In discussing personal clouds with many people for awhile, it's become clear to me that a lot of people still do not really 'get' them.

For example, I often ask iPhone users if they use iCloud. This is typically met with a quizzical look and a response such as, 'I think I have iCloud, it's on my phone, it's for backup, right?'.

iCloud does backup but it also does a lot more. Although Apple considers iCloud to be one of their most strategic products going forward, and has spent tens of $millions advertising it, many users still don't really get it.

This is in part because once iCloud is set up, many people don't think twice about it, at least until they lose their phone or tablet and want their data back. For many users, iCloud is a 'set it and forget it' type app as there is little need to interact with it once it is activated. This is sometimes referred to as a 'headless client', meaning the iPhone app doesn't have much of a user interface beyond settings. (As a tangent, headless clients are right up there with headless horsemen and headless debating politicians in being scary, just in time for Halloween). There is no compelling reason to view the iCloud app other than to occasionally check something or change a setting.

A headless client is not the only reason why people don't get iCloud, however. It's also because sync, upon which iCloud and other personal clouds are based, while simple in concept, can be complicated in practice. I work for a 'sync' company and have a degree in computer science, yet I am still sometimes confused by how iTunes, which syncs content between my family's personal computers and iPods, works. I am guessing other people may be puzzled by how iTunes sometimes works as well. I attribute this to 'sync' being difficult to implement in an automated way that works the way people expect.

This is not meant to demean iTunes or iCloud, as both have hundreds of millions of users. Rather, it is to emphasize that there remains a large gulf of understanding about personal clouds, and a major part of the reason is sync. At my company, we avoid using the 's' word (sync) when we talk about personal clouds because it is scary to many people (also in time for Halloween, and if you haven't selected a costume yet, maybe you could go as Super Syncer!). Plus, 'sync' can make people's eyes glaze over, like talking about how their car works (both of which, by the way, are pretty important).

I recently ran a marketing workshop with a large mobile service provider who is launching a personal cloud service for millions of people. We discussed the benefits of personal clouds and how to convey these in a simple way to help people understand and remember them.

I tried to come up with an easy way and hit upon using ABCs that many people learn (at least with Latin based languages). I came up with the ABCs (and Ds) of personal clouds as in:
ACCESS
BACKUP
CONTENT-SHARING
DEVICES

meaning

• Access -- your files, pictures, video and music, anytime, anywhere
• Backup -- your devices, wirelessly, without cables or even doing anything
• Content-share -- with other people and systems
• Devices -- it supports all of your mobile devices and personal computers

Hopefully, Access/Backup/Content-Sharing/Devices will do the trick, because the last time I checked, our marketing budget was just a hair short of tens of $millions for advertising :) At least it avoids the scary 's' word.

Happy 'Hal'-oween everyone.