Business leaders interested in the future of enterprise technology should stop thinking of "the

cloud" as a noun and start thinking about "clouding" as a verb.

When we talk about cloud computing in general, we're describing a set of efficiency principles
only applied to once stateful compute and storage resources that are now stateless and liquid.
Clouding is not new, and compute, storage and network are not the only things that can be
clouded.
Although the cloud concept has taken hold in enterprise technology, it's not entirely new to other
parts of life. One could argue, for example, that condominiums and hotels were early multitenant
housing clouds. Airbnb are modern versions of housing clouds delivering housing as a service,
and similarly, Zipcar and Uber are car clouds, offering consumers transportation as a service.
Anything can be clouded, if we put our minds to it. The clouding of compute resources gave rise
to infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service
(SaaS). To make clouding meaningful, we can't stop there, and we have not, we are clouding
storage quickly and successfully. This explains the success of Box, DropBox, Apple's iCloud,
Google Drive and others.
There are other, unconventional opportunities for clouding to drive innovation, and advanced
thinkers are gravitating to the notion of anything as a service, or heck everything as a service
(EvaaS).
A modern enterprise with everything as a service.

In the new world of leading enterprises leveraging EvaaS, workspace can be a service (WsaaS);
expertise can be a service (ExaaS); and business processes can be services (BPaaS). We can roll
all three into an overarching industry as a service (InaaS) capability eventually delivering on the
age old promise of standing up "XYZ in a Box" type businesses.
When everything is a stateless and a liquid service, entire environments can be orchestrated for
specific jobs, demands, roles or expertise, creating the opportunity to eventually leverage
humans as a service (HuaaS). HuaaS would be game changing to how companies procure,
leverage, and strategically execute on their most valuable and expensive resource, human
capacity.
Think about this as TaskRabbit, meet eLance, meet TopCoder, meet your human resources
department.
Employees working in enterprises are currently stateful reservations of human capacity, assigned
to tasks needing their primary expertise and controlled by a single manager. Many times if an
employee possess expertise outside her primary area of business, she is unable to contribute in
other areas where said expertise may be needed shackled by a stateful role, manager, and job
description. Today's employment model only takes into account the primary talents of an
individual and ignores the reality that humans are generally multidimensional and useful outside
the scope of their stateful roles.
This means valuable human capacity is often wasted corollary to historic pre-cloud wasting of
valuable compute and storage resources before clouding was introduced.
If human capacity were aggregated into a liquid pool of stateless supply as enterprise
TaskRabbits, or eLances, or TopCoders, it would allow companies to spin up and tear down
human capacity to meet the human resource demand of projects all on the fly. Much like
enterprises now spin up and tear down compute and storage resources needed.
We may not move clouding all the way up the enterprise resource stack right away to humans as
a service, but companies that move furthest and fastest into clouding up the stack will engineer
the agility and on-demand operating models needed to win. In other words if you aim for human
as a service and a cloud of human talent, you will find it easy to think past only compute and
storage clouds.
To get started, simply replace cloud as a noun and use clouding as a verb to drive
discussions around everything as a service, both inside and outside of technology.
Consider this scenario: My connected car needs a new alternator, but instead of my car accessing
my calendar and making an appointment with the service center (which would be cool), it
broadcasts its alternator replacement demand to a supply of local clouded mechanics possessing
the necessary expertise (ExaaS) to change said alternator on said model of car. Those with the
ability to accept my warranty (BPaaS) would bid on the demand/job, and then work with a
supply of mechanic shops to find an available automotive hydraulic bay (WSaaS) and tools to
work on my car on a time we agree on. What would this scenario mean to an automobile
manufacturer's need to have stateful/dedicated service centers and dedicated/fulltime auto
technicians on staff?
When everything is a service, it's easy for enterprises to achieve efficiencies that we now only
dream of. Imagining an EvaaS future is thrilling. I predict that by 2020, global enterprises with
large allocations of knowledge workers will have commercial grade, human-capacity clouds
leveraging ExaaS, WsaaS and BPaaS.
To do so, we have to collectively get over the hoopla of only the compute and storage clouds,
and starting thinking about clouding everything else.

