Should there be different definitions/explanations of cloud depending on who you're talking to (e.g. IT staff vs. C-level execs)?

Ben,

Part of the fun of putting this roundtable together was that with all the focus on definitions, like the one from NIST, Randy brought a novel perspective that illustrated the short-sighted nature of today's definitions. Granted, Randy is seeing the edge of the paradigm in a way that many will not get to see for a long time based on the role he's operating in and the service he provides. Still, limiting definitions of cloud constrain innovation in the enterprise. While different audiences will want to see different perspectives of cloud computing, its semantic representation should be consistent across audiences. That definition is a pattern for building, deploying and managing information technology infrastructure that maximizes scale and elasticity (hopefully, I paraphrased that correctly from today's roundtable).

I'm not sure there should be different definitions or explanations, but I do think that the "discussions" are different. In the end, a cloud is a cloud is a cloud. It's a service model that embodies lots of different technologies to enable different features and functions that satisfy a particular business or technology need. The discussions with different constituents will focus on different aspects of the model. Business discussions will focus on time to market, competitive advantage, reach, COGS, etc. IT discussions will focus on integration, data security, development platforms, performance, lifecycle management, etc. Technology discussions will focus on hypervisors, operating systems, data models, APIs, form factors, standards, etc. We like to think that the cloud masks or "abstracts" the technical aspects from the discussion, but in reality that doesn't happen.

I think not necessarily different explanation, however different messaging is required depending on what contact you are speaking to. The message needs to resignate with your audiance i.e. FDs probably see a direct benefit of moving away from CAPEX to OPEX model and reducing acquisition costs and being able to forecast IT budgets better. With IT audiences it is about management, compliance , deployment and scalability etc.

Of course there are a lot of people who still just see the Cloud as just SaaS and can't grasp things like Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service, CRMaaS, UCaas etc etc.

It is important to understand and address some of the benefits relevant to your audience(s) based on where they sit within the business and how the cloud would impact them.

To most users who consume services, they may be non the wiser as far as it being a on-premise or cloud service they are utilising. What matters to them is that they can access the right information quickly, anywhere i.e. mobile device and with relative ease to be more productive nad make faster decisions.

Cloud is too big and wholesome to merely describe, whilst the concept is simple it's applications are many. Any definitions we do form tend to be out dated as they are re-defined as time goes on and we find many uses for the cloud.