub for all things. I know several businesses based on the cloud mentality. One interesting thing is the highly inexhaustible property of this realm.

 

 

It therefore goes without saying and it doesn’t take a Nostradamus to be able to predict the future because the future is very cloudy. Yes! We are moving into the cloud.


Image Credit: Google Image