Inbae Ahn
Managing Partner, CIO at Polyform Labs
Applying cloud-principles to humans won't work. Our 'interfaces' are not standardized
and our QoS is all over the map. When I pay for a unit of compute I know what I'm
getting. Outsourcing tasks to individuals? Not as simple. HuaaS can only work is at the
B2B level. Example: GM outsourcing component production to Magna.
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11 hours ago
LikersThulani Mavimbela, Jim Preis, Gaurav Barot, PMP, +20
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Steve Messina 2
nd

Consultant Devops & Continuous Delivery Architect at Standard Chartered Bank
I've posted elsewhere about this - but this is exactly where Cryptocurrencies tied
together with a network trust/worth measure becomes a useful value. Think a
google pagerank of work interactions managed via a cryptocontract. This would
allow us to value the quality and QoS of individuals, and match them up in this
model
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2 hours ago
LikersFei Ye YEW and Inbae Ahn
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Sandeep M Shenoy
Systems Engineer, MBA
I sorta agree with both views. I think we will go somewhere in the middle. When
it is time for adoption people will figure out systems to standardize and measure
output as challenging as it may seem. If the economics works out, technology and
methods are likely to follow.
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8 hours ago
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Laura Ellis
Project Manager, IBM CHQ
Thought provoking for sure. Clouding as a Verb (ClaaV) surely the next new corporate
buzz word!
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11 hours ago
LikersKen Norris, Leon O'Neill - NCS Support Services Ltd, Manoj chandra, +9
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Akshay Patil
Business Analyst at Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Co. Ltd.
nice i agree with your comment..:)
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7 hours ago
LikersLaura Ellis
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Richie Etwaru AUTHOR
Creates disruptive products & industries.
LAURA, I love the way "Clouding as a Verb" sounds, thus far except you, I am
the only other person to have every used it! Hope you shared, -Richie
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11 hours ago
LikersDannielle Muro and Laura Ellis
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Vernon Everett
Unix Consultant at OnCall DBA
Humans as a service? A collection of faceless, nameless service providers who have no
knowledge or understanding of your business, processes, internal policies, structure,
political dynamics and have no pre-established relationship with stake-holders. What
could possibly go wrong?
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10 hours ago
LikersRobin Lowe, Sean Stuckless, Lucian Naie, +1
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Koen van der Pasch
Agilista at Sogeti Netherlands
Actually, Richie, easily described, repeatable, automatable tasks are candidates
for..... automation. These are candidates for TaaS, not HuaaS. I think Vernon's
right. Anything that can be done by the clouded workforce (WaaS?) can be
automated. Does this mean your judgement may be clouded? Is this just
Judgement as a Service?
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6 hours ago
LikersBart Van Pelt
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Richie Etwaru AUTHOR
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Hi Vernon, te large category of work in enterprises that are easily described,
likely repeatable, and automated are candidates for "taskification" - there are
many tasks that can be easily described and defined setting up SLAs etc. One way
I think about this is not necessarily external folks being tapped to do tasks, but
internal folks with multiple skills taking on more tasks than they once could in an
effort to truly make human capacity liquid. -R
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10 hours ago
LikersAgus Yudianto and Razi Chaudhry
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Sergey Ammosov
Technical Consultant at Softline Company
I see no humans on this picture. Only bio-robots. From "management" point of view I
understand and agree with that approach. But from the human point of view - this is not
that humanity should focus on.
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5 hours ago
LikersJim Preis, Rasko Pavlovic, h e m a n t . p a l e j a, +1

