Astrology works for me, being a pisces! what is your sun sign?

Do you believe in astrology? well most of the things written and said are pretty accurate! According to my sun sign, Pisces- am reserved, selfless, compassionate, emotional, sarcastic, imaginative, diplomatic, intuitive etc etc.. and i feel as if am born to project a fish, a mermaid. Its so true that just like fish swim away away from the surface into the dept when its eye catches an object moving towards it, am just the same! Am a born swimmer without my fins, living in a humans body.. hehe..

Well, you should know am pretty mysterious too as people always tell me and that's so true because, i know myself. I am so much on the surface yet i am so deep into the sea. unpredictable, secretive.. lots more to me!

I hate to hurt people by some straight forward talk, most people exaggerate they love to be straight but i dont think its necessary when your loved ones are concerned. I prefer being diplomatic on things that could be deemed offensive or appropriate by them.

I am intuitive to extremes! i dont know how many incidents i've come across when am aware of things happening miles away. I also dont know... i just dont know why if there is someone who has hurt me to death, and i believe they did it, i always find them landing into trouble! oh god, its weird but its true! I guess i suppress to much..

So you see, astro is so strange and has its own mystery. How, when and where, only the stars can tell! There are hardly days when ive never seen my daily horoscope. I dont roll with the way things are written but somewhere i feel am just living according to astrology! So are you an astro freak too? hehe..

Business Traveller Tip - take it off, take it all off

First in my new segment of Business Traveller Tips is what to wear. I am not going to argue for a throwback to the early days of air travel when people dressed up and treated the affair as an adventure but I think there are good reasons for having two "outfits" for the flight. I have one set of clothes for getting on board and one set for sitting on the flight.

For boarding I wear business casual. Smart pants (or very good jeans) and a collared shirt. I do this for two reasons. Upgrades do not happen as often as they used to but they still do. I have had two occasions in the last 4 years where I have been upgraded from long haul business to first. In terms of segments flown it is not that often but it is often enough to dress well. The second reason is it means one less pair of work pants to pack - which contributes to a tip I will write soon on what to pack for business travel.

For flying I wear either very loose cotton clothes. I supposed you could call them pyjamas but really they are just non descript cotton pants and a t-shirt (OK, you can call them pyjamas). When I change into them I take the business casual clothes that I have been wearing, put them on a coat hanger and hang them up in the coat rack.

Of course this is not necessary for short haul flights but in long haul it is one of my top tips. Loose clothing not only keeps you comfortable, it helps with circulation and is more attuned to the air and temperature atmosphere of a long flight. This is not just a business class or above recommendations. I do this also when I am flying long haul economy. It is harder to hang up your clothes in long-haul economy but you would be surprised how often crew members will hang clothes up for you if you ask very nicely. If they won't I always can find an overhead locker somewhere which has enough space to lay my clothes flat so that they are in fine shape when it is time to land. When I fly economy I bring my own fold up clothes protector just in case.

If you are unable to go the full clothing switch-aroo then the minimum recommendation for all flights is that you take of your shoes and belt before you sit down. Even on short flights your feet will swell and your belt will bite into you (especially up the back of the bus). You will be amazed how the simple act of taking of belt and shoes will improve your comfort levels.

So tip number one is brought to you by Barry White - take it off, take it all off.

thanks to ddjang over at flickr for the photo

I Was a Paper Junkie

I was a paper junkie.

My first year teaching, I was so scared of speeding through a lesson and not having something for the students to do that I used to run off several copies of "fun" assignments each day (crosswords, games, whatever I could scrounge up each morning from the old file cabinet in the closet I'd inherited as an office). This inevitably added up to two or three sheets of paper per student per day. And this would be stuff I'd never even see again once I'd handed it out. I'm not even counting the handouts I'd work up for the day's lesson.

But, I was a paper junkie.

That first year teaching, we had a copy limit of somewhere between 10 and 15 thousand copies per teacher. I think I maxed out in January.

Like I said: I was a paper junkie.

I used to pride myself on the physical weight of my mid-term and final exams. Students in my Latin classes used to complain about their hands cramping up and I'd boast about the 22 page final exam I'd written in Greek History class back in college.

I was unrepentant.

When I came to my present school, I found three copy machines whereas my previous school only had two for almost twice as large a faculty. I was in heaven.

I once made a copy of a seventeen page annotated version of T.S. Eliot's 'The Wasteland' for each student in all five sections of the American Lit class I was teaching at the time. (I hope the statute of limitations is over for that one...).

But I think the most egregious use of paper came when I used to run off fresh copies of everyone's poems in Poetry Club so that we could all mark 'em up during workshops. I easily made a half-dozen copies of each poem per each one student in that club. In other words, each student would wind up with six copies of the exact same poem. And we used to read lots of poems.

But I was a paper junkie.

I used to print out copies of ebooks. (I remember that at that first school, I'd been given a curriculum guide on CD and I actually decided to print the whole thing).

I used to print out my grades in triplicate.

I used to forget to fill the toner cartridge in my desktop printer and have to go back and reprint dozens of copies of a twelve-page test.

I even got a special card from the office supply store to make copies in bulk.

And then I woke up.

I think it was the year our school moved to 1:1 computing. No one in administration suggested not using paper (in fact, I don't think any of them had even heard the term 'blog' at that point). None one on the facilities staff said anything (and they were the guys who hauled in those ton-sized pallets stacked with reams). I think it was really just a matter of me sitting down and playing around with this new laptop and before long realizing that I'd written hundreds of pages worth of notes and ideas and meeting minutes and lesson plans and hadn't printed a single piece of paper.

And why hadn't I printed anything from my new laptop?

Because I couldn't figure out how to.

That's how this whole foray into paperlessness began. It wasn't that I was some tech wizard. I certainly wasn't all that environmentally conscious. I barely used the Internet with the exception of reading bulletin boards and getting my morning news.

Rather, the reason I got into paperlessness was because I was too dumb to figure out how to hook a printer up to my new laptop and too stubborn to ask the IT department to do it for me.

I totally slacked my way into paperlessness.

It was only once I was there that I realized what had happened. And then the epiphany came: "Hey buddy," my mind said to me, "you don't really need paper to teach a class".

And so, I didn't go back. And over the last three years, I've been on a crazy journey where I've easily saved over 40,000 sheets of paper. And that doesn't even count the paper my kids have saved in my class. Whereas I used to like to brag that kids would burn through two notebooks over the course of my AP Latin class, now not a single notebook ever needs be opened.

Just for fun today, I cut-and-pasted the contents of a single student blog into Word. This was a blog that a student in my Latin II class has kept this year. So we're talking from September to April. When that blog popped up in 12pt font as a Word document, it turned out to be 107 pages long.

107 pages.

Written by a 15 year old.

In one class.

If nothing else, my experience with a paperless classroom has proven to me demonstrably that there is just so much waste that we take for granted in education. And it's an ongoing eyeopening experience for me to see just how much a change a little change can make.

The old me never understood that. But he was a paper junkie.

