I was at Enhance Media's '2009 - The Year Ahead' conference last week.  It was another good day attended by around 300 delegates from Search & Selection firms, online media and job boards and a few employers listening to talks by representatives from the likes of You Tube, Work Circle, Revenue Science and Tim Forster from PWC who talked about PWC People  and their experience of using blogs as part of the attraction and self-selection process.

Some of the presentations were mind blowing and others an easy entry point into a much more complicated world.  Indeed one of the latter dealt with cloud computing - hailed by the digerati as the next big thing but baffling to most.  So what is it?

At the most basic level, the cloud is the internet.  Cloud computing is the ability to carry out functions or processes over the internet using applications (apps) that are hosted remotely and data that is stored remotely.

In the  next level up, cloud computing gives individuals the ability to build a customised tool to support a process or experience by stitching together a series of applications where data is shared and presenting them through a browser.  A great example of this would be the use of mini apps such as gadgets or widgets on Facebook or iGoogle or, on a grander scale, Google Apps or Salesforce App Exchange.  

One of the speakers at the conference talked about the ability to use cloud computing techniques to quickly pull together elements of a recruitment website from different applications to provide a content and feature rich microsite for potential candidates.

The other aspect of the cloud then, is the way that people use it.  The internet has evolved into a much more interactive space - the rise of social media like Facebook, YouTube and Flickr means that its not just the way that applications and data are accessed or presented that has changed, the way that people use them or repurpose the outputs has changed too.     

The social element is important.  As each individual has the opportunity to draw on multiple sources of content and to generate their own by contributing their thoughts the cloud becomes a fragmented place with infinite possibilities.

It seems therefore, that referring to this opaque environment as the cloud is suitably descriptive for the consumer, user and boffin alike.