Innovation is the process of trying something new and if it works or survives, you keep it, otherwise throw it away or tweak it until it grows and changes things for the better. Andy Singleton, from Assembla.com, writes about the Theory of Innovation requiring exploration, observation and optimization. People and companies who don’t challenge themselves to innovate themselves as well as provide a culture of team innovation are likely to fall by the wayside and be beaten by competition. Whether you are looking for a new job or whether you’re looking to grow sustainable advantage against your business’ competition, innovation mindsets are the key to success.

Re-invent, pivot, tweak, learn and optimize are alternative actions that I think of for innovating myself and my businesses. Out with the status quo and in with better ways, tools, methods and thinking.

The successive waves of innovation over the last century has taken us from electricity to telecommunications to microchips all the way into the ubiquitous nature of the Internet and has changed the way humans live and continue to advance into the future.

Science fiction has also inspired researchers, engineers and scientists alike to take visions of the future and attempt to innovate these visions into reality. From Star Trek’s communication devices to cell phone technology, human kind undoubtedly has an innate backbone and curiosity to innovate.

I wrote this post because I often come across a common theme in various sectors of our technology driven world — resistance or ignorance to innovation.

Working as a hive mind, an organization or business of any shape or form, must work to better themselves, achieve their shared vision and hopefully do good in the process for the world.

Whether driven by shareholder value demands or passionate social good there are many reasons why innovation isn’t in every nook and cranny of society.

Just as one example, cloud computing as an innovation has helped to reduce costs, reduce waste, increase profits, increase scalability and make better use of our energy resources. At the same time, ignorance and resistance to change have led to common beliefs that cloud computing is inherently insecure. With the right strategy and execution cloud computing can be highly secure, it just depends on your situation and needs.

I’m a firm believer that each and every person in this world should work towards betterment of themselves and so should the organizations where they work. Corporate values and social goals alongside innovation is paramount to everyone’s future. Eliminating disease, war, hunger along with conserving resources and capital waste are all very good reasons for leaders of society to innovate.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of people innovating throughout the government, business sectors and even non-profits, but having an understanding of why you may not be innovating may be the first step in continuing to advance the progression of innovation — whether incremental or game changing.

Here are some reasons that you should look for in your organization or team to understand why you may not be innovating!

Lack of internal support or buy in

• Resistance to change
• Management discourages innovation in it’s culture
• Lack of focus, vision and direction from leaders
• Lack of association of innovation and differentiation with growth
• Leaders defensive to new ideas that challenge status quo

No common definition of innovation and how to measure success

• Lack of understanding of the types of innovation
• No key metrics and tracking for baseline and targets

Lack of innovation processes

• No idea management
• No new ideas, new problems or learning opportunities
• No process to bring idea from vision to growth
• No research and development
• Lack of effective communication between team on innovation process
• Failure to execute projects effectively
• Lack of measurement and tracking on projects
• Lack of user and stakeholder analysis
• No monitoring or communication on innovations

Lack of Customer Focus

• Lack of listening and talking to customers
• Lack of understanding of market and customer development interaction

Lack of long term goals

• A focus on risk mitigation and risk adversity
• Short term focus with no time spent on long term
• Focusing on unrealistic financial returns or short term gain

Lack of resources

• Lack of adequate funding
• Lack of prioritization of resources

Lack of teamwork

• Lack of challenging your team
• Lack of effective communication between team on new ideas
• Lack of knowledge management
• No perceived incentive to be innovative

For the benefit of any nerds, admins, developers, entrepreneurs and CTOs alike, I’ve put together this Google Spread Sheet template to help you forecast your potential hosting budget impact as it relates to your hosting configuration and metered usages.

If you’d like help with this template applied to your business or with your hosting solution, let me know and I’d be glad to help. Also I’ve made this a free template at Google Docs but I welcome feedback and suggestions on improving it.

I hope you will find it as useful as my clients and I do to help forecast costs for your shiny new, contract-free cloud at Rackspace

Check out the template and feel free to modify and use it as you please — Rackspace Cloud Infrastructure Hosting Budget Planner

This particular mind map may not make sense to every #nptech person out there, regardless I hope you will find it useful.

If you would like any help or advice on cloud computing for your non-profit or business including government, I’d be happy to help, just reach out to me through the blog or contact form.

I plan to release more mind maps on variety of topics for the benefit of interested audiences. I also welcome your feedback and suggestions on mind maps you’d like to see or consider for discussion.

