Crafting a Data-Driven Transformation Following a Proven Blueprint for Success

In this fast-paced digital age, data has emerged as the lifeblood of successful enterprises, offering invaluable insights and powering informed decision-making. To harness this transformative potential, your organization must align its data strategy with its broader business goals, evaluate its analytics maturity, make prudent choices in data architecture and technology, build the right data analytics team, implement effective data governance, and create a strategic roadmap. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore these key pillars of a data-driven transformation, providing your organization with a roadmap to unlock the full potential of data, foster a culture of innovation, and gain a competitive edge in today's data-centric landscape.

While data governance is very important to your data strategy, it’s important to understand that just like your level of data and analytics maturity is unique to your organization, so is your need for data governance. Although there are some great tools on the market to support the effective application of governance, data governance itself isn’t a tool or platform your organization can purchase. To avoid this, the data governance program your organization outlines should account for your company’s needs, size, urgency, maturity, and capabilities.

Read more in this white paper from Bluedog...

Consulting is About Adding Value - So Do Yourself a Favor and Ease Your Own Pain Points with On-Demand Expertise

Since the late 1980s, “consultant” might be considered a dirty word in the business world. But in actuality, there are plenty of solid reasons to hire a consultant for your next project. With today’s uncertain market conditions, any organization should seek to improve efficiencies and explore new opportunities. For a commercial concern, that means looking for a competitive edge, increasing revenues — and positioning the company to stand out.

A primary benefit consultants can provide is temporary expertise, on demand, as it were. Retaining a consultant on a per project basis limits the financial and operational risks. Of course, if you as the client find value in a consultant’s outputs, you can continue to use their services on a repeat basis. If a project is not brining value to your organization, you need to reconsider. 

But how do you measure this value? Tangible value is usually easy to measure: it often is realized as cost reduction, or an increase in income. Intrinsic value, however, is more complicated. How do you appreciate the impact of a culture and diversity project, or process improvement, or system optimization? Using social sciences methods, many have succeeded in measuring intangibles such as client satisfaction or employee performance. When the benefits of a project correspond to the desired outcome, we can easily say the effort is successful. 

For strategic change, consider why a consultant should be considered a valued member of your team, long-term. Long term success requires careful strategizing: with a plan, you may succeed. Without a plan, you won’t succeed.

Finding and selecting the best consultant suited to specific needs is half the battle in the successful completion of a project. Consider when it make sense to hire outside consultant:

When executives or other decision makers do not have enough expertise or experience in solving certain complex issues.

When many stakeholders are involved and the risk of failure is high, having an outside perspective and coordination can alleviate concern and mitigate risk.

When staff are not trained on solving specific problems, or don’t have available bandwidth to work on special projects outside their routine work.

Often, organizational knowledge is limited to specific  products and service. Consultants bring value in that they often have solved large numbers of problems in different industries. An experienced consultant relieves an organization of many hassles. As a professional, consultants can get to root causes and find avenues of success in the most optimal time. Importantly, this can be at a much lower cost as compared to hiring a full time employee to do the same job. 

Every organization can benefit from improving their performance. And at some point, we all encounter problems outside of existing expertise. An external advisor with specialized expertise can get an organize past a sticking point, find efficiencies in work processes, and open doors to new opportunities.

Why Being a Generalist Helps with Cloud Architecture

The focus of this article makes sense -- cloud architects benefit from being generalists. It pays to be aware of a plethora of technology solutions, not just cloud-based options. Understanding a mix of traditional enterprise systems, networking, security, governance, augments cloud-based solutioning. If one can understand how all the pieces fit together -- that’s best for a client organization.

https://www.infoworld.com/article/3636516/how-to-become-a-cloud-architecture-generalist.html

The Future of 1976 is ... Now!

 

Without a crystal ball, Sir Arthur C. Clarke came up with predictions of the future. The British science fiction writer (he wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey after the film, actually), was able with astonishing accuracy, to envision a future of remote work in 1964. In a segment from the BBC Horizon program, Sir Arthur Clarke leads the video with the sentence, “Trying to predict the future is a discouraging, hazardous occupation … ” But the science fiction writer, inventor, and undersea explorer did just that. Here are some of his predictions regarding the world—and in particular, the future of the workplace. Here's the program...

In 1976, he reiterated his views. Watch it!