Business Traveller Tips - New BOOT segment

Time for another new segment here at the BOOT. The last two years has seen me in the air more than ever before. I am now a top tier flyer on both the One World and Star Alliance networks. Qantas have even handed out a Gold Card "partner" membership to Madame BOOT. I am often asked for what tips and tricks I have for business travellers. Well, here are the answers. Here at the BOOT we will now we doing a regular segment on tips and tricks for the business traveller. I am open to guest commentators and advisors in this segment. If you have a tip you want to share then please email me.

Tips so far

1. What to wear on the plane
2. How to get through airport security as quickly as possible
3. Things to take with you that you will need but don't think you need
4. Which (legal) drugs to pack with you to handle most minor health issues
5. 12 survival tips for staying in a 5 star hotel
6. 7 tips for business travel in China
7. 10 tips for surviving flying economy class/coach
8. Arriving at and leaving from new/unknown airports

PS - if you liked this segment you might like my airline seat reviews

Thanks to thinkpanama for the photo over at flickr

New AdWords interface more widely available

Beta testing for the new AdWords interface has been expanded to an even larger number of advertisers. The new interface is now available to most active AdWords accounts in these languages:

• English
• Spanish
• French
• German
• Italian
• Dutch
• Hebrew
  
• Simplified Chinese
• Japanese
• Brazilian Portuguese

We'll be adding more AdWords languages in the future.

If your account has been added to the beta test, you'll be directed to the new interface the next time you log in. The previous interface will still be available if you need it: during the beta you can switch back and forth using the "New Interface (Beta)" and "Previous Interface" links in the top corner of your account, next to your email address.

Have questions while using the new interface? The new interface microsite has videos and a how-to guide that will help you with the changes. For example:

(click to view video)

In the coming months we'll continue to add features to the new interface and make additional adjustments based on your feedback. Once we're confident that the new interface meets the needs of our advertisers, we'll convert all AdWords accounts to use the new interface exclusively.

To start managing your campaigns with the new features available in the new AdWords interface, simply log into your AdWords account.

Posted by Austin Rachlin, Inside AdWords crew

Umair Haque on the music industry

Economist Umair Haque considers the current crisis of the music industry in the light of microeconomic information and contract theory. Interesting thoughts!




More videos on the music industry:
Interview with Trent Reznor on business models in the music industry
Making $1.6 Million in a week for music given away for free

Sync Google Apps user accounts with your LDAP system

As part of the team that joined Google when it acquired Postini in 2007, one of my responsibilities has been finding ways to weave Postini's enterprise experience into Google's business offerings. Today, I'm excited to tell you about Google Apps Directory Sync, the latest improvement to Google Apps brought over from Google's Postini security and archiving services.

Google Apps Directory Sync lets businesses and schools with an LDAP user directory system like Microsoft Active Directory or Lotus Domino transition more quickly and smoothly to Google Apps. Instead of manually maintaining a separate user account directory in Google Apps, this utility lets Google Apps tap into an existing repository of user account information.

This new utility is a software component that helps maintain security by running behind the firewall and pushes directory information to Google Apps – including mailing lists, groups and user aliases – to match the organizational schema in the LDAP system.

This is a one-way operation, designed so data on the LDAP server is not updated or altered. The utility offers many of the customization settings, tests and simulations originally developed and refined for the Postini directory sync tool to give complex organizations the controls they need to manage their directories effectively.

Google Apps Directory Sync is now included at no additional cost with Google Apps Premier, Education and Partner Edition customers.

Posted by Navneet Goel, Google Enterprise Product Manager

Free Network Marketing Tips-MLM and Attractive Marketing

As someone who is looking to build a home business, it is important to know how to relate to others. This includes knowing how to attract people to you.

Today's free network marketing tip is on how to attract prospects to you with ease.

3 Tips On Being Attractive In Network Marketing
By Jonathan Budd

At the end of the day your “attractor factor” is crucial to your network marketing success. We are in an industry that is built around ATTRACTION.

The subtle underlying feelings people have towards others are what determines whether or not a person says “I want to join YOU.” When you have a few key elements in place you will boost your attractiveness and kick up the notch of people who decide they want to join you.

Three tips to make yourself more attractive in network marketing are:

1. Share value with other people. Value could mean many things, knowledge, education, know-how, advice, compassion…anything that shows you are a valuable person that has lots to offer people. When people see you have lots of value to offer, it will make them more attracted to you as a person.

2. Nurture the concept of “Kaizen.” Continuous improvement. When you are constantly educating yourself and becoming better at what you do…you increase your own value. As your own value increases, you now have more value to share with other people, and they will be attracted to you.

3. Develop a marketing system that will help your team. People join other people for two reasons only. They either see that person as a leader who has value to offer them, or that person has a marketing system they see as valuable to offer them.

When you create a marketing system so your team can generate endless leads to expand their business…you will be A LOT more attractive to work with.

To learn more secret online strategies to build a massive network marketing organization visit: http://www.OnlineMLMSecrets.com

To Your Success,

Monique Hawkins
540-858-2885 anytime
Skype: Monique371
Be A Mentor With A Servant's Heart

P.S. Most people who read "Success In Ten Steps" find out why their lack of success is not their fault, but some don't.

Some people would rather waste their time surfing the internet, or joining some money or time-wasting affiliate programs.

To download "Success In 10 Steps", visit

http://mentormonique.bigmlmtruths.com/?mad=9091

Social Media and Cheating

Reader MagistraM writes:

I love how you have placed the responsibility for learning so clearly on your students. A common concern about using digital tools for classwork and assessments is that the students will be "cheating". This lesson demonstrates how the social tools facilitate every student's learning - and demands each student to contribute.

I would say that social media actually may present us with a new post-cheating paradigm. I liken it to students in an oil painting class: barring having someone else do it for you, you just "can't" cheat on an oil painting.

Because of the transparency of Web 2.0, cheating in the traditional forms -- plagiarism, copying, cribnotes -- is severely limited in a practical sense. Because of the individuality and personalization of assessment and creation via Web 2.0, cheating itself becomes a rather uninteresting option.

Students tend to cheat out of a mix of boredom and procrastination; cheating is a manifestation of a lack of motivation to be authentic -- whether we're talking about the total slacker who cut-and-pastes from Encarta, or the 'sophisticated' cheater who tries to juke the SAT.

Unauthentic assessment will produce cheaters.

And what is unauthentic assessment? I'd define it as assessment that fails in its structural makeup to address the realities of society -- both at a local and global level.

Now, I'm no spring chicken. I know there are kids who will try to cheat their way around anything. I've caught a few in my own classes. But, if the teacher is using the tools available to engage the students rather than just to talk 'at' them, the teacher has got a much better shot of fostering the type of community in the classroom where cheating will not be tolerated among the students themselves. Web 2.0, by its very nature is a medium that requires you to give of yourself to get anything in return. And that's the sort of thing that a good teacher can tap into both to encourage authentic engagement as well as to foster a spirit of classroom-wide local goodwill. Combined, cheating becomes a much less cool option.

