Humour

Make way for the ‘cloudigators’

T A Balasubramanian on turning people into voluntary worker Ants

As directed by his CEO, Baidyanath Baffle, the founder and owner of Baffle Technologies—Baff-Tech for short—Doodh Byramji, our intrepid IT research engineer continues his investigation into the quaint world of changing technology. Deep in his relentless pursuit, Doodh is presently seated at Quick Sip, the trendy restaurant, in conversation with Groucho Goose, Manager, Slinky Marketing Strategy for Confusing Clients, from Duckbill & Goose.

Dear Diary (begins Byramji, with his flair for detailed reporting):

“So you think crowd-sourcing is an unstoppable phenomenon?” I ask Groucho, settling down to sip on green tea.

“That’s right, Doodh,” says Groucho, sipping his coffee. “The idea of crowd-sourcing is that by exploiting—sorry, I mean engaging—crowds of humans—by turning them into voluntary worker Ants. If you notice, most crowd-sourcing models offer cost savings. In an era of mass layoffs and draconian cost-cutting, the prospect of dramatically reducing overheads will be too tantalizing to resist the benefits of Ant farming.”

“Hmm, Ant farming, eh? You would still have to get the individual Ant convinced that it is a good idea, Groucho.”

“We don’t really have to do that, you know. The right Ants will find their way to our projects which they will consider to be a challenge. We have a new term for these human Ants, too—‘cloudigators.’ According to the Duckbill & Goose inventor of the term, a cloudigator is ‘a smart navigator who cruises around using on-tap technology and collaboration tools to work anywhere and anytime, and uses the resulting freedom to enable a my-size-fits-me career path and a plug-and-play lifestyle.’ ”

“I don’t usually associate freedom with ants in nature, Groucho. If you know your entomology, real ants are truly industrious creatures, but they are absolutely will-less, automated servants of the queen ant.”

“Well, Doodh, let’s not quibble over the metaphors, shall we? A cloudigator would certainly have free will, I can assure you. So let’s step across the definition divide and look at this new age creature with wondering eyes.”

“All right. But first, where did the ‘cloud’ come in?”

“Oh, it is just another word for the big amorphous mass of information-in-the-sky that we call the Internet. With the rise of on-tap cloud computing, you are no longer limited by the capabilities of your desktop or smart phone. You just tap into the Internet ‘cloud’ with a browser. It is the old concept of time-sharing made practical through recent advances—broadband networking, unified communications, wireless devices, and zillions of remote computing servers.”

“So if I am working from anywhere and use the Internet, I would qualify as a cloudigator?”

“Partly, yes. It used to be called telecommuting—which was all about replacing a daily office trip with telecommunication links. ”

“Maybe you could say that I am half-way to being a cloudigator, Groucho. My home is 300 miles away from my office,” I say. “The old style telecommuting is what I like so far. My wife understands that I’m not being paid to do housework and run errands and my children understand that I have a little private Baff-tech office space at home ... so they cannot burst into the room yelling while I’m on a teleconference call with my CEO and several vice-presidents. The downside is that people at Baff-tech forget that I exist. I get passed over for promotions, and in general, I have lost touch with all my Baff-tech comrades and the company’s culture.”

“Ah, but the mutating Internet world has changed all that. Note the new cultural and work environment implications of being a cloudigator. You could be living and working from several locations in one day, including from your home. You may be dancing between multiple devices and with multiple applications, mixing up your work and personal life. You are part of a much larger tribe that is always on, and instantly available.”

“A larger tribe? Isn’t that a little primitive?”

“The word, maybe, but not the culture. Look at the table over there, and what do you see? That’s a student. She has, next to her coffee cup, her mobile phone and her iPod. She opens her laptop computer and logs on to our café’s WiFi, or wireless Internet connection, to study for her class. She is a regular here. She swaps text, photo, video or voice throughout the day with her friends and family, and does her ‘work stuff’ at the same time. She roams around town, but often alights at ‘hot spots’ that cater to cloudigators.”

“That would make her a digital gypsy—with a WiFi in every port?”

“You are incorrigible, Doodh,” crackles Grouch. “We humans have always migrated and traveled—without necessarily living nomadic lives. The cloudigator mobility you see now is different from, and involves much more than, traveling and making journeys. A cloudigator is as likely to be a teenager in Tokyo or suburban London as a jet-setting chief executive. You may never have left your city, stepped into an airplane or changed address. Indeed, how far you move is completely irrelevant. Even if a cloudigator confines himself to a small perimeter, he nonetheless has a new and surprisingly different relationship to time, to place and to other people. Permanent connectivity, not motion, is the critical thing.”

“That could be quite a challenge for Baff-tech to adjust to.”

“The traditional organization must find ways to get used to these cloudigator types. The way I see it, you would have two types of workers at most companies soon. The first will be the brash new generation of cloudigators who will define what they need. They won’t feel the need to rely on their employers. They won’t limit their professional development to what Baff-tech would provide. They will use the tools and technologies that suit them. They will develop their own social networks. Their identity and content is out there in the cloud. So you would be saying, essentially, ‘here I am and here’s what I have to offer.’ This means working anywhere at anytime. In your house. With a mouse. In a box. With a fox. Here or there. Anywhere.”

“That leaves out the non-cloudigator types on the ground, then?”

“Yes. They’re not comfortable or experienced with cloudiness. They’re more at home with the traditional idea of working as told by their bosses. They are probably not at ease with anytime learning and the blending of work-life or with self-developing online networks. Their work is their ‘real cabin’ and everything else outside is not. They are the soldier ants of Baff-tech. They would not imagine asking someone for help on a public network outside of the intranet at work—it is proprietary to Baff-tech! Not so with cloudigators—for them, the workplace is wherever they have landed today and who they are with today.”

“Like the nomads in a desert?”

“Exactly. Cloudigators—young urban nomads like the student over there—have been popping up only in the past few years. Like their cousins in the desert, they do not carry their own water, because they know where the oases are. Cloudigators carry almost no paper because they get their documents on their laptop computers, mobile phones or online. Mostly, they don’t even bring laptops. If ever the need arises for a large keyboard and some earnest typing, they sit down in front of the nearest available computer and catch a passing cloud.”