When You Read the Word, "Hacker..."

Watch many 1980s films, and you may come across the "hacker" character -- a post-punk, mohawk-sporting teen looking to upgrade test scores or avert world wide nuclear confrontation with the Ruskies. In the decades since, it seems that “hacker” describes cyber criminals more than heroes, an unfortunate trope promulgated by modern media. Often accompanied by stock photos of hoodie-clad thugs hunched over glowing keyboards in darkened rooms, the predominance of associating this label with internet criminals has skyrocketed. As data breaches and cyber attacks litter the front pages of mainstream media, the "white hat" computer expert is lost in the shuffle. Calling scammers, cheats, fraudsters and others "hackers" is counter-productive -- lack of precision means the term becomes diluted.

Promoting the image of hackers as inherently malicious ignores the truth -- corporate America and the U.S. government employ thousands (and there's even more, world-wide) as so-called ethical hackers. These brainiacs help organizations find and remediate security vulnerabilities in their systems. Some businesses offer bug-bounty programs, paying hackers that find and report security flaws. To quote Keren Elazari, security analyst, hackers are “the immune system of the internet.”

We have read the work “hacker” used within the security community to refer to someone skilled in computers and network security. Its use as term for “cyber criminal” alter the perception of the general public. There is a nomenclature to differentiate malicious, illegal penetration and other cyber intrusions (perpetrated by “black hat hackers”). Black hat hackers hate society use technology to exploit people, ruin lives, steal, or incite hatred - they use technology skills to exploit vulnerabilities in software and humans. The ethical hacker is a computer and networking expert who systematically attempts to analyze and penetrate a system on behalf of its owners for the purpose of finding vulnerabilities that a malicious party could potentially exploit. Hackers are the good guys.

Read more over at this place...

Logistics Nightmare as Brexit Deadline Looms

Trouble with border crossings coming, it seems, due to Brexit. A key IT system for avoiding border chaos after Brexit will not be ready on January 1, according to Britain's biggest logistics trade group, Logistics UK. The Smart Freight System, designed to smooth traffic flows and avoid snarl-ups at ports, will only be in beta-testing at year-end, and won't be fully tested until April, the group said.

“To find out, with only 14 weeks to go, that there will not be a ready, workable solution for those moving goods to the EU is a massive blow to U.K. businesses and the economy,” said Elizabeth de Jong, director of policy at Logistics UK. “It is a crushing disappointment.”

Read more here…

Implementing DevOps could save your organization big money...

A primary purpose of DevOps is to release software builds at better quality with higher frequency. Automation in DevOps should be embraced to realize this objective, without introducing a negative effect into the quality or frequency of software released to end-users. Based on an analysis conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of GitLab, the report concludes organizations can save as much as $3.7 million by reducing the number of DevOps tools they need to acquire by a factor of four.

The report also claims organizations can also see a 12x increase in the number of revenue-generating application releases in a year, resulting in $12.3 million in additional revenue, while at the same time reducing code defects to generate more than $16.8 million in savings. Overall, the report says there is a 407% return on investment (ROI) in the GitLab platform.

As a global economic downturn brought on by the pandemic unfolds, many organizations are focusing on costs. Being able to accelerate the rate of application development -- and deployment -- should be part of digital business transformation initiatives. The more business processes become automated, the less expensive to maintain. This is obvious giving the more dependent organizations are becoming on software. But many leaders are navigating ways to reduce costs without forcing every member of the team to standardize.

The Distributed Data Model Wins Out in the UK for Tracking COVID19

The UK government will abandon its centralized COVID-19 contact-tracing smartphone app in favor of the distributed system proposed by Apple and Google more than two months ago. This decision follows that the app, once said to be a key part of the government's test-and-trace system, would not be ready until at least winter this year.

The idea is that a user runs one of these apps on their phone, and the software uses the Apple-Google-developed interface to communicate with copies of itself on other people's nearby devices over Bluetooth. When someone declares, via the app, that they may have likely or certainly caught the COVID-19 disease, all phones that have been in the vicinity of that person's mobile will find out, alerting their owners that they may have been exposed to the virus. Each country or region is expected to have its own app. No data goes to Apple or Google. The numbers of people coming in contact with those thought or confirmed to be infected may help experts monitor and analyze the actual spread of the virus.