The Key To Your Long Term Import Export Business Success

I want to once again emphasize the importance of the Internet
in the long term success of your international trade business.

Whether you are trying to market the products you are importing
or attempting to promote or market a manufacturer's product
to a worldwide audience, the Internet is your LONG TERM KEY
TO SUCCESS.

Our little web site has generated hundreds of thousands of
dollars in sales, not only for the import export business
services we offer but for the manufacturer's that we have and
still do market on our "little web site that could".

The total of the value of services and products that we have
marketed through our simple little web site actually amounts
to well over SEVERAL MILLIONS of dollars.

I am talking about overall value of the products that the
manufacturer's or service providers we represent as agents
have sold (or we have sold) because of our SIMPLE LITTLE WEB
SITE.

The success of our web site began with the purchase of a
course back in 1998. I attribute 75% of our success to what
I learned from that course (the other 25% is my own tenacity
and perseverance).

But, I needed that course to motivate and show me what I
needed to do in order to make the Internet work for me.

Now that same course, which came in two large 3 ring binders
has been made available online and if you were scared to
spend a little money to develop your future using the Internet
due to the lack of money, then you need to read this to the
end because I've got something that's going to ELIMINATE that
hurdle for you...

I've just heard from my friends at the Internet Marketing Center,
(the publisher of the course that got me started using the
Internet as my tool to bigger success than I could have ever
imagined) and they've agreed to let me offer you a 30-Day Trial
to their #1 best-selling profit system,
"Insider Secrets To Marketing Your Business On The Internet!"

So for one full MONTH, you can have UNLIMITED access to the same
step-by-step Internet business-building system that I, like
thousands of others have already used to make their fortunes
online.

http://www.importexporthelp.com/recommends/imc-coursetrial.htm

Activate your trial today and you will uncover easy techniques
for creating winning websites, even if you have NO technical
experience... for driving throngs of visitors from around the
world straight to your new site (for FREE)... and MORE.

Using the techniques revealed in this course our traffic to
our site quadrupled within a week of implementing them and
our website now receives well over 50,000 visitors monthly.

During your 30 day Trial, you can use as MANY of these
proven profit-generating strategies to create YOUR new
site as you *want*!

This is your best opportunity to "test drive" the Internet
system that's created more six-figure incomes than any
other -- WITHOUT RISK.

To activate your 30-Day Trial of "Insider Secrets," just
follow this link:

http://www.importexporthelp.com/recommends/imc-coursetrial.htm

In LESS than 5 minutes, you'll have unlimited access to this
entire system, so you can start building YOUR new, highly
profitable international business website TODAY!

http://www.importexporthelp.com/recommends/imc-coursetrial.htm

Ron Coble
Coble International Business Services
http://www.importexporthelp.com/ (the little website that could)


P.S. My IMC friends are telling me that they have not decided
how long to offer the 30-Day "Insider Secrets" Trial offer,
so if you want UNLIMITED access to this entire step-by-step
blueprint for making money online, you'll need to activate your
trial NOW:

http://www.importexporthelp.com/recommends/imc-coursetrial.htm

Free Network Marketing Information-Twitter Tips

If you have been on the internet lately, I am sure you have heard quite a bit about Twitter. As a matter of fact, you even about it offline as well.

Twitter can be a great way to brand yourself, build relationships, and develop a following.

Today's free network marketing tip is all about Tweeple! (smile).

It seems that there are hundreds of new terms entering our vocabulary each year because of technology. It wasn’t so long ago that nobody would have understand what ‘go and Google it’ would mean. The latest craze bringing in a wealth of new terms of its own is Twitter.

Let’s look at how you can increase your chances of meeting the tweeple. (This is just one of those new terms mentioned. It is so new that spelling checkers still think it is a mistake). Tweeple are simply people using Twitter. Why would you want to meet people using Twitter? The reason is that there is a potential to reach a huge audience very quickly. Unlike spam email the people reading your messages (or tweets) have opted in to do so by becoming your ‘followers’. This raises the possibility for Twitter marketing.

It is not a good idea to blatantly advertise in twitter – even though many do. Apart from the fact that people may stop following you, they are also a lot less likely to click on any of your links. A better method is to tell a story. For example, you could send a tweet that said something like ‘You’ll never guess what happened to me at the shops today – find out the full story [link]’. This would arouse curiosity. The link would send readers to your blog or website where you could include an interesting pre-sell story. Not only would you get more clicks, you are likely to get higher conversions.

Of course, none of this is going to happen if you don’t have followers. There are some simple steps you can take to increase the likelihood of others following you. The simplest is to make good use of your twitter profile. You should include a picture of yourself in order to appear personal and approachable. If you have a website then you should include the URL in the profile. Twitter allows you to add up to 160 characters for your bio. This is an area you should put some thought into. As well as introducing yourself you should add something about the niche you are targeting.

An advanced tip is to change the profile background. Most people couldn’t be bothered doing this so this one small change can help you stand out from the crowd. Not only can you change the background color, you can also add a picture. This could be a picture of yourself, your product or one that just sets a theme.

If you set up your profile well and provide useful tweets that add value you are likely to build an army of followers as well as make some extra sales and get increased traffic to your website along the way.

To Your Success,

Monique Hawkins
540-858-2885 anytime
Skype: Monique371
Be A Mentor With A Servant's Heart

P.S. Most people who read "Success In Ten Steps" find out why their lack of success is not their fault, but some don't.

Some people would rather waste their time surfing the internet, or joining some money or time-wasting affiliate programs.

To download "Success In 10 Steps", visit

http://mentormonique.bigmlmtruths.com/?mad=9091

Analytics and AdWords tips - Part 4 of 4

Last week we looked at finding your ROI for AdWords and also identifying keywords that aren't performing well. This week, in the last part of our series, the Google Analytics team will take a look at keywords that bring in revenue and also how to use Analytics to improve your ROI overall.

Which keywords drive revenue?

Just like you did with your poor performing keywords, go to the AdWords Campaigns report and click down to the Keyword level. Once you are in the AdWords Keywords report, click in the Revenue column header (you may have to click twice) so that the highest revenue keywords are listed first.

The high revenue keywords may or may not be your highest ROI keywords. If your ROI shows that you are losing or making little money on a high revenue keyword, you might want to adjust your strategy.

Using Analytics to improve overall website ROI

This series has shown you how to use Analytics to identify low and high performing keywords, find your highest revenue keywords, and weed out low performing keywords. Now that you're familiar with Analytics, you might want to explore some of the other ways it can help you improve your website's ROI. Here are some suggestions for getting started:

• Use Analytics to create an optimization plan to improve the conversion rate on your site
• Track your email marketing campaigns with Analytics
• Expand your keyword lists using Analytics with Insights for Search and the Search Based Keyword Tool
• Follow the 9 steps to becoming an Analytics Emperor
  
• Hire a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant to handle all your tracking for you
  

You can also find regular updates on how to improve your Analytics skills on the Google Analytics blog and Youtube Channel.

