Aoraki (Mt. Cook), New Zealand
With big thanks to @askburnie I attended the Publisher’s Launch conference “Book Publishing in the Cloud” yesterday. It was an interesting day and I thought I would share the highlights of what I thought were the major talking points. And thank you to @MikeShatzkin and Michael Cader for putting the program together.
Let’s start with some basic definitions:
- Cloud – Web 3.0
- SaaS – Software as a Service
- Legacy System – Current Mainframe Systems
- Enterprise Systems – Nuts and Bolts systems that support the entire business’ functions such as email
Examples of Cloud Systems that are being utilized by publishers are ones that manage data asset management, metadata, marketing, publicity, sales tracking, rights, royalties and HR.
First Steps
- Strategy. What exactly is the problem you are trying to solve? What is critical vs what is bells and whistles? What are the sparkly unicorns?
- Buy In. What are the concerns of the C suite? What are the concerns of the day to day users? How are you going to manage those concerns and fears. How are you going to sell the positives of this change and how are you going to manage the challenges. What are the specific workflow changes involved. How are you going to educate, train and support users.
- How will the new system integrate with the old systems.
- What do you need from a provider before you sign on? Privacy. Track Record. Flexibility.
- How is your data being backed up. Yes, the cloud needs to be backed up.
Upsides to the cloud:
- Speed. Panelists all reported projects/reports that used to take days now takes hours or minutes freeing peoples time to focus on the meatier parts of their jobs rather than the tedious aspects.
- Accessibility. All uses can access easily, and testing is easier.
- Acceleration. Changes in producing ebooks are fast and furious, we don’t have the luxury of time to design our own systems.
- Spend. Cloud solutions are lower in cost to set up and start up
(See what I did there.)
Downsides
- Integration with legacy systems is not always smooth and can lead to frustration.
- Customization can often be harder than expected, but working with your vendor can lead to a workable, if inelegant, solution.
- Tension with IT or other departments.
- Raw data may be harder to access than it was in previous system.
Two more points I found interesting:
- Transition to SaaS is NOT synonymous with down-scaling human resources. However, when looking for new hires new skill sets will rise in importance.
- With the explosion of digital in our lives the general user population in an organization is a LOT smarter than they used to be leading to very different IT support needs. (Gone are the days when a training session starts with, “the blue button to the left will turn on your laptop…” yes, that is a real life example.)
Also, when a vendor asks you what your pain point is and you reply, “finding a great new job,” you get very varied reactions.