Computing and content and cloud, oh my!

Sometimes progress can be scary. It was 1986.  I was a legal intern at Merrill Lynch working my way through college.  At that time, there was no public Internet – and desktop PCs were uncommon in the workplace.  In fact, most of the tasks that were performed by my team in the legal department were done manually – filling out forms by hand, placing them in a bin, and delivering them at day’s end to the data processors for input.

Then, one day everything changed. We all got computers.  I was optimistic and naïve then and I remembered feeling a sense of reverence for my machine – admiring it as though it was some sort of icon representing everything that could be possible. My colleagues, however, were not so idealistic.  They viewed the machines with distrust – feeling that these would present nothing more than uncertainty, problems and risk.

I wasn’t going to be discouraged by the naysayers, so with the same zeal that I completed my kid brother’s science homework, I collected all my co-workers’ files and went to work. To me, this was the new frontier – even if it was nothing more than inputting legal information into the computer where the data would disappear every time I hit ‘save’ and ‘enter.’  I didn’t care where the data went, because I knew that when I needed the data, a few clicks would produce it – quickly and efficiently.  I traded filing, stapling and paper cuts for keying and wonder.  The mystery around it was less scary than it was fascinating because I saw progress.

Today, I am reminded of the mindset of my former colleagues every time I hear people discuss cloud computing.   “It’s uncomfortable. There is risk and there is uncertainty.” Yes, yes there is.  But in every stage of progress we’ve made as a civilization, there has been risk and uncertainty.  If we never accept this as part of growth and innovation, there would be no progress – no financial progress, no economic progress, no scientific progress, no social progress.

From a technological perspective, there were risks and fear of the unknown when email was introduced, when the foundation of banking became electronic, when online shopping was introduced, and when we could file our taxes with our own PCs from Starbucks.  But, the early adopters showed the benefit to the early majority who then proved it to the late majority, and the rest is history.  So, have no fear:  the adoption of cloud computing too shall become history and we’ll look back and wonder why it took so long.

Tags: cloud, cloud security

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