That's it for this series. Happy tracking.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

Summer Webinar Series: Protecting Corporate Assets from Unfair Business Practices

Williams Mullen is hosting a four-part webinar series entitled: Protecting Corporate Assets from Unfair Business Practices.

Here is a listing of the programs for each month. Click on the title for more information and to register for the individual events.

May
The Employee Paradox
Your Best Employees Can Cause the Greatest Damage to Your Company

June
Beware the Government Contract
How to Protect Your Company's Assets from the Government and other Contractors

July
Intellectual Property: Building Your Castle Moat
How to Protect Your Company's Knowledge

August
Defending Your Castle
Litigating Disputes to Protect Your Company's Assets

The first webinar is scheduled for May 21, 2009 from 12:00 to 1:15 p.m. (U.S.A. Eastern Daylight Time). There is no fee for participating in the webinars.

For a complete listing and registration information, click here.

Analytics integration for all

Over the past few months, we've been gradually inviting publishers to integrate their AdSense accounts with Google Analytics, and today we're happy to announce that this feature is now available to all publishers. Integrating your account with Analytics will provide you with more detailed information about traffic to your pages and how users interact with your site.

Once you link your accounts, you'll find an AdSense-specific menu under the 'Content' section of the left-hand navigation bar on your Analytics homepage, containing these reports:

• The Top AdSense Content report allows you to see more details about specific pages on your site and analyze ad performance. For instance, if you find that some of your pages generate a high number of pageviews but aren't monetizing as well as other pages, you can focus your optimization efforts on improving these pages.
  
• The Top AdSense Referrers report can help you see how different incoming traffic sources contribute to your revenue.
  
• Last, the AdSense Trending report lets you analyze how your site generates revenue during different times of the day and different days of the week.
  

You'll also notice that other sections of your Analytics account will show a new 'AdSense Revenue' tab. You'll be able to compare how much of your AdSense revenue is coming from new visitors versus existing ones, and view revenue based on user language.

To take advantage of these new reports, sign in to AdSense and click the 'Integrate your AdSense account with Google Analytics' link on your Reports Overview page. You'll be taken to a step-by-step wizard that will guide you through the rest of the process. If you use AdSense in a language that's not supported by Analytics, you can still link your accounts and view your Analytics reports in a different language.

We also recommend watching the video below, which will help explain the linking process:



Enjoy your new data, and don't forget to visit our Help Center if you have other questions about linking your accounts or reviewing your reports.

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team

Managed IT Services Buyer's Guide - part 3

Here are the final three questions from our ten-point Q&A that's designed to help guide your procurement process. Part 1 included the first three managed and hosting service buyer's guide questions and Part 2 had the next four questions.

8. What are the type and scope of management capabilities that you routinely offer?

• Request a list of capabilities and associated benefits, relative to your needs.
• Historical reporting is essential, forward-looking insight is valuable.
  

Examples of typical basic management tools include a service desk and management of various activities including assets, configuration, fault, change, release/update, performance, capacity reporting and planning, and trend reporting with recommendations.

9. If required, how will you support existing or acquired IT/networking infrastructure?

• Service providers may have policies that limit the device types they support.
• In addition, some providers only support devices they install and configure.
  

If you are like many managed service users, then you have an environment where a combination of self-managed and out-tasked infrastructure will need to coexist -- at some point in time. Service providers should be able to delineate how their role and responsibilities start and end in a multifaceted scenario. Likewise, they should explain their role in the event that they are asked to operate in a multi-vendor or multi-service provider environment.

10. How do you price and deliver professional services, beyond the scope of the managed service?

• Examples of advice, support, and guidance should be included as standard.
• Ask for non-standard consultation examples, and associated fee structure.
  

There will likely come a time when you will ask your service provider to perform an activity that is beyond the scope of your managed service agreement. You should anticipate this event by asking the service provider what constitutes routine (non-billed) information and guidance, and in contrast what is the fee structure for time and materials work -- or other billable activity.

In Summary
Managed services have a long and successful history of helping businesses like yours to reap the full benefits of IT and networking technology capabilities -- without the drudgery and distraction of the ongoing equipment operation, management, maintenance, and perpetual updates or enhancements.

You can download the complete checklist "How to Select a Best-Fit Managed Service Provider" as a .pdf document.

Also, the "Managed versus In-House Service Comparison Calculator" may help you build an internal business case. This build vs. buy expense comparison tool should only be used for basic estimates. We recommend that you consult a managed service provider to obtain an accurate comparison, based upon your actual requirements.

Introverts and Individualists and Collocation

I am seeing a general trend (in several small things I am seeing lately) ...where the logic of what people are saying is (at the extreme): we should bend over backwards because implementors are introverts. (Yes, way over-simplifying a complex issue, but bear with me.)

OK, we must say that a good team always has (at least somewhat) talented individuals. Mastering the machine is probably a skill set and an interest more common among introverts than extroverts.

But we also know that people who are very good (maybe even the most talented on the team) can ruin the productivity of a team by being too much an individual. We see this in sports (Tyrrell Owens maybe), in life and even in our work.

OK, fine.

Let's unpeel this a bit further.

We have lots of geeky guys (yes, usually guys) on SW teams who prefer to "talk" to real people via technology. Almost exclusively.

And we have lots of managers who feel that distributed, or even disbursed, teams are best. (Disbursed is every person in a different location. Distributed, ideally, is a team composed of two pods, each pod composed of collocated individuals.)

And it is true that there are some disadvantages to collocation. People chit-chat too much (actually useful up to a point), you get more "people issues" (or so it seems), more interruptions (controllable if people want to), etc. (Yes, I am not very impressed by these disadvantages.)

Note that, in a face-to-face team it is much easier to see people-issue impediments. When not F-T-F, it is easy *not* to see people-issue impediments. If there is a will to fix impediments, it is better to see them.

Now, I am fine to accept and work with a distributed team.

And, I still think there is a strong argument for more collocation and more face-to-face conversation.

Yes, we have to accept that each person is different. And make some accommodations to that. It is silly to try to make introverts into extroverts (or vice versa).

But that does not mean that everyone should stay in their comfort zone all the time.

To some degree, for the good of the team, we need to ask the introverts to "step out of the cube, dave" some too. (I hope that phrasing injects a tad of 2001 humor. If you know that movie.) And we need to ask the extroverts "could you shut up a moment, please."

In a broader sense, there should always be a tension between individualism and "the team". We contribute everything that we are, as individuals. We do...so that the team can have a greater success as a team than any one of us alone. Or so it is when we play team sports, like new product development.

I say this as a bit of an introvert myself (per Myers-Briggs).

One more thing...

Why do we seem to think that a distributed team is so obviously best for our situation?
(Some introverts like distributed teams because of lower interaction with those pesky people. Not normally an argument I find compelling.)

I am distressed when I see firms "assume" a distributed team or partly offshore team, without any analysis of whether it beats a good alternative (eg, a collocated team). Each time it must be analyzed, in my opinion.

