SeanFromCanada's Blog

I love hot yoga. I usually make it to a 65 minute class three times a week…six am – Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I’m actually quite proud of that, given how incredibly hard I find each and every class.

It’s so challenging because there is so much going on with each and every pose…strength, balance, core, flexibility (or extreme lack thereof), breath. And for me, sweat. I should disclose here, I’m a sweater…and at 40 degrees Celsius, 50% humidity, there is a lot of sweat!

I’m a person who always tries to ‘maximize’ my time. I often try to cram a lot of things into a day. While I’ve learned a lot about choosing how I spent my time, if I’m being honest, I’m still pretty much moving from one thing to another from 5:30 am until 8:30 pm, every day. I do my best not to spend precious time on “low value” activities…this includes washing a sweat drenched yoga mat, 3 times a week.

Think about it – picture the process. Finish yoga, lying in a pool of sweat, 7:05 am (the time crunch is on). Roll up the mat, dripping. Cram it into the car, smelling…lay it down and clean it at home – where, when? You get the point; it’s a hassle if you’re a clean freak and like things to be…fresh.

Hot Yoga on 17th has this great little service. For a loonie, I can rent a mat. And so I enter the cloud. I pay when I use, and I’m not troubled with the burden of ownership. Every time I walk through the door, I’m greeted by a smiling face and a yoga mat…a clean, sterile, rolled up tight, yoga mat. Here’s my dollar, good morning…

And when I’m done, I simply stager to the locker room, finished. They take care of it. I don’t know how, I don’t know when or where. I don’t know if the job sucks or if it’s such a cash cow that everyone in the studio likes it when I rent a mat. Though I’m slightly interested, I don’t really care. I value the service – I feel I get a lot for my buck.

And then there’s the automatic upgrade. I walked in last week and was met with mat 2.0. As I handed over my loonie, a new, thicker (now foam) and slightly more grippy mat was extended my way. I extended my hand in the same fashion, grabbed the mat…and everything carried on the same…except the mat was better.

They took care of that for me – I didn’t even know I wanted or needed a better mat, but the industry did. They’re the people going to work every day thinking about this stuff. They walk the trade show floors, attend the conferences, follow the injury data, fashion, environmental impact…they’re the ones who know what my yoga mat needs to be. And I appreciate that…I’m focused on other thoughts…other places.

All of this is exactly what the cloud is offering us – both personally and professionally. Paying to use software (hosted on computers located ‘somewhere else’) instead of buying it is changing the way software serves us. Through the cloud model, software is consistently refined to meet our needs, and the experts who offer each cloud service are more knowledgeable about how to design, develop and support the solutions than we are. We calculate the value of what we receive based on convenience, availability (there when we need it), performance and the support we receive if/when we need it. Generally, we focus on what we need the software for, and the not the software itself.

There is one difference that’s worth pointing out in my yoga mat and cloud example. Price is NOT reflective of the cloud model in this example. In the yoga mat instance, I’m actually paying more for “use” vs. ownership. I did hot yoga 63 times in 2011 and this year I’m tracking for 87 sweat filled sessions. Even if I had bought mat 1.0 and then threw it out and bought 2.0, at full price I would have spent about $140….vs. the $150 and counting that I’m running with my rental model. But with the cloud, it’s almost always less – usually considerably less. Few companies can actually run their hardware, software, people and process for less than the cloud model can. The scale possible with cloud pricing models usually means it’s less expensive by 1/2 to 1/4 of the ‘on premise’ price. (But for clarity on the mat thing, I don’t care if I’m paying more than if I owned the mat, the service and enjoyment I receive far out way my need to “win” on price).

I think it’s interesting to see that ownership of certain things that I use regularly is becoming an option. Music, mats, cars and of course, software. As it relates to software, the model is shifting rapidly towards the cloud these days. People are finding the service better, the currency of the software greater (i.e. version upgrades don’t take years…this is a quarterly game now) and the price is significantly lower. As with my yoga mat, the cloud keeps me focused on my job and interests, and the infrastructure needed to perform is provided by others.

See you on the mat … and in the cloud.