The Term "Cloud" Used in Web-Enabled Computing Takes Another Turn

I have traced the use of the term cloud as it relates to web-enabled computing in multiple previous notes. Briefly stated, cloud compputing has evolved from a computer architecture consisting of multiple synchronized servers to a broader definition describing a set of Internet services and software accessible with a browser. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal take the term even further afield and defines it in the context of web marketing as an affinity group enabled by, and aggregated, by web sites and services (see: Marketing in the World of the Web). Below is an excerpt from the article with boldface emphasis mine:

From crowds to clouds: Once you get that attention -- once you generate heavy traffic to your site, gather a large league of "friends" on MySpace, or spawn a dedicated following on Twitter -- how do you monetize the crowd? Smart brands are turning their crowds into "clouds": organic, self-forming and often self-governing communities of interest. Companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Frito-Lay and Harley-Davidson use their clouds as feedback loops to get better faster by obtaining good, timely, often brutally honest customer insights. And the members of clouds can become true believers; they don't just watch your commercials, they make them. Right now, few companies are emotionally equipped to wring the best benefits of a cloud, because the most valuable voices out there usually belong to the malcontents. In the old model, customer-service departments aimed to placate or jettison disgruntled customers. In the cloud model, the idea is to cultivate and reward them. That's not an easy transition.

These ideas about an affinity group arising around a set of web services raise a number of interesting questions and possibilities about this blog, Lab Soft News, and its companion conference, Lab InfoTech Summit. For example, is there opportunity or value in trying to convert the readers of this blog into an "organic, self-forming and often self-governing [community] of interest." In order to answer this question, one needs to understand why this blog and conference were created in the first place. That's easy to answer. Pure and simple, the goals of Lab Soft News and Lab InfoTech Summit have always been to create and communicate knowledge about clinical lab software and the clinical lab industry. Professional lab societies such as CAP, ASCP, CLMA, and AACC also pursue similar educational missions as well as other goals such as accreditation, lab inspection, and political lobbying.

Because their educational mission is similar to professional societies, one possible future outcome for pathology and lab medicine blogs is that some of them will merge or blend with the societies and become another educational and teaching vehicle for them. Another scenario is that they will remain independent and expand into "cloud professional communities" that compete with the professional societies. If such "cloud communities" remain relatively small, specialized, and nimble, they may be able to represent the educational goals of lab professionals better than the large societies. Stay tuned for the answer. Self-organizing groups empowered by the web have never existed before so there are no precedents to learn from.