Quite often (most of the time?), if you get a diverse group of 4-7 people in one location, given a bit of time, they should be able to beat the pants off a distributed team. Even a distributed team with better skills or knowledge at the beginning. (Certainly this is *not* true at the extreme: low quality individuals collocated vs very high quality individuals distributed. But that's an extreme comparison I seldom see out in the wild.)

So, I am assuming you can often get 4-7 people with good skills/knowledge in your product domain areas. That could be collocated at relatively low cost. I posit that usually the special knowledge or skills or lower cost that distributed people bring, at first, is less important than the knowledge creation, and skill creation and team "emergence", that a collocated team can create.

Remember three things:
* knowledge is useless unless it can be turned into effective action (in the context of a team)
* knowledge decays rapidly
* the best way to convert tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge (or into tacit knowledge in another person on the team) is to work together, collocated

Reactions?

PS. Some reminders:
* I have worked, and still like to work, with distributed teams
* To me, it has been proved that distributed teams can be hyperproductive (if done right)
* Scrum works fine with distributed teams
Nothing I said earlier contradicts these statements.

College new-hires and the zen of BPM

I'm supposed to be preparing a one hour lecture for some college new-hires on: "Basic and Advanced BPM Concepts"... but yet I blog instead ;-)

For those of you who know me well, you'll probably think that my biggest concern is that I only have an hour. I tend to go on and on (and on) about topics that I am passionate about, leading a former co-worker to coin the term "johntification" in my honor.

Explaining BPM is what I do - focussing pretty much on what's now being called BPM-tech more than BPM-bus. When I first encountered BPM I felt like I had found the missing link... a paradigm and technology that closed the gaps between what I knew how to do and what my business colleagues really needed.

I was blown-away by BPM because I had experienced the pain of the problems that BPM addresses. This stuff fixed something that I knew needed fixing.

My worry about introducing BPM to college new-hires is that they probably haven't experienced "Process Pains"... at least not from the perspective of one who writes or maintains software, or from the perspective of someone who tries to get the "right" software written.

When I describe the problems that BPM tackles they may say "So what?". They may scoff at the magnitude of the problems - and they probably assume that the solutions that BPM provides have always been around.

With my standard BPM audience I'm fairly assured that heads will begin to nod in recognition of shared pain in thirty seconds or less...

Most in my audience have experienced meetings where a dozen people had to be present to figure out how that incoming *application* finally ended up as an outgoing *disbursement* (*substitute the inputs and outputs of your own business).

Most in my audience have also experienced "Office Heroes" - those harried individual who on a daily basis keep a company running through shear force of will. Whenever anything falls through the cracks... Whenever anything gets lost or derailed... Whenever any critical deadline is in danger of being missed... Office Heroes jump in and save the day. If a truck hits an Office Hero your business will really have to scramble to recover.

BPM helps business people understand how their company really runs, and it helps reduce their company's reliance on Office Heroes. BPM helps IT people provide tools that make it easier to run the company, easing the burden of the Office Heroes.

My college new-hire audience will certainly understand what I tell them about BPM - but will they relate? Can I make BPM relevent to their own experiences, or will I just sound like an old guy droning on about the old days: "When I was your age, computers only had 4K of memory....."

These "kids" are smart... they just haven't had as much experience. Instead of relying on shared experience to grok BPM I'll have to find another approach... When (or if) I figure it out I'll let you know.

Latin Test via Twitter

As I'm writing this, my Latin II students are taking a pre-test translating sections of Book I of the Gallic Wars. I allow them to open the text on Latin Library, a tab of one or both of two solid online Latin dictionaries, and a tab of the hyperlinked-grammar version of the text in Perseus. For the test, they won't be able to use Perseus.

I also let them use Twitter to ask each other questions and give each other help. I follow the Tweets and can easily swing into action to help with a tricky verb form or a misconstrued phrase; in addition, during the pre-test sessions, the students themselves will often cite websites in their Tweets to be included in our ongoing hyperlinked bibliographies.

Last week, I gave my first Latin test using Twitter. My Latin III students had to translate the 'In Taberna' section of Carmina Burana. I allowed them to do it as a collaborative assessment and I gave a single score to the entire class so long as everyone contributed equally in the Tweet feed. Students had the text open in a Latin Library tab, had their online dictionaries open, had their blogs open in which to post their sections and organize their translations, and followed each other on Twitter. The trick was that although this was a collaborative assignment, the students -- under penalty of forfeiting the grade for the whole class -- were not allowed to talk.

All discussion had to take place on Twitter.

The results were extraordinary. I watched as they used Twitter to chunk the seven stanzas of the text and organize who would be available to help in different ways. Some students focused on looking up vocab and figuring out morphology while others construed the sections into a unified whole. A particularly interesting exchange occurred when three students realized that their chunks contained shared words that individually each had broad semantic ranges -- so they had to make compromise decisions on what definition to use for each.

I would not want anyone to think that this is the only way I assess the students. In fact, I'm a big supporter of using as many different sorts of assessments as possible -- after all, the students have to be ready for anything in the 'real world'. But, in terms of using Latin to teach 21st century networking and using 21st century networking to teach Latin, this experiment produced excellent results.

Here are portions of our feed with names changed (for chronology, read from bottom to top... it's a Twitter feed). BTW, for those of you who do not use Twitter (yet), this is going to look very strange to you. It may even look quite useless. But strange as this all may look, imagine: a class of Latin III students knocking out a strong translation of the entire 'In Taberna' from the original Medieval Latin by sight with the aid of only a dictionary in just over a half-hour's time. In addition, as opposed to traditional small group projects where one student might do the majority of the work and the others might slack, on Twitter you can see in real time the contributions of each student in the class. You can see precisely the types of mistakes they are making AS THEY ARE MAKING THEM. And a record is kept of that.

This is just a random sample; for those keeping score at home, we produced about 125 Tweets in less than 35 minutes.

Here is an example where I am watching the editing of several translation drafts at once and setting up student teams to organize sections into unified wholes. Students are directing each other to full versions of the sections I have looked over located on their own class blogs. Remember to read from the bottom of the selection.

54. MrW @gol You and Alesia need to compare because you have many of the same words. Decide which translations you want. 15 minutes ago from web in reply to gol
55. koko 2nd half of stanza 1: When in the tavern he is led by it, where coin is the barmaid, that is work, so he may grumble, but let me speak s ... 15 minutes ago from web
56. TAstu Stanza 6: http://musilatin.blo... 15 minutes ago from web
57. brandi http://romansp.blogspot... STANZA 4 is on my blog. first link 15 minutes ago from web
58. TAstu Stanza 6: Lines 1-3 The poor man drinks, the sick drink the outcasts drink, the strange drink the boys drink, the old drink 16 minutes ago from web
59. gol @MrW what do you mean? 16 minutes ago from web
60. MrW @TAstu Check with Austin. 16 minutes ago from web in reply to TAstu
61. gol posted on my blog, http://latin.blog... 24 minutes ago from web

Here is a section where I am directing students to definitions live as they are sight reading. You will notice that our discussion evolves from my making a student explain herself in the use of a translated word; in a few Tweets, I manage to catch three different students who otherwise would have made translation errors and would have been thrown off later in their sections. Also, I pick up a mixed construction in the process. By nailing down these problems AS THE STUDENTS ARE TRANSLATING rather than waiting for them to finish and turn something in, we all wind up with a less frustrating and more accurate finished product. Read from the bottom.

