Castlebridge Associates

I was asked recently to present at a Breakfast briefing being run by another local Irish consulting firm that specialises in Cloud Computing (they're imaginatively called Cloud Consulting and are run by a really nice bunch of guys, including Tim Pullen).

The theme of their event was Cloud Computing in Financial Services and Tim asked me to contribute to the Panel discussion after he'd seen me taking part in another event that was run by EuroCloud and the Irish Computer Society. Apparently, something about my pragmatic no bullshit approach to the challenges and opportunities that lie in the management of Information, whether in the Cloud or using a server under you desk, impressed him.

The difficulty I had is that Tim was only allowing panellists a 3 minute slot to make their pitch at his event (which is quite refreshing as it keeps the bullshit factor low and the relevant content quotient high). So I've prepared a short paper on the topic which I've attached below. I'm also putting together a video of the presentation (with some expansion based on any questions or feedback I got on the day). The video will be available early next week - I'll post it here as an update and tweet it seperately.

The synopsis is that, regardless of where you are processing your information, organisations need to bear in mind that the Alpha and Omega of their processing is still information. In the rush to the Cloud (for very good reasons), organisations who embrace the opportunity to start being proactive in how they manage their information and embed that as a shift in their culture will be the organisations who will reap the biggest strategic benefits over the medium to long term.

Moving your data into the cloud, or shifting your application stack to a Cloud-based SaaS or PaaS solution merely solves part of the technology challenge. In doing so, it creates a heightened need to implement effective governance around your Information Assets.

There are proven tools and approaches for doing this, but it needs to be driven by effective leaders who have a knowledge framework to underpin their best efforts.