Midsize Business in the Cloud

Helping midsize businesses work in the cloud.  An article brought to my attention from Information Management.  " ... IBM unveiled social business software designed to help enterprises collaborate easily and securely in the cloud using a range of mobile devices. The new IBM SmartCloud services include social networking features and the release of IBM SmartCloud Docs, a cloud-based office productivity suite that allows users to simultaneously collaborate on word processing, spreadsheet and presentation documents to improve productivity.... " 

I have worked with and for small and medium sized businesses for years now.  Collaboration with partners and linking to data sources is a key way to make things work efficiently.  In the big enterprise you usually have rich IT resources to make sure this can be done well and securely.  In the smaller business you often 'discover' the need when you enter a key project.   It can be too late to do that effectively.

For example recently I needed to be updated in changes that were made to a rule-based AI project.  We were concerned that unintended consequences to rule changes could produce errors in recommendations.  We set up a cloud based method that would alert all the testers of a rule base, and alert them to how a test base of data could be effected.  Each test user could then sign off on a particular test, also via the cloud.  This led to a better regimen of tests and results.  A carefully organized social network can then be used to alert everyone to the results.

This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines  of a smarter planet. More here.