In related news, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has offered to roll out the German Corona-Warn-App in the UK in a short time at "zero cost to the taxpayers". "If the government can't pull themselves together, we can," via a tweet.



Read more at the BBC...

Pandemic Fallout: the printer industry

Analyst firm IDC reports that the printer industry has been suffering as a result of the Pandemic. The firm suggested predicted “page volume will fall 13.7percent in 2020, from 3.2 trillion pages in 2019 to 2.8 trillion pages in 2020.” The impact will be lasting: between 2015 and 2019 compound annual growth rate for pages printed was -1.2 percent. From 2020 to 2024 that will hit -4.8 percent.

"The dramatic and sudden transition to work from home in many of the world's largest economies had a direct impact on office device print volumes," said Ilona Stankeova, IDC Europe’s senior research director for Imaging Devices and Document Solutions. "More than six million pages were printed every minute globally in 2019. This amount covers the area of 54 football pitches. COVID-19 is expected to remove print volume that would fill the area of seven football fields every minute in 2020."

"Multifunction printers (MFPs) and increasing adoption of digitization efforts on a global scale are pushing for further maturation of the single-function printer (SFP) market. The trade war between China and the United States and the economic downturn in Western Europe are also pushing down shipment expectations. We still expect the market to be sustainable through the forecast period as SFPs still provide a lower-cost option for customers interested in printing." — Max Pepper, research analyst, IDC's Imaging, Printing, and Document Solutions

The IDC study covers worldwide printer market opportunities and analyzes issues, trends, and product advances. It contains 2013–2018 data showing actual unit shipments, value of shipments (end-user spending), and average selling value. 2019–2023 data is projected.

What Are the Biggest Cyber Risks in the Upcoming Year?

What are the expected trends in cyber security in the upcoming year? According to a report from Trend Micro--

• Third-party libraries, container components and even remote workers represent a major supply chain risk to organizations as they head into a new decade.
• Continued user misconfigurations will exacerbate cloud security challenges, while developers’ reliance on third-party code could expose countless organizations, it continued.
• Shared container components containing vulnerabilities as exposing organizations to attacks across the IT stack.
• Supply chain risk will extend to managed service providers (MSPs), especially those with multiple SMB customers.
• Home and remote working environments are potential hotspots for supply chain attacks -- everything from weak Wi-Fi security in public workspaces to smart home challenges posed by unsecured smart TVs, speakers and digital assistants.

The security firm's 2020 predictions report, The New Norm, emphasizes the cloud as a likely attack objective, as near-do-wells  focus efforts on code injection attacks to obtain sensitive information — either directly or via third-party incursions.

Achieving Simplicity in a Complex System

Mumbai is one of the largest cities in the world and an average working professional leaves home pretty early in the day to take the local train to commute to the work. Each day approximately 4,000 dabbawallahs deliver almost 250,000 home-cooked meals (for late breakfast and lunch) from the kitchens of suburban wives and mothers direct to workers in “the world’s most ingenious meal distribution system.”

The foot soldiers are Dabbawallahs, who pick up the home-cooked lunches in the suburbs, hop on trains, and deliver them, on foot or bike, to office workers in Mumbai. Later on, they pick up and bring back the same empty tiffins (the name for the metal containers used).

The tiffins consist of several stacked aluminum boxes with a carry-handle. Each container carries individual portions that separate curry dishes, bread, rice, desserts, and more. This means multiple courses. Tiffins come in several different compartments so as to separate starter, mains, and dessert. The tiffin serves to keep food in its original shape - no bruised fruit or mashed roti. The tiffin’s handle is at the top, keeping everything upright when being carried. Home-cooked meals are economical and can be more healthy.

While the system seems very complicated, it is the coming together of many elements, including the railway system in Mumbai. The dabbawallah rely on the train to deliver the lunch boxes around the city. Stefan Thomke, the Harvard Business School professor studied the system: “[the railway] sort of helps them in unexpected ways. It synchronizes the system because in Mumbai the railway is one of the few things that always runs on time. It forces the entire organization to run according to a rhythm.”

Another example of how simplicity aids the dabbawallah system is  the labeling of the tiffins. There’s very little information coded on the boxes. “For example, there’s no return address,” says Thomke, “but these boxes have to go back to the person who gave them to you.”  The simple color coding system acts as an identification system for the destination and recipient and origin of the tiffin.

