CloudBreakingNews: The World-Changing Cloud
Two young people, one
a 30-year-old marketing executive and father of two named Wael
Ghonim working in Egypt and the other, Nadine Wahab, a
media-relations professional working in Washington DC, used cloud
technologies and social media to spark, promote, and successfully
carry out a peaceful protest that resulted in the overthrow of an
aging dictator who had ruled Egypt with an iron fist for thirty
years. It took them eighteen days.
Leveraging the viral popularity of a Facebook page they had posted memorializing a fallen young person, they galvanized the passions of a nation. That page, entitled "We Are All Khaled Said" rose up to the atrocities visited upon the young man that were all too readily available for viewing on YouTube. As more people flocked to the page, the message spread wider and more powerfully.
Ghonim was ultimately imprisoned for his actions,
and subsequently released. The target of the protests, Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak, ultimately resigned.
We bring this to you as CloudBreakingNews because it speaks to the visceral power of cloud-based technologies and social media strategies. If two young people half a world away from each other can overthrow thirty years of political oppression in just eighteen days, imagine how much positive and powerful change you can bring about in your business.
The regime change in Egypt has been
called a young person's revolution, and a revolution in CyberSpace,
but in the end it is as it is with all things cloud. People
leverage the technology to bring about positive and lasting change
that benefits people.