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Neil McEvoy
Founder of the Cloud Best Practices Network
IoT
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12 hours ago
LikersArno van der Merwe and Richie Etwaru
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Neil McEvoy
Founder of the Cloud Best Practices Network
Sure of course
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11 hours ago
LikersRichie Etwaru
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Richie Etwaru AUTHOR
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Hi Neil, I am assembling something for IoT, would love a quote from you, are
you game? -R
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12 hours ago
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Allen Adjamian
Cloud, Paperless, Workflow Solution Provider
Thoughtful article Richie Etwaru, though a little too aggressive on the timescale. For
ANYaas to truly take off it has to make its way down to the SMB level, what GM & IBM
types can do doesn't matter if the mechanic that would ultimately be able to bid on your
alternator is barely paperless, let alone bidding for parts on integrated cloud systems to
try to compete for your business profitably. You are pointing to niche independent
contractor services and while technology may allow a taskrabbit-dropbox-elance hybrid
for niche skill-sets, no one will be running a 10-100 person lawfirm, accounting firm,
property management firm with any of the aformentioned technologies or work habits. I
think the part of the human element you are leaving out is the desire to have a quality of
life, with quality work in lasting quality business relationships and the workforce is not
going to respond desirably to "spin up and tear down" human knowledge as if it's a VM.
Where technologists and entrepreneurs should be focused on his how to decrease the
workday by a few hours while increasing the knowledge output and compensation.
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LikersMuhammad Abubakar Bhatti, h e m a n t . p a l e j a, and Gjorgi Trajcov
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h e m a n t . p a l e j a 2
nd

Senior Technical Manager at Infosys
I agree with Allen " I think the part of the human element you are leaving out is
the desire to have a quality of life, .... Where technologists and entrepreneurs
should be focused on his how to decrease the workday by a few hours while
increasing the knowledge output and compensation." We should try to increase
the quality of life , happiness quotient instead of treating everything as a paid
service. human relations and bonds can not be provided as service , you need a
relationship based on trust.
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2 hours ago
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Spokey Wheeler
Director at Zinaida Ltd
It all sounds so lovely, if it wasn't for those pesky human dynamics getting in the way it
might even work. Nowhere in this vision do I see the idea that some people bond with
each other in an organisation to make it better than their competitors. Nowhere in this
vision is there any place for loyalty or trust, it's all just fodder. Something else that is
inherently missing from the vision is that "the cloud" is, in reality, just "someone else's
computer". This may have certain tactical advantages, but equally it comes with massive
risks and extra considerations. There's no mention in this grand vision of the extra risks
and extra work to "cloud" the rest of your business and infrastructure. That's not your
secretary, that's someone else's secretary. Tomorrow, she could be the secretary to your
biggest competitor and the day after, your second-biggest competitor. That's not your
project manager, who understands the dynamics of your organisation and can work
around the bottlenecks, that's just a warm body with a qualification. Etc., etc. It's a nice
idea, but like so many apparent panace, it's half-baked and is just going to cause as
much work as it "saves", to implement.
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Matthew Browning, RN, MSN, CEO 2
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CEO at IntelliBlast Health
This is why we created IntelliBlast Health, instantly notify, confirm and allocate highly
specialized workforces in healthcare, in realtime, by two-way phone, text, email, internet
and mobile communications. Allow expert humans to function at highest/best use for
maximum efficiency. There are three ways to meet healthcare's increasing demand- make
lots of new providers, make lots of humans very healthy, or efficiently utilize the
expertise we do have available- we do the later. IntelliBlast does it for any industry-
"Uberize" anyone, any skill set, today.
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9 hours ago
LikersAgus Yudianto
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Richie Etwaru AUTHOR
Creates disruptive products & industries.
Matthew, you are absolutely in the right track! We still need to connect, we need
to write something together around healthcare. R
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9 hours ago
LikersWasif Toor, PMP and Matthew Browning, RN, MSN, CEO
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Richie Etwaru AUTHOR
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Hi guys, I am responding to all comments on the article itself. Thank your for all of the
commentary and feedback, I am humbled to see the interest. -Richie
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10 hours ago
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Korodima Dimitra
Controleur Financier chez Embisphere
Not sure about the added value for human beings ! Isn't there a risk to transform humans
into robots able to perform only specific tasks on which they are experts ?
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10 hours ago
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Richie Etwaru AUTHOR
Creates disruptive products & industries.
Korodima, thanks for the note. The idea here is that humans have multiple skills,
and hence can bid on multiple tasks ... The article is suggesting the opposite of
specialization, its is suggesting multiplicity of mankind. -R
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10 hours ago
LikersEvanson Nduati
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Milic Bogdanovic
Maintenance Administrator at AT&T
Oh, I almost forgot we already have human-capacity clouds, it's called offshore customer
care centers...where customer service is their number one goal, but ask the customer how
that service worked for them, from credit card companies, to insurance companies, get
ready to go around the world in 80 seconds, and accomplish absolutely nothing, except
get frustrated.
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Etienne J Coulon
Co-Founder at PointGreen Business & PointGreen Solution
Interesting thread. My view is that here we confuse a set of technologies, and a basic
Enterprise (and Human being?) to optimize how to use resources. I won't comment on the
need for more collaboration and all "Everything as a Service", but I believe there is a
layer still missing which is connecting people who don't know each other (even if they
are in the same company) and will benefit from being in touch around a Service (user-
user or user-provider) Will it be a LinkedIn like concept? Will it be a new Search engine
? At the end of the day, the issue is always that you use a service only if you know about
it, so it's a bit like a smartphone App: do you spend a lot of time searching? you don't
have time right? so how to make things come to you in a natural way?
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Andrew Heidt
Partnering with Executives to Increase Profitability and Agility
WOW, this is certainly an interesting thought. It makes me consider, for example, the
staffing industry as an early attempt at HuaaS. Clouding like skillsets and marketing them
on a basis of required expertise (ExaaS). Thank you for expanding my mind today Richie.
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12 hours ago
LikersRichie Etwaru
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Richie Etwaru AUTHOR
Creates disruptive products & industries.
Andrew, IMHO this is where we need to start thinking and investing, clouding
compute and storage alone is not enough. Please share! -Richie
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12 hours ago
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Derrick Hyatt Esq. CISSP, CSSLP
Principal at Hyatt & Associates LLC
Clouding skill sets for secure application centric virtual network functional
component(s); next phase for enterprise technology.
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11 hours ago
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Wade Wan
Technical Lead at Wesoft
People need to find out where the exactly position we are, and then thinking what should
we do.
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11 hours ago
LikersVincent Mammarella