62. MrW@gol 'wanderer's' 25 minutes ago from web in reply to gol
63. TAstu How about the 'wanderers' or 'outcasts' mr w? 25 minutes ago from web
64. koko 1st half of stanza 1 .... When we are in the tavern, do not care where the ground may be, but they do hurry to gamble, who always sweat. 25 minutes ago from web
65. MrW Everyone, please provide a link to your section. 25 minutes ago from web
66. Chel26 @MrW thank you 25 minutes ago from web in reply to MrW
70. MrW @Chel26 "who drink first is captured" Mixed COnstruction 26 minutes ago from web in reply to Chel26
77. MrW @Chel26 No. Libertine does not mean 'free men', it means basically 'partiers' 27 minutes ago from web in reply to Chel26
78. gol the master drinks, the mistress drinks, the soldier drinks, the clergy drinks, he drinks, she drinks, the maid serving drinks, some ... 27 minutes ago from web
79. brandi times for the learners, twelve times for those who repent, and thirteen times for those who journey. For the pope and king are al ... 27 minutes ago from web
80. Chel26 freed men. not libertines... 28 minutes ago from web
81. MrW @TAstu 'exiled' drink? 28 minutes ago from web in reply to TAstu
82. Chel26 http://latinmove.blo... this is my blog link and carmina burana stanza 3 is the top post 29 minutes ago from web
83. MrW @Chel26 What are 'libertines'? 29 minutes ago from web in reply to Chel26
84. MrW @brandi Not 'scattered'; look up that word. 30 minutes ago from web in reply to brandi
85. Chel26 heres stanza three completed i have to post it piece by piece! "First of all the wine maker is giving drinks to the libertines.. 30 minutes ago from web

This sample is from the end of the test. You can see that I am still helping individual students with grammar issues while other students are preparing the final copy for submittal. The final version -- comprised of the work of all of the students -- was then posted on a single blog that all of them subscribe to.

1. MrW Ok. That's time. Rachel agreed to post the final to her blog. I'll check it there at 12:45PM for group grade. Thank you! Great work. less than 10 seconds ago from web
2. Sbt @MrW will do 3 minutes ago from web
3. MrW @Sbt ...attention to who is teasing... rephrase / object problem 3 minutes ago from web in reply to Sbt
4. brandi. Alesia's 3 minutes ago from web
5. koko have it all on my blog 3 minutes ago from web
6. Sbt But according to Bacchi, they dismiss their fate. (end) 3 minutes ago from web
7. TAstu I'll do it 3 minutes ago from web
8. Sbt because they are able to dress oneself with someone's wallet. There no one fears death... 4 minutes ago from web
9. MrW Let's choose one person's blog to be the place where the final version gets published for the class grade. Ok, decide. 4 minutes ago from web

Now, as I'm following this Tweet feed, I'm also following each student individually on their own blogs where they are live-blogging their edits. Might sound complicated, but really just a matter of tabbed browsing. The end result of all of this is me -- the teacher -- having a much better feel for the formative aspects of the students' skills in translating and the students having an immediate feedback session where they are collaborating both with their teacher and with their peers.

Last year, when I started experimenting with this type of assessment, I did it live through a collaborative Google Doc. Twitter, however, now makes everything far more efficient -- and each student is left with their own copy/transcript of the entire event.

I would like to know how other teachers are using Twitter. I see it as one of the most powerful tools for education available in Web 2.0. One of the things I really like is the use of @Tweets. Students are able to directly address one another or directly address me and I am able to directly address that particular student in return; but because we do it via @Tweets, the exchange shows up in the transcript of each of the students' feeds. So, even if a student was not working on a particular part during the assignment, they now have a record of another student's questions and my responses to those other sections. In a way, the @Tweets make the Twitter feed a document far more complex than anything we could have created merely via a back-and-forth; for students, this is great because now in addition to having taken part in a collaborative assessment, they also have a complete transcript which can be used as a study guide for the final exam. In fact, I am thinking that I'm going to have the students go over the transcript and create hyperlinked annotations back to Perseus for all matters of vocab and grammar. Those documents will then be combined and shared via a Google Doc as a practice guide for the year end summative assessments.

Announcing our Small Business Network

The success of your business both online and offline is very important to us, which is why today we'd like to share a message from David Fischer, our VP of Global Online Sales and Operations:

It's no secret that small businesses play a key role in Google's success as a company and drive the economy as a whole. AdWords, AdSense, Apps – you name it – have all grown because small businesses use them. Because of that, increasing their bottom line is very important to us.

In Washington, D.C. and state capitols across the country, we often witness policy debates, legislative initiatives, and regulatory changes that significantly affect the small business constituency – the same constituency that has helped make Google what it is today. But the recent economic downturn has turned entrepreneurship into an uphill battle. So we asked ourselves a simple question: What can we do to help broaden the collective voice of small business both on Capitol Hill and in the states? We want to know about the issues that are important to our small business partners so that we can better invest in their goals and objectives and ultimately, their success.

Today we're launching a new initiative called the Small Business Network. It's designed to promote business-friendly policies at the federal and state levels. We plan to tackle a number of important technology policy issues - the first two of which are increasing broadband access and preserving an open Internet. And we also want to have a dialogue with small business owners about other issues that affect their online business.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed into law by President Obama in February, sets aside $7 billion to increase access to high-speed Internet or broadband for the 20 million Americans who live in underserved areas. By expanding broadband access and preserving an open platform, small businesses in America have the ability to reach all consumers at an affordable cost and compete with their counterparts anywhere in the world. We hope that the Small Business Network will encourage lawmakers to grant those funds to the right providers and create broadband access for all small businesses across the country.

If you are a small business owner who is interested in learning more this initiative, visit Google's Small Business Network site to find out how you can be a part of it.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

KETTLEWORX ON THE ABC FIT FRIDAY TV

Certified Personal Trainer, Jarrod Wise from the ABC Fit Friday TV segment, called KettleWorx a new Fitness Phenomenon !!

To view the segment, click on this link

http://www.kvue.com/video/health-index.html?nvid=352758

Kettlebells: a new way to tone up
April 17th, 2009
Kettlebells are becoming a trend in gyms across the country, but some may be too intimidated to use them. KVUE photojournalist and certified personal trainer Jarrod Wise spoke with a nation fitness trainer who created a new kettlebell workout that's an easy way to tone you up.

Hello Canadian KettleBell Lovers,

Kettleworx is now in Canada.

