Howard Oliver

CCN Launches Best Practices WebVoyaging for the Canadian Cloud

July 11, 2012 By Howard Oliver Leave a Comment

CCN Launches Best Practices WebVoyaging^TM for the Canadian Cloud

The Cloud Best Practices Network (CBPN) announces the launch of new international Cloud Network chapters for the US, UK, India and Israel that will join Canada in defining the first global community of best practices for Cloud Computing.

The goal of the CBPN is to bridge the innovation divide between countries and accelerate the growth of the cloud computing sector by sharing global best practices and promoting world-wide technology innovation. A renowned team of experts from each country is being formed representing an unprecedented global Technology Strategy Board (TSB).

Countries like Canada (now falling to 12th in the Global Innovation Index) have an opportunity to replicate the best successes of governments in the United States and the United Kingdom. The US government saved $12 billion with their Cloud First program. The UK government gave local SME cloud computing providers access to government procurement bids. Without the red tape of laborious government RFP processes huge gains were achieved: government IT costs were reduced, new innovative government services were introduced and significant network efficiencies (including cloud and related WAN deployments across national, regional and municipal governments and agencies). The “first government project” status for a whole ecosystem of companies boosted sales to private sector companies now confidently seeking cloud based computing solutions. A kick start for a whole industry!

Via our CEAP marketplace program international vendors will find it easier to work with local Canadian cloud hosting firms to effectively bid on similarly streamlined government RFPs.

To support global expansion of Canada`s local IT firms, the CCN is pleased to announce the launch of its social media acceleration program, ‘Best practice WebVoyaging™ for the Canadian Cloud‘.

Once becoming a member of the CBPN, cloud industry consultants, vendors and service providers can have their profile boosted through expert materials, company profiles, directory listings, and blog publishing and promotions throughout the CBPN content network with the associated benefits of social media networking and Search Engine Optimization. Our CBPN content network has blossomed to over 4.000 online members and a traffic base of over a million unique hits!

Additionally, the TSB, CBPN’s community of though leaders is pioneering industry-defining best practices:

as leaders within the industry and given the opportunity to share their expertise or opinion by interviews via telephone or email
invited to post articles directly to the network sites where they are proactively incorporated into the widely syndicated PR projects that receive upwards of 8,000 hits per article .
promoted by the CBPN and included in larger deals or strategic development projects that stimulate acceleration in the Cloud marketplace
asked to take part in defining the Cloud Technology Road Map
encouraged to utilise the FREE consulting services of the CBPN to create an innovative PR schedule or strategic business development plan.
provided with introductive access to CBPN members and all leads generated

Our overall goal is to help member vendors to greatly boost their own industry profile in Canada and around the globe.

About the Cloud Computing Network: The CCN is a proactive network of like-minded professionals that focus on the latest technology innovation and hot industry topics, actively supporting members through major technology and marketing initiatives, web resources for information and conversations on the cloud computing space, workshops and networking events, publishing articles, white papers and press releases, and networking and partnership opportunities. CNN also offers sales and marketing services to promote new ventures and innovative products. For further information, please visit http://canadacloud.net or contact us directly.

For more information contact: Howard Oliver, What If What Next, Direct Line: 416-568-5254, Office: Tel: 905-709-8582, Email: holiver@whatifwhatnext.com.

Filed Under: Industry News

Momentum building for our Cloud Ecosystem Accelerator Program

July 6, 2012 By Howard Oliver Leave a Comment

I have read through the two reports: Enabling Canada’s Technology Future and Accelerating Crowdfunding in Canada. Here are some important ideas that jumped out in the context of our Cloud Ecosystem Accelerator Program (CEAP) that we announced last week in a press release:

CEAP clusters will focus on the cloud sector exclusively. A sectorial focus spread across the country (Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver) with strong international ties will attract a vibrant community of participating companies, start-ups, investors, international partners, larger IT companies, government bodies and others.
Our efforts will build buzz for participating companies, help capture sales and show velocity. Broadly communicating success is good for individual companies and the industry as a whole.
Entrepreneurial companies often lack the sales and marketing resources to effectively get their message out on a sustained basis. By participating in CEAP these tasks will be admirably and economically accomplished on a scale unobtainable by an individual company.
It is particularly important for firms to build traction and coverage to communicate their future value and attract investors.
As we create our regionalized and national technology roadmaps valuable alliances will form. The resulting ecosystems will be much stronger that sum of their parts.
Strong international connections will be made. A world spanning MarComm/PR campaign will get the word out that CEAP is the place to tap into the Canadian cloud computing sector.
The real value of building buzz in the context of a strong Canadian cloud cooperative is reducing the perceived risks in the cloud environment. This is particularly important for selling to governments and large institutions.
CEAP will be actively involved in lobbying the federal government on behalf of cluster participants in the areas of direct government investment, procurement strategies, and “First buyer” programs.
CEAP will launch “private” crowdfunding investment within our regional networks.

Filed Under: Building Canada's Digital Economy, Industry News, Let's Crowdsource Canada Tagged With: CEAP, cloud clusters

Building the Canadian Cloud Ecosystem

June 20, 2012 By Howard Oliver Leave a Comment

Our goal at the CCN is to build an ‘ecosystem’ that encourages more high-growth start-ups, what a recent report calls ‘Gazelles’.

These are start-ups that punch well above their weight, driving more jobs and growth pound for pound than any other organization and hence why they are so important to economic success overall.

This important factor is reported here on Action Canada and also covered in the media, like Globe and Mail and the Financial Post, and also on the NCA, and the report concludes that Canada is falling short of producing enough of them.

They are so important to the Canadian innovation story because they have a strong ability and focus on rapid prototyping and breakthrough product innovations, quickly bringing these disruptive services to high-growth markets.

They are young firms who are pioneering disruptive business models, with the potential to “transform industries through novel technologies or business models”. ”If Canada is to increase its global competitiveness, its economy will need to move up the global value chain into higher levels of innovation-based production.”

This type of ecosystem is known as a ‘cluster’, an industry grouping of similar organizations pooling their resources for collective success, and it’s very nicely described in this presentation from one of Canada’s leading providers in this high-growth tech industry, Rackforce -

Download: The Canadian Cloud Ecosystem (large PDF)

Our goal is to combine this type of thought leadership, with other equally powerful ideas, for example what Cisco call a ‘Next Generation Cluster‘, a framework for how the original cluster model from Michael Porter can be upgraded through new Cloud 2.0 technologies. Naturally Cisco suggest their own but the model recommendations aren’t tied to them, so it’s actually a very smart piece.

The central idea is the fundamentally clusters are geographically-centric, like Waterloo in Canada growing around RIM, or the Oceans Technology focus in Newfoundland. A lot of this is obviously tied to the level of Government funding it – The Newfoundland Provincial Govt in the case of this latter example.

Cisco propose that through the use of social collaboration technologies you can enhance the principle another level, with the fundamental shift being an expansion to a virtual community-centric approach, rather than a geographic organizing dynamic.

Filed Under: Featured Blog, Headline Tagged With: Canadian Cloud Ecosystem