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Robert Ponist
Grad Student at Rutgers University
But by having a constant, ever changing, and static workforce can a company ever form
an established community or culture? I feel this could be a glaring issue in the long term.
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9 hours ago
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Richie Etwaru AUTHOR
Creates disruptive products & industries.
Robert, this does not have to be external talent - internal talent can have multiple
expertise and hence repurposed on the fly. R
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9 hours ago
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Joe Wojdacz
Disruptive Innovationist
Good article, interesting perspective. Now, if we could just get past the idea of
disembodied corporations as the Raison d'tre of Humans...
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LikersLeroy Mason

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Thabo Molokoane
sap (abap) trainee at gauteng department of finance
It is very interesting and mind proviking seeing how much can realy be done in the
CLOUDING space..eye opener must say..
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4 hours ago
LikersTebogo Mashele

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Aravind Kumarasamy
Student, The Innovator
Nice concepts but not enough in this technology's .today every techincal person depends
upon cloud technology because many of them access the cloud .In my point of view
cloud is not secure for humans...to provide the double security or 3 tier layer security to
protect the cloud database & cloud space allocated and so on..This function fully
automatically or automated system if u want any information related to this technology's
contact me
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6 hours ago
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Milic Bogdanovic
Maintenance Administrator at AT&T
Did any one ask customers what they wanted, or are these new technologies being pushed
on the customers? Did any provider do a survey asking customers what kind of service
they would like? I would say no, but asking average customer what they would like and
they will tell you, solid Internet connection, solid mobile connection, do most customers
really care about cloud technologies, or any other technology they do not understand how
it works, most likely not! Customer don't care about buzz words like BigData, Cloud,
OpenStack, etc.
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8 hours ago
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Dannielle Muro
Helping Businesses Align Dollars and Cents With Bits and Bytes | IT Risk and
Cost Reduction | IT Outsourcing Specialist
Customers may not want or need to know the details of how technology works.
Would it not be a disservice to them if we, as the experts, did not expand their
options too?
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6 hours ago
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Richie Etwaru AUTHOR
Creates disruptive products & industries.
Milic, you are right about customer needs. Customers may never ask to cloud
anything, however customers often request lower costs and flexibility. Clouding
(anything) does two things well (1) it reduces costs, and (2) increases elasticity
(flexibility). Either of these two things, standing alone or experienced together;
improve customer outcomes. Clouding is a customer friendly verb. -R
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