On Cloud

Cloud is revolutionary, but at some companies, cloud deployments don't revolutionize their IT outcomes. Why? Because they don't change their IT culture. To realize more success with cloud, it's essential to change culture along with technology. In this episode of the podcast, Mike Kavis and guest, Deloitte's Jon Smart, discuss how companies can change their IT culture to achieve more success with cloud. Jon's take is that companies can build, "better value, sooner, safer, happier," by discovering anti-patterns that provide headwinds to cloud success, fixing those, and building a culture of psychological safety that reduces fear and focuses on outcomes, communication, and teamwork.

Ever wonder how all that software that helps you get what you need out of the cloud gets to market? It starts with getting the feel of the market, establishing relationships with cloud providers, and partnering with them to meet their customers' critical needs.

What's the latest from Google Cloud Next 2020? It's this: organizations that effectively leverage technology as a strategic enabler to accelerate their digital transformation journey will have a better chance of not just surviving but thriving.

When systems fail, the blame game often begins, and, surprisingly, it begins with a simple question: "Why?" Instead, to build more resilient systems, as well as more trust among team members, ask what happened and how.

Cloud—especially when paired with AI—is proving its value, even to conservative disciplines such as audit and tax, where it's helping people work smarter and fueling collaboration and innovation. One key to success: Leadership should set the tone from the top.

In a fast-moving cloud environment, companies must be ready to change course quickly to meet an uncertain future. Two keys to success are flexibility to deploy multiple tools to meet specific needs and democratized information to gain critical insights.

DevOps and SRE are critical to software delivery--especially in cloud. A focus on people and collaboration, as well as shifting from a project to a product mentality, are strategies that can increase the chances of a successful implementation.

DevOps can accelerate software delivery, but many organizations still struggle with it because of ineffective processes and resistance to change. Organizations that "do DevOps right" are those that eliminate silos, automate, embrace change, and communicate effectively.

When digital transformation initiatives struggle, the blame often gets assigned to the technology implementation. However, in many cases, it's actually more of a people than a technology issue. Fear of change often plays a critical role in project failures. In this episode of the podcast, Mike Kavis and guests, Jeffrey Fredrick and Douglas Squirrel, discuss barriers to digital transformation success and how fear of change can hobble success and set the project team—and company—up for failure. Their solution is to reduce fear—and promote collaboration—by understanding what motivates people, embracing differences, building trust, and modeling behavior that produces positive changes.

Edge computing has the potential to revolutionize IT—especially the way organizations interact with customers. But the edge space is still somewhat of a wild west, and there are competing theories of where it should go and how it can be utilized most effectively. There are even competing definitions of what "edge" truly is. In this episode of the podcast, David Linthicum and Edgevana CEO Mark Thiele break down edge computing—what it is, and isn't, and ways companies can leverage it to help create better value for customers. Mark also gives his take on what an edge-enabled future would look like, and he gives some pointers on how organizations can build a path to get there.