The Cloud and Relationships

Relationships in the cloud ...

The more important point about the cloud is not the individual company, but rather the ties between companies. Most companies have put lots of energy and resources into streamlining their business processes within their own company, but once they start to interact with other companies the processes start to break down because of disparity between how each business handles their own internal process.

Most of the proponents of cloud computing are expressing the benefits with the individual company in mind and overlooking the most powerful benfit of the cloud which is how processes span the boundries of various businesses. As individuals people are seeing the benefits of this new thought already ... for example why would I put a resume on my web site when I can simply use LinkedIn to provide that for me and then link directly to it. I'm not saying I shouldn't have my own web site I just need to use the best solution for each individual aspect of what I use the internet for. Facebook does a wonderful job of allowing me to share my personal adventures, pictures and thoughts with people who desire to be connected to me, so why should I do that sort of thing on my web site.

I can't internalize relationships and the cloud offers me the mechanism to manage those relationships using tools that are widely accepted. I could attempt to train my friends and family to come to my web site to see what is going on with me, but why would I do that?

The same principal will hold true for my business once this aspect of the cloud is adopted. Soon I'll be able to have information available in the cloud for my CPA to work on without having to take a box of papers up to his office. The outcome of his work will then seamlessly integrate right into my company systems.