Anyone can have a good idea. Very few can turn it into a million-dollar one. Until now. It’s challenging to start and scale a business. Choosing the cloud as your platform for delivery and headquarters presents a whole new set of obstacles. This guide will allow you to leverage the cloud to streamline your processes and maximize your profits. When Jennifer Brazer founded her company, Complete Controller, she disrupted and reinvented client accounting services (CAS), creating an entirely new cloud-based business model. Whether your specialty is accounting, therapy, design, law, or any other field, groundbreaking expert Jennifer Brazer will show you how to • recruit, train, monitor, motivate, and mentor your staff without ever being in the same room; • price, package, and present your service so its value is recognized and desired beyond geo constraints; • build trust and reputation with customers, colleagues, and vendors without in-person interaction; • develop roles and processes to support your model and measure business performance; • overcome doubt, naysayers, and traditional model rigidity for your industry; • keep the faith, even when capital and courage run thin. This book is for entrepreneurs at any point in their journey to the cloud, providing indispensable tools that will set up a cloud-based professional service for maximum success.

What is “the cloud”? Is it here or there? Should it be allowed? Should I even care? Have you ever imagined the internet as a giant Rube Goldberg machine? Or the fast-evolving cloud computing space as a literal jungle filled with prehistoric beasts? Does a data breach look like a neo-noir nightmare full of turned-up coat collars and rain-soaked alleys? Wouldn’t all these vital concepts be easier to understand if they looked as interesting as they are? And wouldn’t they be more memorable if we could explain them in rhyme? Whether you’re a kid or an adult, the answer is: YES! The medicine in this spoonful of sugar is a sneaky-informative tour through the past, present and future of cloud computing, from mainframes to serverless and from the Internet of Things to artificial intelligence. Forrest is a professional explainer whose highly-rated conference talks and viral cartoon graphics have been teaching engineers to cloud for years. He knows that a picture is worth a thousand words. But he has plenty of words, too. Your hotel key, your boarding pass, The card you swipe to pay for gas, The smart TV atop the bar, The entertainment in your car, Your doorbell, toothbrush, thermostat, The vacuum that attacked your cat, They all connect the cloud and you. Maybe they shouldn't, but they do. As a graduation gift (call it “Oh the Places You’ll Go” for engineering students), a cubicle conversation starter, or just a delightfully nerdy bedtime story for your kids, “The Read-Aloud Cloud” will be the definitive introduction to the technologies that everyone uses and nobody understands. You can even read it silently if you want. But good luck with that.

What if the global data cloud intertwined with the ethereal plane, allowing people to search on-line for past and future events? Fred Newman is chief architect for the world’s infostrada monopoly, ITower. Following a near death experience he wakes to a world technologically crippled by hacker terrorists. He returns to ITower alongside his nephew, Evan Gabriel , who suffered a similar traumatic experience on the battlefield as an Army Lieutenant. As the two struggle to discover the source of ITower’s crash they unearth a gateway controlling an ancient Earth Grid. Built on pyramids and temples millennia before, the grid is a link to unlimited energy and global consciousness that those in power are eager to command. Fred and Evan ally with psychics and spirit guides to control the gateway between the physical and ethereal realms. All the while racing against tech terrorist organization, Wave7 and ITower itself to determine who controls the Cloud to Cloud gateway .

Creating Business Agility: How Convergence of Cloud, Social, Mobile, Video, and Big Data Enables Competitive Advantage provides a game plan for integrating technology to build a smarter, more customer-centric business. Using a series of case studies as examples throughout, the book describes the agility that comes from collaborative commerce, and provides key decision makers the implementation roadmap they need to build a successful business ecosystem. The focus is on Business Agility Readiness in terms of the five major changes affecting the information technology landscape, and how data-driven delivery platforms and decision-making processes are being reinvented using digital relationships with a social business model as the consumer world of technology drives innovation and collaboration. Cloud computing, social media, next-gen mobility, streaming video, and big data with predictive analytics are major forces now for a competitive advantage, and Creating Business Agility provides leaders with a roadmap for readiness. Business leaders tasked with innovation and strategy will find that Creating Business Agility provides important insight from an informed perspective.

"A pitch-perfect blend of sexy and sweet, this office romance had me hooked from the first page." - Jennifer Blackwood, author of The Rule Book The second I met Will Evans in his three-piece suit with that hot as hell British accent, I wanted him. That is...until he insulted my shoes and stole my corner office. Now I have to work side-by-side with the surly British arsehole who just set my career back six months. It's fine. That accent won't get to me, no matter how sexy it sounds when he asks permission to do things professionals shouldn't do. On the couch. In the corner office I still wish was mine. Maybe we can't keep our hands off each other, but I'm sure as hell not falling for a guy who lives an ocean away. Because in six months, he's leaving for good. I don't do broken hearts, but you know what they say... There's a first time for everything. Each book in the Kingston Ale House series is STANDALONE: * The One That Got Away * Six Month Rule * Three Simple Words * Worth the Wait