Working as an IT consultant I get the pleasure of working directly with high level management (CIO’s, CTO’s, GM’s and Directors) in several different businesses across the world. One thing that seems to repeat itself in many organizations that have been around for many years is how to transform the existing IT staff into cutting edge Cloud staff. In some cases, staff refuse to transform and feel threatened by Cloud computing versus looking at it as a new challenge and opportunity to learn. In the private sector it is a bit easier to transform staff and/or replace, but get into government or specific countries and you now have a serious challenge on your hands. My Cloud background started in 2008 when the company I was working for started struggling financially and needed to shrink the IT Infrastructure footprint costs. At that time Amazon AWS was still relatively new, but my director at the time saw the opportunity and challenged us to move workloads into the Cloud. No it wasn’t all that easy and yes we all had a lot to learn. Along that learning path we made a ton of mistakes and also learned a whole lot! I was hooked and stayed up all hours of the night learning about Amazon AWS and drinking a ton of Red Bull. Overall I think you gotta want it and love it to transform and learn. Below are some ideas on exciting and motivating talent transformation. Curious if your organization is faced with this challenge?
Tips for driving talent transformation and adoption:
- Host technology workshops demonstrating some key Cloud services with a known challenging application. Show off the automation services and watch people light up.
- Post Cloud literature around the office to drive business demand.
- Bring in outside CSP’s (Cloud Service Providers) for Q&A sessions and demos.
- Outline a Cloud training plan (in-depth) and sponsor staff
- Add specific certifications as part of their quarterly and/or yearly goals
- Provide Cloud LAB accounts (Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure and etc.), but set spending thresholds.
- Encourage and be willing to listen to feedback!
-Daren
Cloud Life 
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