I’m not citing studies which demonstrate a diminished number of thought leaders at the cloud computing area –this is only my impression. However, if you’re honest with yourselves, the majority of you will notice a big difference between the amount of new thinking around cloud calculating these days compared to the quantity in 2010.
What happened? A couple of things have changed.
To begin with, the word”cloud computing” is so typical that we have already written and said pretty much everything that is interesting. It was common to toss out”the cloud” many times in meetings back in 2012, but today it only makes you seem desperate.
As of this moment, the cloud is a combination of many subdisciplines, such as cloud-based databases, machine learning, IoT, even edge computing. It is no longer about the intake model around the use of cloud computing. That’s been settled. It is about what is new inside clouds, most of which can not be found in your premises.
Second, the thought-leader distance has become too noisy. Back when I used to write for print publications, even this one, only a few anointed people could get their name into print. Later we replicated print with internet tools, then finally only online resources.
I guess that specialized book readership is also down, replaced by YouTube, Wikipedia, blogs, and training videos. Nothing wrong with these channels (I author for all of them), besides there are too many. It is hard to figure out where your primary technology information must come from these days. Having too many options may indicate you you need to look harder to find the good ones.
This isn’t really a complaint, more of an observation. As my clients, friends, and colleagues attempt to understand the wisdom about cloud computing, I’ve noticed that the places where I point these are becoming less obvious. I guess this problem will get worse in the years ahead.
The answer may be aggregators. Instead of producing articles, the thought leaders of the future–for cloud computing, or any technology–may be the men and women who can organize the huge amounts of available data into specific items to see, follow, and experience.
