Business | LUBA RASCHEFF

If you’re like me, you place much emphasis on excelling through excellence. You are meticulous, articulate, focused and aim at succeeding in all of your endeavors.

Stand out

What is that special quality that enables one to stand out in a crowd without resorting to inappropriate methods?

Impeccability

Do you behave the same way at home as you do at work? Is your behavior flawless in the sense that you have one standard and that this standard defines, in fact is, your personal brand?

Accountability

Do you take accountability for your actions or, if things don’t work out, blame others?

Crossing the threshold of excellence

When you’ve made a conscious decision to stand out via your impeccability and pursuit of excellence, you’ve crossed the point of no return. You’ve distinguished yourself from the crowd as someone who will succeed, period.

The difference between you and those who choose mediocrity is that you’ve consciously crossed the threshold of excellence.

What are the signs of having crossed the threshold of excellence?

Acting will be easy. Once you have consciously decided to accept responsibility and, generally speaking, ‘give it your all,’ you will immediately know how to act in all situations, even difficult ones.
Doubt will vanish. The doubt you once secretly harbored about yourself and your potential will vanish.
A noticeable difference. People won’t recognize you anymore. ‘What? Is that [put your name here]?’ they’ll ask.
Success will come. You will find yourself (even under difficult circumstances) easily succeeding (e.g., closing deals, increasing your reputation, etc.)
A new vision. When you cross the threshold of excellence, a new vision will come upon you: the uncanny ability to ‘see’ what’s around the corner or down the road.

When you come to the point of no return and cross the threshold of excellence, you will stand out and your success will be unparalleled.

Reaching for Exellence

Image source: xaxor.com/photography/21817-mountain-climbing-photography-by-various-photographers.html

In Part IV of my series, What is the Cloud?, I’d like to discuss the philosophy of cloud computing.

Cloud computing redefines our existing way of thought but only does so by erasing our previous definitions. Cloud computing is POST-modern…the next step in the philosophy of computing [and, by definition,] undefinable. 1

In spite of the fact that the cloud means different things to different people and that putting our finger on the sheer extent of its applications is difficult if not impossible, it is nonetheless imperative that we understand, more than anything else, that cloud computing is a philosophy.

Steps toward increased security and privacy

“Perhaps the biggest concerns about cloud computing are security and privacy.” 2

Authentication (user names and strong passwords) and authorization (only allowing users access to job-relevant data and applications) are steps toward increasing privacy and security. 3 This works concomitantly with the inherent, financially sound, legal and moral obligation of cloud hosting providers to offer clients security and data integrity.

Questions, questions

Questions currently being debated by law firms, companies and universities revolve around data and its ownership. Who owns the data? Is it owned by users or companies subscribing to cloud computing services? Can a cloud computing company (i.e., a cloud hosting provider) deny users access to their (i.e., the users’) data? 4 These questions literally open up a whole new field in law that will deal primarily with protecting ownership of data in fluid and elastic computing environments where it often “changes hands.” Moving from server to server, public to private cloud, and virtual environment to virtual environment makes for a maze of potential legal imbroglios.

Autonomic computing

The idea of a “self-managing” computing system could mean the elimination of “the need for many IT maintenance jobs.” 5 Cloud computing means that with the diminishing of front end needs (i.e., no longer needing hardware, software and IT specialists), responsibility for computing requirements will fall onto the back end, the shoulders of cloud, hosting providers. Simply put, many users transferring responsibility to fewer cloud hosting providers means less need for the unnecessary multiplication of private server rooms, hardware, purchased software and teams of in-house, IT engineers.

Big Data and Big Speed

Cloud computing ensures that our ability to analyze data and to extract business intelligence is not limited by capacity or computing power. The cloud gives us access to virtually limitless capacity, on-demand. In doing so, it lowers total cost, maximizes revenue and gets the work done faster at scale. 6

What once took ages and cost tons of money now takes seconds and costs infinitely less. This is because the processing power that once needed to be, or in fact was, in-house is now in the cloud.

“To process Big Data in the cloud, businesses can expand and contract their infrastructure resources [or, hosted instances] depending on how much they need at the present moment.” 7

(The end of Part IV)

Untitled, by Luba Rascheff

References

1 “The Philosophy of Cloud.” 2vcps and a Truck. Published on March 30, 2009. Accessed on September 3, 2013. http://www.2vcps.com/2009/03/30/the-philosophy-of-cloud/

2 Strickland, Jonathan. “How Cloud Computing Works.” howstuffworks. Accessed on September 3, 2013. http://computer.howstuffworks.com/cloud-computing/cloud-computing3.htm

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Varia, Jinesh. “Big Data Cloud Trends–Data-First Philosophy and the Cloud: Part 2 of 3.” Perspectives and Cerebrations. Published on January 20, 2012. Accessed on September 3, 2013. jinesh.varia.in/2012/01/big-data-clouds-trends-data-first-philosophy-and-the-cloud-part-2-of-3/

7 Ibid.

LUBA RASCHEFF

Tag Archives: Business

Crossing the Threshold of Excellence

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