I live my life in two worlds. The most visible world, at least to this audience, involves spending lots of time in Silicon Valley and the U.S. generally and conversing with the technology illuminati—those who “get” technology, the cloud and what it can offer the world.

In my other life, I live in a small (like, tiny) rural village in deepest, darkest New Zealand. I’m surrounded by fine folk, the so-called “salt of the earth” who make a living from the land, sheep, grapes and the rural sector generally. To these folks, technology is simply another tool to add to the arsenal of tools they have at their disposal.

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For these people, cloud isn’t always an already-adopted opportunity. Rather they use a variety of technology products and services. I have a friend who runs an agricultural service business whose operational software is a DOS-based solution. While this may have friends in the technology world rolling their eyes and shaking their heads, it is the reality of the “real world.” As an aside, I’ve said for the longest time that technology companies should spend lots of time

Ben Kepes

Ben Kepes is a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. Ben covers the convergence of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users.

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