Cloud computing isn’t just re-inventing technology, it will also drive evolution of the business practices that the technology is used for.

For example CRM: Customer Relationship Management.

This is a science that started as simple contact management apps, like ACT!, through Goldmine then of course Salesforce.com.

After their ASP (Application Service Provider) phase of the Cloud evolution we’ve since had the social media explosion and so the principle category to add is “social media CRM”. After that came Cloud and so we’re now at a phase best described as Cloud 2.0.

This is most powerfully demonstrated by the public sector, where CRM is about ‘citizen engagement’ and where the core expression of the model can be referenced through ‘CORE’ design, standing for Community Oriented Re-Engineering.

In short this reflects the simple point that online is about communities, and how you re-engineer your business processes to harness this principle is the fundamental nature of this CORE design and therefore how it can be used to implement a Cloud 2.0 strategy.

I have been so excited about the recent Canada Health Infoway publication because they also reference the term Cloud 2.0, this design principle and most importantly, map it to possible action areas for the Canadian eHealth sector:

5.2.4 Support for Social Networking and Consumer Enablement

Cloud-based implementations provide a flexible and readily scalable method for supporting the integration of social networking into e-health service delivery patterns and enabling consumers of health services to become active participants in their care.

This could include participating in communities of people with the same condition, becoming part of their own virtual care team, or simply allowing people to participate in the scheduling of their own appointments or review of results.

Traditional CRM is based on a one to many relationship, how the organization interacts with its many customers.

The Cloud 2.0 model is one of many to many, where the organization is still the central foundation but based upon this an essential part of the value for customers is their interaction with other customers.

Cloud 2.0 is about a shift to Crowdsourcing models, aka ‘Peer 2 Peer’ amongst others. In short it’s about the fact that one of the most useful relationships for a new cancer patient is not only a specialist doctor but also other patients.

Providing tools to enable these communities to form and function, like online social media, videoconferencing et al, is therefore the additional apps that flesh out the new Cloud 2.0 approach.