“The cloud” may be the buzzword of the year in tech circles, but the average Joe and Josephine on the street haven’t the foggiest idea about what it’s all about and how it works. The results of a survey commissioned by Citrix show that while the cloud is widely used, it’s totally misunderstood.
For example, 51 percent of respondents, including a majority of Millennials, believe stormy weather can interfere with cloud computing. Nearly one third see the cloud as a thing of the future, yet 97 percent are actually using cloud services today via online shopping, banking, social networking and file sharing. Despite this confusion, three in five (59 percent) believe the “workplace of the future” will exist entirely in the cloud, which indicates people feel it’s time to figure out the cloud or risk being left behind in their professional lives.
Among the key findings:
- People feign knowledge about the cloud: 22 percent of respondents admit that they’ve pretended to know what the cloud is or how it works. One third of them are faking an understanding of the cloud in the office and another 14 percent doing so during job interviews. Most tellingly, an additional 17 percent have pretended to know what the cloud was during a first date! (Girls apparently dig dudes that know about the cloud.) Younger Americans are most likely to pretend they know about the cloud, as are Americans living in western states.
- You’re not alone in not understanding the cloud: 56 percent of those surveyed say they think that other people who refer to cloud computing in conversation don’t know what the hell they’re talking about either.
- Well, what is it? When asked what “the cloud” is, a majority, (29 percent), responded it’s an actual cloud (actual answer, “a white fluffy thing” (!)), the sky, or something related to the weather! Only 16 percent said they think of a computer network used to store, access, and share data over an Internet connection. (Some of my favorite responses: Toilet paper (White Cloud?), smoke (The Cuban cloud?), outer space, mysterious network, sadness (The Valium cloud?), overused (possibly true), back-up, joy, and my favorite: “oh goody a hacker’s dream.”
- Many use it, but don’t think they do. 54 percent of American claim to never use the cloud, yet 95 percent of this group actually does use it for online banking, shopping online, social networking sites, online games, storing video and photos online, and online file-sharing.
- The cloud can save the economy. 68 percent of Americans think the cloud has economic benefits, via lower costs, boosting customer engagement, and generating jobs.
- The “working with no pants on” benefit: This is MY personal favorite benefit of the cloud. I call it “Pantsless Tuesday.” (Don’t freak out, I live in Arizona, I wear golf shorts.) Many respondents listed unexpected benefits of the cloud, such as; the ability to access work information from home in their “birthday suit” (40 percent); tanning on the beach and accessing computer files at the same time (33 percent); keeping embarrassing videos off of their personal hard drive (25 percent); and sharing information with people they’d rather not interact with in person (35 percent).
- Concerns over cost, privacy, security, and privacy. Despite the above advantages, the respondents did list reasons why they limit their use of cloud computing, or avoid it completely. The top three deterrents are cost (34 percent), security concerns (32 percent) and privacy concerns (31 percent).
“This survey clearly shows that the cloud phenomenon is taking root in our mainstream culture, yet there is still a wide gap between the perceptions and realities of cloud computing,” said Kim DeCarlis, vice president of corporate marketing at Citrix, in a statement. “While significant market changes like this take time, the transition from the PC era to the cloud era is happening at a remarkable pace. The most important takeaway from this survey is that the cloud is viewed favorably by the majority of Americans, and when people learn more about the cloud they understand it can vastly improve the balance between their work and personal lives.”