The New KettleWorX 6 Week Body Transformation DVD program is now available in Canada at the Treadmill Factory get yours today
Please visit :http://www.treadmillfactory.ca/kettleworx.html
or Click Here

Mothers day gift ideas and a free gift certificate for you

Mothers day is coming up, we are all planning to buy gifts and host parties to make our mothers feel loved and honored. Its a special day none of us would want to miss out spending tender moments with our mothers. Shes given us a lot, now its our turn to show her much we love, care and adore her. Have you decided what you would gift her this year? Don't you think it would be a good idea to gift your mother art prints or canvas art created out of real photos!? Perfumes will always be a favorite, but the memories of older times, maybe when you were a kid would bring out the joys on canvas and artwork and make your mother feel most special as she can now view her memories on art!

The world is focusing on mothers day gifts, but they are oblivious to the $10 gift card certificate give away from photofiddle.com. To claim the $10 gift certificate just email mom@photofiddle.com, but before the 4th of may! If your a twitter user you will find the URL to grab the gift certificate from here-(http://twitter.com/photofiddle). To know about the latest contest and discounts, just hop on to twitter. You can also use face book, email or blogs to let others know about this offer.

Convey your greatest and deepest feelings for your mom on her special day and lessen her sorrows, brighten her life in meaningful way :-)

STAY FIT WHILE PREGNANT

Continuing research shows that pregnant women can benefit from safe exercise if they follow certain guidelines. A doctor's checkups and authorization is required and can help determine what exercise program is right for both the mother as well as the baby. Safety is of paramount importance.

Strength Training Workouts

The participant should always maintain control of the body. Movements should be made slowly. Throughout your entire pregnancy maintain a neutral spine position. Exercising during pregnancy will make the workload harder.

The participant should not try to maintain the same performance as before. As the pregnancy advances, it will become increasingly difficult to maintain the same workload.







Allow the workload to decrease in intensity and duration. The participant should listen to their body and be aware. During pregnancy, the center of gravity, body alignment and balance decreases, joints loosen and may become unstable. Keep moves limited to low impact, basic moves avoiding fast directional changes.

Aerobics Training Workouts

Warm up duration should last for 10 to 15 minutes while maintaining good posture, body alignment and a neutral spine position. Heart rate checks should start at 5-minute intervals for the beginner to 10-minute intervals for the more experienced exerciser.


Intensity should be limited to 60% of the maximum heart rate for beginners and to 75% for the experienced exerciser. Range of motion should be kept to shorter rather than full range movements followed by static stretches. Pay particular attention to areas such as the shoulders, neck, calves, and hip flexors. Emphasize relaxation more than extension and flexibility for the lower back.







Overhead arm stretches assist in breathing and allow the entry of more oxygen into the lungs opening up the thoracic cavity. Be careful not to over stretch. Concentrate on slow, sustained stretching.


Avoid Adductor stretches as these place undue stress on the pelvic bone area. Target heart rates and ratings of perceived exertion are reached more quickly than non-pregnant women. This is not the time to challenge the cardiovascular system. Challenge the system before pregnancy to get into shape for the pregnancy.

Post Pregnancy

Give your body time to heal after the birth regardless of whether the birth was vaginal or caesarean. Some doctors say you can resume exercise after four to six weeks other say when bleeding stops.

Make sure you receive clearance from your own doctor before returning.
Content Provided by International Fitness Association

"Finally, a Holistic and Healthy Pregnancy Program Endorsed by Medical Doctors, Nurses, Naturopaths, Dieticians, Midwives, Exercise Physiologists, and Real-World Superhero Women Like You, that is Easy to Follow and Can be Done in the Comfort of Your Own Home!"

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Exciting, useful sessions at Google I/O...be there!

The Google I/O Developer Conference is coming up in just four weeks, on May 27 – 28, 2009 in San Francisco, California, so we thought now would be a good time to give you a sneak preview into some of the exciting Enterprise sessions we have planned.

Growing a SaaS-based services business reselling Google Apps
presented by Jeff Ragusa

Traditional value-added resellers are looking for ways to adapt their business for the world of cloud computing and the new Google Apps Authorized Reseller program provides the perfect framework for moving a services business in this direction. This session will focus on revenue opportunities for partners in this area ranging from assisting with SaaS product selection, to guidance on best practices, to custom application development, deployment & integration work, and managed services. Learn how Google's reseller program can enable service providers to take advantage of these opportunities through marketing, sales and technical tools and resources. See Jeff's video invitation to his session here.

Extending the Google Search Appliance to Crawl Valuable Data Behind the Firewell
presented by Nitin Mangtani

The Google Search Appliance is an on-premise hardware and software solution that brings Google search into the enterprise, so users can find content quickly and securely. In this session, learn how partners today are plugging enterprise data sources into the GSA through Connectors and displaying results using OneBox. See Nitin's video invitation to his session here.

OpenSocial in the Enterprise
presented by Chris Schalk, Mark Wentzel, Dave Carroll, Rich Manalang, and Tugdual Grall

With OpenSocial's proven global success in traditional social applications, the enterprise software community has begun to realize its potential and build innovative solutions that cater to the enterprise. Join us for a session centered on how the enterprise software development community is successfully bringing social concepts and technology into the enterprise. Key enterprise players will present and demonstrate how they've successfully used OpenSocial software to build new social solutions.

One last thing to remember: even though Google I/O will be primarily geared around breakout sessions, there will be a ton of other interesting stuff going on, including the Developer Sandbox, Fireside Chats, Tech Talks and After Hours Playground. Click here to register.

Posted by Chris Kelly, Google Apps Partners team

From Pong to WoW to Math Scores?

The State of Virginia tries out video games to improve math scores:

"The traditional view of video games has been that they are distractions from the task of learning, said Ntiedo Etuk, CEO and co-founder of Tabula Digita. "But this research clearly shows the opposite is true."

Just heard of the Quest school in NYC going game-ed. Interesting to see a state do it.

Wonder how many admins down there are gamers...

Updates to the program policies page

If you've checked the AdSense program policies page today, you've probably noticed that we've just made a few small updates. We'd like to take a moment to clarify what's been changed.

The first thing you might notice when you visit the program policies page is that we've revamped the look. Based on your feedback, we've reorganized the content and updated the layout to make it easier to read and navigate. We've highlighted some key information for each policy, and added expandable 'Learn more' sections that you can click for more detailed information. Also, we've grouped together policies that are specific to only AdSense for content or AdSense for search.

There are also a few updates to the content of the program policies, which we've outlined below:

• Google brand violations: This policy has always existed in our Terms and Conditions, but we've now brought it directly to the 'Ad Placement' section of the program policies page so that it's easier to find. According to this policy, we don't allow ads or search boxes to be placed on pages which misuse Google logos, trademarks, or other brand features in the page content or URL, and which could mislead users into thinking the page is associated with Google.
  
  
• Deceptive implementations: We've clarified this policy a bit in the 'Encouraging Clicks' section of the program policies - ads may not be formatted in a way that makes them indistinguishable from other content on the page where they appear. This includes, for instance, formatting content to mimic ads, aligning images with ads, and placing ads under a misleading heading.
  
  
• Ad placement in emails and email programs: This updated policy clarifies that Google ads , search boxes, and search results may not be placed in emails, as well as alongside emails.
  