The Dabbawala Association has been in business for over last 125 years. In 1998, Forbes Magazine recognized its reliability to match the Six Sigma standard. This means that the dabbawalas make less than 1 mistake in every 6 million deliveries. Be it a Steve Jobs or Picasso, all the great artists always had a penchant for simplicity. Value and efficiency is maintained by  keeping to basics. The process is very lean and uncomplicated. And the customer is the most important cog in this machine.

Read more here

Digital Crypto Currency from... the US Central Bank?!

Over at SlashDot, we read:

America's lawmakers and Federal Reserve officials "are so concerned about Facebook's plans to launch a new digital currency," reports Politico's financial services reporter, "that they're contemplating a novel response -- having the central bank create a competitor."
Momentum is building for an idea that was once considered outlandish -- a U.S. government-run virtual currency that would replace physical cash, a dramatic move that could discourage major companies like Facebook from creating their own digital coins. Facebook's proposed currency, Libra, has forced the Fed to consider the issue because of a fear that private companies could establish their own currencies and take control over the global payments system. Some Fed officials share the concern about a new balkanized currency system outside government control that Facebook has threatened to unleash. "Libra bust this way out into the open," said Karen Petrou, a managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics who advises executives on coming policy shifts. 

But it's not just Facebook. The matter is also taking on urgency as other countries consider creating their own digital currencies -- another potential challenge to the primacy of the U.S. dollar. The head of the Bank of England has floated the idea that central banks could create a network of digital currencies to replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency... The Bank for International Settlements, which represents the world's central banks, said early this year that most were conducting research into central bank digital currencies and many were progressing from conceptual work into experimentation and proofs-of-concept...

The details of a possible [U.S.] Fed-developed digital currency are still vague. But advocates and experts say such an instrument could give consumers a new way to make payments without having to rely on banks and without incurring fees when they transfer money. The digital currency would likely take some inspiration from the technology that underpins other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. The discussions are informal at this point. Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle have written to the central bank asking officials to consider how they might approach a digital currency, and some Fed officials have begun to acknowledge the government might someday play a role. "It is inevitable," Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Patrick Harker said at a recent conference, according to Reuters. "I think it is better for us to start getting our hands around it."

Read more here and here...

How Software Was Egregiously (and Poorly) Used to Hide Major Engineering Deficiencies

In this article on IEEE Spectrum, we read:

It is astounding that no one who wrote the MCAS software for the 737 Max seems even to have raised the possibility of using multiple inputs, including the opposite angle-of-attack sensor, in the computer's determination of an impending stall. As a lifetime member of the software development fraternity, I don't know what toxic combination of inexperience, hubris, or lack of cultural understanding led to this mistake. But I do know that it's indicative of a much deeper problem. The people who wrote the code for the original MCAS system were obviously terribly far out of their league and did not know it.

So Boeing produced a dynamically unstable airframe, the 737 Max. That is big strike No. 1. Boeing then tried to mask the 737's dynamic instability with a software system. Big strike No. 2. Finally, the software relied on systems known for their propensity to fail (angle-of-attack indicators) and did not appear to include even rudimentary provisions to cross-check the outputs of the angle-of-attack sensor against other sensors, or even the other angle-of-attack sensor. Big strike No. 3... None of the above should have passed muster. None of the above should have passed the "OK" pencil of the most junior engineering staff... That's not a big strike. That's a political, social, economic, and technical sin... 

The 737 Max saga teaches us not only about the limits of technology and the risks of complexity, it teaches us about our real priorities. Today, safety doesn't come first -- money comes first, and safety's only utility in that regard is in helping to keep the money coming. The problem is getting worse because our devices are increasingly dominated by something that's all too easy to manipulate: software.... I believe the relative ease -- not to mention the lack of tangible cost -- of software updates has created a cultural laziness within the software engineering community. Moreover, because more and more of the hardware that we create is monitored and controlled by software, that cultural laziness is now creeping into hardware engineering -- like building airliners. Less thought is now given to getting a design correct and simple up front because it's so easy to fix what you didn't get right later.

The article also reveals that: "not letting the pilot regain control by pulling back on the column was an explicit design decision. Because if the pilots could pull up the nose when MCAS said it should go down, why have MCAS at all?  ...MCAS is implemented in the flight management computer, even at times when the autopilot is turned off, when the pilots think they are flying the plane." 

