Often times through the passage of time or through lack of attention we are unable to return to a place even though we know generally where it is.  Such is the case with Flow.  Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. (Csíkszentmihályi)  Flow is the way Michael Jordan played basketball, Michelangelo painted, Edison invented and Patton led.  My Dad, as an FAA flight traffic controller, would speak of days when he would sense the tap on his shoulder of his relief and realize he had neither stood up nor eaten lunch in his eight hour shift.  He was in Flow.  You could name your own examples and, chances are, you’ve been there.  I encourage you to think of that time when you lost track of time, what were you doing, what was the situation, the task, the motivation, the feeling, the environment?  Start to build the framework of your Flow experience, build a trail, leave bread crumbs so you can return.  Write it in your journal, share it with friends, tattoo it on your forearm, write it on your mirror.   Set goals and make decisions about the future regarding your Flow experience and how you can conform your current job or future job to the characteristics of your Flow experience.  If you're there tell us about it, if not, try to find your way back.  When you get there I think it will feel a lot like home. 

Google the attributes of cloud computing and you will likely get a list like this: on-demand self service, scalable and elastic, resource pooling, metered by use and uses Internet technologies.  Lately we have been preparing to deliver turnkey cloud solutions and supporting consulting services.  This may seem a slight departure from our focus on delivering knowledge to need, but it struck me today that there is a great deal of similarity in the thought processes of each. 

The idea of on-demand self service is that the cloud service is ready to use and can be provisioned without any help from the support team.  Our thin layer approach to knowledge to need is that the role of the company is to connect people to the problem then get out of the way.  The smaller the company layer (support team) the better the model is working.  In other words customer value results not infrastructure.

Scalability is the ability to grow or shrink based on the application’s demand and elasticity is how fast resources can be added or removed.  Our knowledge to need model is based on the ability to quickly add task specific professionals who have been previously vetted based on skills and passion.  Using the knowledge to need search engine we can quickly add resources rapidly in response to job requirements.  We then release those independent professionals or companies when the task is complete.  Some may not like the model, but to the professional pursuing their passion the process allows the freedom to choose tasks specifically aligned to their interests and work when and where they choose.

Resource Pooling is to the ability of software to be offered to multiple user entities in a way so that each tenant operates as logically isolated, while using physically shared resources.  The knowledge professionals in the previous paragraph and increasing in years to come will likely work for multiple entities without a specific company affiliation, but delivering like expertise based on their individual passion.

Metered by Use refers to the measurement of services in a way similar to electricity or mobile phone usage. Also, consistent with our thin layer approach as typified in delivery platforms such as oDesk.com workers set an hourly rate, bid for jobs, deliver and are paid accordingly.

As seems obvious, uses Internet technology refers to the accessibility of cloud services through the Internet.  Our knowledge to need model likewise accepts that work in the new normal is not constrained by time or location.  Use of the Internet creates a workforce upon which the work never sets.

I may just have my head in the clouds, but I think the ideas around cloud computing and knowledge to need converge.  As we begin driving the delivery of consumable cloud service and associated consulting, I think we find great value applying the model.  Our success will depend greatly on our ability to identify, scale and deploy passionate professionals to sell, innovate and consult with customers to provide a captivating user experience.  Let us know if you see yourself as one of those professionals.

Is a painting finished by the artist or the viewer?  Is the poem finished by the poet or the reader?  Is a song finished by the writer, the singer or the listener? We live increasingly in an age where products are completed by the purchaser.  Essentially we buy products without knowing their intended purpose.  The initial developer did not and does not know their ultimate purpose.  The product is just a platform and functionality is an added property that completes it to a degree, but not completely.  It has always been true that other purposes and adaptations have been found for items beyond their intended purpose, but their intended purpose was not that other purposes or adaptations be found.  Indeed that is the purpose of the platform.

The Knowledge to Need blog promotes the idea as the platform.  We believe the idea is not the end, but the beginning and it truly is not even the beginning, but rather a synthesis of our collective experience and knowledge that precedes its formation.  I have often found in the middle of page that I am no longer reading, but that I have been derailed by an idea presented by the author and my mind is pursuing the course of that new idea rather than the written page.  I have often found myself wondering whether an idea was mine or someone else’s when the truth is likely neither or both.  Ideas, like paintings and poems, exist in two forms, as created and as perceived.  We don’t “own” an idea or thought until we have completed someone else’s idea or thought in our mind.  Only at that time does the idea become a part of the tapestry of thought that constitutes who we are.  We are not capable of owning another’s idea, because the filters of our perceptions and the bias of our beliefs inexorably alter it from its original form.  Only after this transformation of perception, does an idea become part of our personal dialectic, a platform, a basis for the further evolution of thought, a transitory phase in the evolution of an idea.

I believe we often don’t present an idea, because it is “half-baked”, not completely formed in our mind.   The “idea as a platform” concept accepts that the idea is not ours to complete, but to articulate and to allow someone else to add the next step in the process.  This blog seeks to develop a forum for the evolution of ideas, a forum to allow us to finish each other’s sentences.  Business ideas are the ones of most current interest to me, so we begin there.  If the process works, it is a near certainty that that is not where we will end.  Join us in the dialogue.

Ballgame over! Wildcats win! Wink 35 Tornillo 8, another football season in Wink is in the history book! You likely won’t see the score on ESPN, but the event is very important nonetheless.  For some student athletes it is the beginning of off-season training or another sport, but for the nine seniors it is the end of an era.  It is the last time they will be the boys being sent out to fight for their town, their school, their teammates and themselves. Try as they might, I think they are too young to truly cherish or treasure this last game, so I will try to do it for them.  Many will spend the rest of their lives trying to equal the competitive zeal and the sense of camaraderie that they shared on the football field, but that is not a bad thing.  Football will provide the memory of what it feels like to passionately pursue a purpose.  They can apply that memory to prepare, practice and leave it all on the field to the game of life.  For those who learn those football lessons, life challenges will seem less daunting and wins and the losses will be viewed with greater perspective.  I also have one more bit of good news.   In thirty or forty years, they will remember the game, the friends, the fans, the coaches and the lessons through the richness of life experience and appreciate the fullness of the blessing of football lessons.