Appirio's Top 10 Blog Posts of 2012

By Balakrishna Narasimhan (@bnara75)

As we wrap up 2012, we can't help but reflect on the amazing milestones we and our customers have achieved over the past 12 months. We moved our Headquarters into a sweet downtown San Francisco office space, expanded globally with new offices in Indianapolis and Europe, brought two great companies into the Appirio fold in Saaspoint and Knowledge Infusion, forged greater relationships with our partners Google, Workday and Salesforce, added hundreds of talented employees, and to top it off, we had an absolute blast doing it all.

Along the way we shared our experiences and insights with you, our faithful blog readers, and we can't thank you enough for taking this ride with us. So to celebrate, we thought we'd recap our Top 10 blogs from 2012. With 2013 rolling in, we plan to continue disrupting the Cloud ecosystem and posting material that is insightful, cutting-edge, and thought-provoking. So stay tuned for plenty more to come next year.

So with that said, here are the top Appirio blog posts from this past year:

1. Software Eats the World: Are the Global SIs Next?   
Cloud, social and mobile are changing enterprise software dramatically. Isn't it time for new types of service providers to help enterprises power their business with these technologies? 

2. Einstein on Social Media for HR 
The challenges facing today’s leaders have changed.  Resisting things like the needs of Gen-Y workers, and the use of social media, or other emerging technologies is leaving “old-school” executives behind. 

3. Don't Bring Your Junk Drawer to the Cloud 
Cloud applications and platforms provide a dramatically simplified way for organizations to run IT. But, in making the move from today's applications to the cloud, organizations have to resist the temptation to export all the bad habits and workarounds that are built into their existing systems. 

4. Salesforce + Buddy Media...And Now the Salesforce Marketing Cloud 
What does adding Buddy Media to Salesforce's solution portfolio mean for marketers? Where might they go next? 

5. Core HR - It's Sexy and You Know It 
The core HR component of any HR strategy deployment is the lifeblood, the heart, and the central nervous system that can and should drive all other aspects of HR and people data around the enterprise. 

6. The CIO of the Future: Conductor not Controller
CIOs are increasingly relying on applications and infrastructure that live outside their own organizations. Going forward, successful CIOs will trade some control for the flexibility and speed that comes with orchestrating external cloud services.

7. Three Ingredients for Improving Open Innovation   
Having a worldwide talent base is critically important, but how we tap into that base, source ideas and enable innovation in our processes makes just as big of a difference.   

8. Ten Ways to Drive Cloud Adoption 
Adoption is the difference between success and failure for any technology project. Adoption is no less important for cloud applications than it was in the on-premise world. We discuss 10 ways to drive adoption and therefore success. 

9. One Small Step for the Cloud Industry, One Giant Leap for Appirio 
Appirio announces a $60 million investment led by global growth investor General Atlantic - more than 3x what we have previously raised as a company to date 

10. Where to Spend in 2013? 
As we move into 2013, there are three key areas must be top of mind for all HR leaders looking at their spend in 2013 and beyond. Curious what they are?

Learning about Google Apps from Higher Education

By David Spangler

Traditionally, universities, colleges and higher education have been at the forefront of technological developments and advancements. From engineering to testing new technology, higher education has been quick to evolve their methods of communication over time to keep up with their biggest customers - students and educators. For this reason higher education’s push into cloud technologies for collaboration and communication comes as no surprise, as universities witness their millions of students and educators using cloud solutions in their personal lives. One area where higher education is leading the way is in Google Apps adoption. While educational organizations have collaboration requirements and demands that differ from those of the individuals they serve and from other industries, the lessons learned from their Google Apps migrations apply to any industry, especially large enterprise-level projects.

For any organization that has decided to roll out Google Apps, it’s critical to consider a number of factors during the migration process. From our experience with Google Apps migrations at universities including the University of Michigan (check out this week's Google Edu Hangout on Air to learn more), Brown and the University of California offices, we’ve created a shortlist of considerations for the rollout process. 

Customer Spotlight - Q&A with Robert Swanson and Sridhar Thoduponoori, JDRF

By Sara Campbell

With the spirit of the holidays upon us and in the vein of being thankful and giving back, I am very proud to recognize our friends James Szmak (senior vice president, operations & Chief Information Officer), Robert Swanson (AVP, IT operations) and Sridhar Thoduponoori (AVP, new technology programs) of JDRF as our latest Appirio Cloud Pioneers.

JDRF is the leading global organization focused on type 1 diabetes (T1D) research. Driven by passionate, grassroots volunteers connected to children, adolescents, and adults with this disease, JDRF strives to improve the lives of all people affected by T1D by accelerating progress on the most promising opportunities for curing, better treating, and preventing T1D.

JDRF is in the process of a massive IT system overhaul that is dramatically changing the way they fundraise and interact with donors and supporters--who have contributed more than $1.6B to diabetes research throughout the years.

Recently, I sat down with Robert and Sridhar to learn more about how JDRF is executing its mission with the help of cloud technologies and what it means to them to be named a Cloud Pioneer.

Business Agility, The Cloud and The Future of HR Technology

By Jason Averbook (@jasonaverbook)

HR has finally reached a point in its maturity where the only way for it to meet the demands of the business in a strategic way is if it leverages the "cloud" to increase its capabilities and decrease the demands on legacy IT functions. Cloud computing isn't just the next "follow the shiny penny" trend, it's the enabler that will finally help HR make the shift from counting heads to making heads count, and will be the DNA of what differentiates one HR and talent function from the other for years to come.

Yet many HR leaders still struggle to understand the cloud, what it stands for, and the fact that it isn't only a technology, but a component of doing business if you want to stay competitive in today's market.

On Tuesday, December 4th, we will be hosting our annual, "The Changing World of HR Technology" webinar to discuss exactly this. In this 90-minute interactive session we'll talk about some of the major changes occurring in both HR and technology globally, how those shifts are accelerating, and how HR and IT leaders can prepare, take action and ride the coattails of these changes to make an true business impact.