Automation from Robots -- What Jobs are at Risk?

Twelve jobs have a 99 percent chance of being automated, according to a study by Oxford:

• Data Entry Keyers
• Library Technicians
• New Accounts Clerks
• Photographic Process Workers and Processing Machine Operators
• Tax Preparers
• Cargo and Freight Agents
• Watch Repairers
• Insurance Underwriters
• Mathematical Technicians
• Hand Sewers
• Title Examiners, Abstractors, and Searchers
• Telemarketers

Whenever a job has a pattern of repetitive activities, they are most likely to be replicated with machine learning algorithms. Most studies on automation stop short of saying that jobs will be completely eliminated by automation. Rather, workers will be redeployed.

Automation is coming to the most common jobs...

Graphic courtesy of titlemax.com

A New Year, Time to Take the Temperature of... DevOps

Sometimes adoption of DevOps results in chaos -- perhaps because of the evolving relationship between development and operations? When taking a shared approach to accountability for application life cycle, many still lack processes, tools, and monitoring needed to know who is ultimately responsible for addressing and fixing issues.

As the lines between development and operations continue to blur, perhaps one should focus on adopting tools that deepen visibility into applications?  It seems that clarifying ownership of applications and services avoids the "since everyone owns this, nobody does" model.

Read more about the state of DevOps

Having Trouble Finding Cloud Talent?

Talent capable of navigating the intricacies of cloud computing is in short supply in  the Washington, D.C., New York, Austin, Boston, Miami, and other areas; ares that are notnot traditionally thought to have a Tier 1 technology aspirations. Training in-house IT staff can take months or even years, at no small investment.

The objective then becomes to hire outside of the company or to use consultants—or both. This means that the consulting firms are also seeking the same people you are, making the demand go up everywhere at the same time.

How to manage? Many believe a combination of building in-house capabilities balanced with outside consultants can fill the gap.

This Read more here...

Starting a Small Business - My Short List of "To Do's"

Tom’s General Entrepreneur / Start Up Advice -- because I seem to say the same thing, over and over, here’s a quick summary:

I’ve always stuck with C-corp as my structure — in Maryland, you can do a non-stock version of a corporation for a nominal fee. You specify initial ownership in the Articles of Incorporation. When the time comes, you can amend your articles and issue shares as you add investors. Note that I had a “board of advisors,” not a board of directors, which you might consider. I’d get an EIN (federal tax id) and get a corporate bank account established, and set up initial financial accounts showing paid-in capital. Do you have a business plan? Always good practice to prep for investors, and that would help you and your partner understand where you are aiming to go.

I recommend organizing a company in the country you want to sell into (the states?). Do your accounting right, and you won't pay tax, or will only pay a minimum once you start making lots of money. You can't (and shouldn't) skirt the anti-money laundering rules. Even if you succeed in the short term, you will eventually get kicked off of Amazon, PayPal, eBay, or wherever.

First, get excited about the challenges (and rewards) ahead! First, some thoughts, then items to consider: 

• Cash-flow is the most important aspect of your business. You can be making all the money in the world but if it's not in the right place at the right time, you will have problems. Accounting is #1 for understanding when (and if) you are profitable. 
• You need constant exposure to the right market, having the best widget means very little if no one sees it, or worse, you show it to the wrong person. Marketing and sales using a direct sell method (as I am focused on a service business for purposes of this discussion). 
• Understand the difference between an expense-generating activity and a revenue-generating activity. Maximize revenue, minimize expense. Write your Business plan using this: http://lifehacker.com/5913086/fill-out-a-one-page-business-plan-and-get-your-business-started-already 

Basics -- organize your practice (choose your name, see item below) as an LLC or s-corp. Make spouse and offspring 33% owners to achieve minority- and woman-ownership qualification (if possible) for government work, which you WILL be doing, eventually. Right? 

Once you get your EiN/TIN from irs.gov in your company name, you can organize as an LLC or s-corp. You need some organizing document to get your bank account. CapitalOne is the least expensive, most flexible for small business in the DC area (where I used to live). Get a business VISA debit card. Get your accountant on board now! You'll want a simple business liability policy at some point - for $1mil - expect to pay $1000 per year for that (but wait until later to shop for that). 

Work on retirement planning, health savings account, etc., in the future. company name, URL, website, email, telephone number. 

