Partly Cloudy

We’re flying under the radar, but man are we flying.

In the past month, my new startup has gone from an initial concept to include basic UX design, development prototypes, early go-to-market planning, and a burgeoning feature roadmap. Not since I began an anti-spam startup in 2002 has an idea come together as neatly as this.

But, try though I might, I can’t do it alone. The team needs some co-founders who are willing to share the rewards and the efforts of creating a new company from scratch. Of particular need are another technologist who can help accelerate R&D and a marketing pro who can drive the go-to-market strategy. Co-founders must be in love with big data and big opportunities. They will be outstanding individual contributors and MVPs when part of a team.

If you think you are ready to be a founding member of a rapidly advancing startup company and you would like a briefing, drop me a line. If you know someone you think I should be talking to, please let me know.

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Evangelos Simoudis continues his mission to define Insight as a Service:

Insight as a Service refers to action-oriented, analytic-driven solutions that operate on data generated by SaaS applications, proprietary corporate data, as well as syndicated and open source data and are delivered over the cloud.  This definition is meant to differentiate Insight as a Service, which I associate with action, from Analytics as a Service, which I associate with data science, and Data as a Service which I associate with the cloud-based delivery of syndicated and open source data.

It’s excellent analysis and I have been learning from his approach since he first started enunciating it a year ago. The more we go into the age of big data, the more glaring the contrast with our brains, which remain about the same size as ever.

For people to make use of the oceans of data now becoming available, our software will shift away from simply telling people what is, and move towards telling them what it means.

Don’t tell me I have an influence score of 50332.111 μFonzies with a ρ{Laren}  factor of +0.033. Tell me: “Your audience likes it when you joke about your struggles learning how to dance. And knock off the Ernest Borgnine quotes.”

Infographics and analytics are hot topics now, and will retain some luster going forward. But if you are planning to fight the next war instead of the last one, think about Insight.

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A recent study commissioned by IBM showed that 60% of CIOs are ready to move to cloud computing. That means a lot of applications which were never designed for use in the cloud are going to be moving there over the next few years.

For those who are putting an application in the cloud for the first time and wondered, perhaps, what challenges they will face, have a look at the short overview I just put together for LinkedSeattle.com.

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