Here’s a PDF Download :
Mind Map : Cloud Computing for Non-profits by Omar_Uddin

Omar Uddin, Founder of UVision Consulting, was invited by Jeff Pulver, host of #140conf, Co-Founder of Vonage one of the most important pioneers of VOIP, to talk about social activism, volunteerism and how social media drives change through the world during his presentation at the #140conf in DC on Thursday, June 17th, 2010.

Since the launch of the #140conf events, conferences have taken place in: New York City, Los Angeles, London and Tel Aviv. At these events the “charachters” of 140conf experience have explored the effects of Twitter on a wide range of topics including: Celebrity, “The Media”, Advertising, Politics, Fashion, Real Estate, Music, Education, Social Change, Public Safety and Public Diplomacy.

The #140conf events provide a platform for the worldwide twitter community to: listen, connect, share and engage with each other, while collectively exploring the effects of the emerging real-time internet on business. The schedule is always unique and fast paced. It is intended to provide a platform for as many people as possible to share their thoughts and engage in conversation with the attending delegates. With most individual talks set to: 10 minutes; “Featured talks” 15 and the various panel discussions are set for 15 and 20 minutes. The take aways from this event will provide the attending delegates knowledge, perspectives and insights to the effects the real-time internet will have on both “we” the people, business and society.

The event was streamed live on UStream.

Photos Courtesy of Erin M via Flickr.

View the original post.

If you need to run multiple-separate domains and one base master WordPress template theme with multiple children themes (like what I needed was a product site, 2 blogs, a community and a corporate site) without the need for wildcard subdomains or subfolders per blog/site then running a single instance of code and database on Rackspace Cloud Sites is possible using their domain alias feature.

I recommend you follow these steps to setup WordPress MU:

1. Download and install WPMU Multi-Site Plugin
2. Setup your different domains, sites blogs locally with the help of this plugin on your dev installation and get everything working the way you want like content, themes, plugins etc.
3. Deploy to the core or ‘first’ site as you would normally do to the Rackspace Cloud Site
4. Test to see if this core site is working

Then follow these steps to setup the other Rackspace Cloud Sites & DNS:

1. Setup the actual core domain in DNS to point to the matching Cloud Site IP that should have an appropriate database for the instance
2. Deploy the local developer instance files and database to this core domain
3. Setup domain aliases with the help of this Help guide at Rackspace Cloud support
4. Test that wordpress mu is serving the core and new alias domains that you have set up in the multi-site configuration

It’s that easy and I was pleasantly surprised when it was working so easily in addition to not having to get a server or other dedicated vm/box for running WPMU in this way!

I had some trouble getting things working but found an excellent article that should help you .NET developers looking to use Rackspace Cloud Sites as solution to host your ASP.NET web sites, web apps or WCF services.

Since cloud hosting has different conditions for security and reliability, there are some other considerations that you should check out at the Help support area of the Rackspace Cloud:

• Overview of modified Medium Trust
• How do I add impersonation to my ASP.NET site?

Cheers to the folks at Rackspace Cloud! PS When can I expect Cloud Servers to run Windows in a vm ?

UVision would like to congratulate all members of the California “Thank You Ocean” campaign in winning the Coastal America 2007 Partnership Award and for their continued work to restore and protect our Nation’s coastal environment.

In a letter to the campaign partners, President George W. Bush wrote, “My Administration remains committed to protecting our coastal environment, and we are proud to work with State and local governments, the private sector, and non-profit organizations to ensure the effective conservation of our national treasures. Your dedicated efforts help keep America beautiful for future generations and build a cleaner, safer, and healthier environment for people everywhere.”

About ThankYouOcean.org

“Thank You Ocean”, also known as the California Public Ocean Awareness Campaign, is a statewide campaign organized by NOAA National Marine Sanctuary Program and the State of California Resources Agency. With over 200 communications professionals in ocean-related organizations, agencies and businesses, the team works together to “create a strong voice for the ocean in California.” The project used sophisticated marketing strategies and tools to deliver a contemporary approach to our environmental problems, from the elegant graphics of its signature logo and billboards, to the high impact imagery of the PSAs. “Thank You Ocean” created a coordinated, polished message designed to instill a sense of personal connection and responsibility for our ocean and coast.

Starting June 2007, UVision has been a technology partner of the campaign and is responsible for managing web development and operation of it’s web platform.