I was recently walking along Whitehall in London, fresh from a meeting about Cloud strategy. Raising my gaze from the cracks in the pavement, I suddenly caught sight of this dramatic view of Nelson’s Column, head above the Clouds.

It got me thinking – how many of us are UNDER the Cloud, looking up as untried beginners, trying to make sense of the opportunity, while trying to spot and avoid a shower of economic rain. Or maybe just standing under an umbrella, pretending the cloud is not there at all, or thinking that the benefits of Cloud are so intuitively irrelevant to our organisation that they are not worth even contemplating.

And then, how many people do you talk to who have their heads IN the Cloud? The people who can talk to you for ages about how it all works, and all the great benefits, but who seem so preoccupied with the Cloud being the solution to every business problem, that they somehow seem to lack a bit of perspective around the wider challenges of business and the economy.

There is no doubt in my mind that there is huge economic benefit in being able to access data processing and storage at the lowest possible cost.  Cloud, as part of a wider solution, can provide that.

Cloud itself is a commodity, not a complete business solution, and your “Head IN the Clouds” conversation rapidly gets into the relative merits of cumulus public clouds, cirrus private clouds, and cirrocumulus hybrid clouds, together with concerns over data residency, data protection and cybersecurity.

Effective Cloud-based solutions are certainly achievable, yet I suspect that there are fewer people than you would think, who are in the fortunate position of being ABOVE the Cloud, confident that their IT strategy is in excellent shape, and therefore able to have a clear, unimpeded view of business opportunities on the horizon.  Not least because the business and IT world around us, just like the sky above our heads, is always changing shape. Nelson himself is quoted as saying “I cannot command winds and weather”.

Cloud is typically opaque, and it does not come in a one-size-fits-all package. Context and long term perspective are critical in any adoption of Cloud in your organisation.

What could a 19th century admiral teach us about perspective? After all, long distance data sharing in his line of business was reliant on flags and semaphore!  Well, maybe he offers us a different kind of perspective….let me finish with another quote from the man who famously put his telescope to his blind eye in the heat of battle: “I could not tread these perilous paths in safety, if I did not keep a saving sense of humour”.