  
• Other Google products' policies: With this new policy, publishers aren't permitted to place ads, search boxes, or search results on, within, or alongside other Google products in a way that violates the policies of that other product or service. For instance, this would include placing ads on sites which allow users to download YouTube videos, which isn't permitted by the YouTube Terms of Service.
  

Finally, we've added more information to the 'Webmaster Guidelines' section and created a new 'Traffic Sources' section. Whether you regularly review the program policies or haven't reviewed them since you signed up for AdSense, we encourage you to visit the program policies page and check out the updates.

(Post has been updated to provide additional clarification.)

Posted by Winnie Creason - AdSense Publisher Support

What we talk about when we talk about cloud computing

Recently, McKinsey & Company published a study on cloud computing as part of a symposium for The Uptime Institute, an organization dedicated to supporting the enterprise data center industry. We share McKinsey's interest in helping the IT industry better understand cloud computing, so we'd like to join the conversation Appirio and others have started about the role of cloud computing for large enterprises.

There's quite a bit of talk these days about corporations building a "private cloud" with concepts like virtualization, and there can be significant benefits to this approach. But those advantages are amplified greatly when customers use applications in the scalable datacenters provided by companies like Google, Amazon, Salesforce.com and soon, Microsoft. In this model, customers can leverage hardware infrastructure, distributed software infrastructure, and applications that are built for the cloud, and let us run it for them. This offers them much lower cost applications, and removes the IT maintenance burden that can cripple many organizations today. It also allows customers to deliver innovation to their end users much more rapidly.

We thought we'd provide some insight into what we mean when we say cloud computing, and how its advantages in cost and innovation continue to attract hundreds of thousands of companies of all sizes -- from 2nd Wind Exercise Equipment to Genentech. We created our cloud by building an optimized system from the ground up: starting with low-cost hardware, adding reliable software infrastructure that scales, offering innovative applications, and working every day to improve the whole system. While the McKinsey study only considered the hardware cost savings of the cloud, there is tremendous customer benefit in all of these areas.

Hardware infrastructure
It starts with components. We serve tens of millions of users, so we've had to build infrastructure that scales and can run extremely efficiently to support that load. Consider three areas of data center design: server design, energy efficiency, and scale of operations.

In the virtualization approach of private data centers, a company takes a server and subdivides it into many servers to increase efficiency. We do the opposite by taking a large set of low cost commodity systems and tying them together into one large supercomputer. We strip down our servers to the bare essentials, so that we're not paying for components that we don't need. For example, we produce servers without video graphics chips that aren't needed in this environment.

Additionally, enterprise hardware components are designed to be very reliable, but they can never be 100% reliable, so enterprises spend a lot of time and money on maintenance. In contrast, we expect the hardware to fail, and design for reliability in the software such that, when the hardware does fail, customers are just shifted to another server. This allows us to further lower the cost of our servers by using commodity parts and on-board storage. We also design the systems for easy repair such that, if a part fails, we can quickly bring the server back into service.

Traditionally, companies have focused on using large, highly reliable hardware to run databases and large backend systems, but there is a significant cost impact to that strategy. For example, a 4 CPU quad-core system with 600 GB of high end SCSI storage and 16GB of memory is 8 times more expensive than a system 1/4 its size with less expensive SATA storage. This is because the price of the components increase exponentially as the hardware gets larger and more reliable. By building the reliability into the software, we're able to use a much lower cost hardware platform but still maintain the same reliability to customers.

Beyond server design, we do everything possible to make our servers and data centers as efficient as possible from an energy and cooling perspective. Consider how we designed our data centers for energy efficiency. Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) is an industry-standard metric for measuring the efficiency of a data center. We recently shared that the average PUE for our data centers is now better than the state-of-the-art 2011 data center PUE prediction by the EPA. In other words, we beat the EPA's best case estimates three years early, and we achieved this result without the use of exotic infrastructure solutions thought necessary in the EPA report. And we're doing that at every level of the stack: from server utilization to networking.

Finally, we operate at scale, and that drives economies of scale. Just by managing thousands of servers together and making them homogeneous, we're able to cut down on our administrative costs dramatically and pool resources of many types. This benefits end users by enabling us to offer low prices.

But, most importantly for our customers, we manage this entire infrastructure such that they don't have to. According to Gartner, a typical IT department spends 80% of their budget keeping the lights on, and this hampers their ability to drive change and growth in their business. The reality is that most businesses don't gain a competitive advantage from maintaining their own data centers. We take on that burden and make it our core business so that our customers don't have to.

Software Infrastructure

While most discussions of cloud computing and data center design take place at the hardware level, we offer a set of scalable services that customers would otherwise have to maintain themselves in a virtualization model. For example, if a company wanted to implement a typical three tier system in the cloud using virtualization, they would have to build, install, and maintain software to run the database, app server, and web server. This would require them to spend time and money to acquire the licenses, maintain system uptime, and implement patches.

In contrast, with a service like Google App Engine, customers get access to the same scalable application server and database that Google uses for its own applications. This means customers don't have to worry about purchasing, installing, maintaining, and scaling their own databases and app servers. All a customer has to do is deploy code, and we take care of the rest. You only pay for what you need, and, with App Engine's free quota, you often don't pay anything at all.

A great example of software infrastructure that scales is the recent online town hall meeting held by President Obama. The White House was able to instantly scale its database to support more than 100,000 questions and in excess of 3.5 million votes, without worrying about usage spikes that typically would be tough to manage. Because of the cloud, there was no need to provision extra servers to handle the increased demand or forecast demand ahead of time.

Applications
Beyond the underlying hardware and software design, what attracts many customers to the cloud is application outsourcing.

There is limited value to running an Exchange Server in a virtual machine in the cloud. That server was never designed for the cloud, so you don't get additional scale. You'd also need to continue to maintain and monitor the mail server yourself, so the labor savings are marginal. But with cloud-based applications like Gmail, we take care of all of the hassle for you. We keep the application up and running, and have designed it to scale easily. All of this provides an application that is roughly less than 1/3 the cost of a privately hosted mail system, has 100x the typical storage, and innovates much faster.

Innovation
While the cost advantages of cloud computing can be great, there's another advantage that in many ways is more important: the rapid pace of innovation. IT systems are typically slow to evolve. In the virtualization model, businesses still need to run packaged software and endure the associated burden. They only receive major feature enhancements every 2-3 years, and in the meantime they have to endure the monthly patch cycle and painful system-wide upgrades. In our model, we can deliver innovation quickly without IT admins needing to manage upgrades themselves. For example, with Google Apps, we delivered more than 60 new features over the last year with only optional admin intervention.

The era of delayed gratification is over – the Internet allows innovations to be delivered as a constant flow that incorporates user needs, offers faster cycles for IT, and enables integration with systems that were not previously possible. This makes major upgrades a thing of the past, and gives the customer greater and greater value for their money.

As companies weigh private data centers vs. scalable clouds, they should ask a simple question: can I find the same economics, ease of maintenance, and pace of innovation that is inherent in the cloud?

Posted by Rajen Sheth, Senior Product Manager, Google Apps