Page 225 - How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Cant Afford to Be Left Behind

C A L C ULATING THE FUTURE

whatever your personal machine can do, especially when as
many resources as needed can be summoned out of the data
center. As these two forces interact—an intelligent end user
on one end and a powerful data center on the other—a new
world will emerge, dissimilar to the one that preceded it. Dig-
ital culture will be with us from the moment we wake up until

the moment we go to bed. The greatest achievements of the
human race will be immediately with us, to the point of par-
ticipation.
How are we going to adapt to this envelope of digital cul-
ture and the cloud that supplies it? While it has the capa-
bility for misuse, it also promises to collapse the distances
between groups that are interested in working together and be-

tween people who are discovering each other’s special char-
acteristics and unique heritage. It gives the inquisitive and
adventurous in different societies the prospect of combining
skills in new and unexpected ways.
As a business platform, the cloud offers a 24-hours-a-day
business presence, displaying the knowledge and expertise
about which the business is passionate and establishing inter-
active communities around that expertise. The company’s cus-
tomers will share their knowledge with one another, and in the

process provide clues about the direction in which the busi-
ness needs to go. Through greater collaboration, the business
can select leaders from within its customers’ ranks, displaying
their accomplishments as part of its own and building a wider
sense of community in a mutual, ongoing endeavor. By giving
customers a two-way channel through which they may both
speak and act, the business will gain invaluable insight into

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