Look for a domain name that matches your company name (at a registrar such as Godaddy.com). You can use GoDaddy for the basics (web, email) and the accounting system they have is, IMHO, awesome. Get an iPhone and a dedicated number - AT&T has plans with a big bucket of minutes and a data plan (you will be on the phone often, don't cheap out). Get a family plan so spouse and offspring can have their numbers on your plan and get high-speed internet at home. (companies pays all; see how that works? Company spending = expense). If your house has a crappy mobile phone service, get a femtocell from AT&T. Business cards vistaprint.com. If you need a logo, find a talented friend to design one for you. a journal to write EVERYTHING down - your planner, task list, calendar, meeting notes, etc. should correspond to your shared contacts/calendar/notes in iCloud so all that syncs across your Mac, iPad, and iPhone. You never want to lose that data, which is an audit trail and the sum total of your business "knowledge". 

Consider using (cheap self-promotion) my product, http://www.workbench.net buy a MacBook Pro 13" with 8 gigs of ram. Buy an external multi-terabyte hard drive to back it up to with time machine. But an iPad mini to take notes on, show presentations, etc. website: find a friend to help you assemble a web presence. 

You'll also want FB, Twitter and PayPal accounts for the business, using your business email address. set aside office space at home. Get a simple filing system, with a dozen hanging folders so you can stash receipts, project tracking, etc. You need to close the door and focus once in a while. 

Implement SugarCRM or some other open source CRM tool to manage your sales process.

You need to keep your paperwork organized, consider job jackets for each project that correspond to the file system on your laptop (/Work > Clients > ABCNonProfit > etc.). when you are ready, tackle (a) direct email marketing with MailChimp, (b) customer relationship management to track leads and clients with SugarCRM, (c) a 12-month marketing/sales plan. 

IMHO, life is about... starting over. Continually. We grow older, we learn new things, we experience events we could never envision. Eventually, I came to believe I could always take care of myself, so I stopped worrying so much about... life... and started to focus on my relationships, appreciating what I have, and setting reasonable goals for the near term (1-2 years).

Play to your strengths -- build 'em and flip 'em, perhaps? I would suggest you save money, continually, so you always have a cushion for yourself, no matter what the outcome (or random events -- people can get sick or have an accident so unpredictably). Learn new stuff, so you can always seed ideas and appreciate new opportunities.

Personally, I got a house early, had a base of operations, and something I could leverage (needed a HELOC to fund payroll when a large contract fell into my lap, years ago, for example). Unfortunately lost all that in the last go-around, but I always feel most creative when I am secure in my living situation.

Whew! Seems like a lot? Don't worry - checklists and "one day at a time" are the best ways to get through this to "launch", which, in the end, is the most critical part of YOUR PATH TO INDEPENDENCE because you will be in charge of your own financial destiny.

Create Diverse Workplaces Using Artificial Intelligence Ethically

Companies should be aware of and recognize that artificial intelligence algorithms are created by humans with biases and beliefs -- and make every effort to eliminate those biases.

A.I. takes input data and races off to make inference and decision making about the world at lightening pace,” --Dipayan Ghosh, a fellow at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School

Read more...

Best New Open Source Tools

Website mag InfoWorld revealed their annual list of "the leading open source projects for software development, cloud computing, big data, and machine learning." Read more at their site.

Is Programming Getting Harder?

Is programming becoming more difficult? Allen Downey (Professor of Computer Science at Olin College, author of Think Python, Think Stats, Think Bayes, Think Complexity and more) writes,

"The fundamental problem is that the barrier between using a computer and programming a computer is getting higher. When I got a Commodore 64 (in 1982, I think) this barrier was non-existent. When you turned on the computer, it loaded and ran a software development environment (SDE). In order to do anything, you had to type at least one line of code, even if all it did was another program (like Archon). Since then, three changes have made it incrementally harder for users to become programmers... Cloud computing has taken information hiding to a whole new level. People using web applications often have only a vague idea of where their data is stored and what applications they can use to access it. Many users, especially on mobile devices, don't distinguish between operating systems, applications, web browsers, and web applications. When they upload and download data, they are often confused about where is it coming from and where it is going. When they install something, they are often confused about what is being installed where. For someone who grew up with a Commodore 64, learning to program was hard enough. For someone growing up with a cloud-connected mobile device, it is much harder...."

Read more...