{"id":8842,"date":"2013-09-13T13:23:11","date_gmt":"2013-09-13T13:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.journeytothecloud.com\/?p=3242"},"modified":"2013-09-13T13:23:11","modified_gmt":"2013-09-13T13:23:11","slug":"journey-to-the-cloud-an-insiders-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/journey-to-the-cloud-an-insiders-perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"Journey to the Cloud: An Insider\u2019s Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ben Stephenson, Journey to the Cloud<\/p>\n

Our Journey to the Cloud blog has been live for a little over two years now, and I\u2019ve had the privilege of running and managing it from the start. I wanted to touch base about the site, share my unique perspective from managing it, and hear from our readers about\u00a0what we can do to make it even better. <\/span><\/p>\n

Our goal from the very beginning was to establish ourselves as thought leaders in the industry by providing high quality content that was relevant and beneficial to IT decision makers. We wanted to make sure we let our authors keep their opinions and voice, while at the same time taking an unbiased, agnostic approach. The last thing we wanted to do was start blathering on about what a great company GreenPages is or bragging about the most recent award we won (it was being named to the Talkin\u2019 Cloud 100 if you were wondering\u2026). \u00a0Over the course of the two years, we\u2019ve posted over 200 blogs and seen the number of page views and shares across various social media sites increase drastically. We\u2019ve brought in some big time guest bloggers such as ConnectEDU CTO Rick Blaisdell<\/a>, CA\u2019s Andi Mann<\/a>, the Director, Advanced Analytics and Sr. Research Scientist at Gravitant<\/a>, and more. We\u2019ve incorporated a lot of video as well \u2013 in fact for whatever strange reason someone thought it was a good idea to let me host our Cloud Corner Series<\/a>. We\u2019ve covered topics ranging from cloud<\/a>, virtualization, end user computing<\/a>, BYOD, network infrastructure<\/a>, storage, disaster recovery, shadow IT, project management<\/a>, and much more.<\/p>\n

Have there been challenges along the way? Absolutely. Have I had to go after people and chase them down, scratching and clawing until I get a blog to post? Yes. Have tears been shed? Has blood been shed? We\u2019ll keep that to ourselves as it\u2019s generally frowned upon by HR. And, yes, I have had to give William Wallace-like speeches<\/a> to attempt to rally the troops. While there have been some challenges, all in all there\u2019s been a great amount of enthusiasm and support from our writers to produce a high quality publication. For me, being in the industry for two years now with no previous technological background, the amount I\u2019ve learned is ridiculous. Before starting at GreenPages<\/a>, I would have rather listened to a Ben Stein<\/a> Lecture or Bill Lumbergh explaining TPS Reports<\/a> than read an article on software defined networking and the impact it will have on businesses in the next 5-10 years. I can see why our customers get excited to work with our consultants because they truly love and believe in the technology they talk about. I completely buy into their enthusiasm and passion and it makes me genuinely interested in the topics we cover. I\u2019m in my mid-twenties and have, sadly, found myself out drinking at a bar with my friends having a great time before somehow winding up in a heated debate over the pros and cons of moving to a hybrid cloud architecture<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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So, in case, for whatever deranged reason, you haven\u2019t read all 200 of our posts, I\u2019m going to list out my top ten from the past two years (in no particular order). Take a look and let me know what you think:<\/p>\n

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