Change is Difficult

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the VMware Partner Exchange (PEX) in Las Vegas. One of the key themes was VMware's continued push to become the infrastructure of choice for both virtualization and Cloud Computing environments. This was highlighted by the discussions around project "Redwood".

What I've witnessed over the last six months is a change in the discussions that people in the industry have about "cloud". I put that in quotes because for the past year the discussion was always about the definition of "cloud". Internal vs. External cloud; Public vs. Private cloud; Google vs. Amazon AWS vs. IT 2.0 cloud. What I saw at PEX was a change in the focus of the discussion. While there are still people that are debating definitions, the bulk of the conversations were around the amount of change that these concepts of "cloud" would bring into their environment. Change is difficult, and for many people, it started them thinking about what they were willing to change, needed to change, and what could remain the same.

Let me give a couple examples:

Hello Cloud

While I've spent some time in the past writing for corporate blogs, I felt like it was time to create something outside of that narrow focus. So today I'm starting "Clouds of Change" to explore the rapidly changing world of Cloud Computing. My hope is to bring something new to an already crowded discussion, specifically focused on how Cloud is changing how businesses' Cloudifferentiate themselves by leveraging this new Computing and Economic model.

The focus of these discussions may touch on various aspects of technology, to provide context, but the primary focus will be on people. As much as technology can create change, it's ultimately people that have to create, adopt and drive the changes that technology can enable. Some of the discussions may use existing frameworks for driving change, such as Kotter's Leading Change or the Heath Brother's Switch. Other discussions will build on experiences from experiences in the IT industry from people making these changes everyday.

I hope you find the topics interesting and thought-provoking. If you do, please comment and extend the discussion. Or tell a friend and expand the scope.