Alistair Croll
Alistair is an entrepreneur with a background in web performance, analytics, cloud computing, and business strategy. In 2001, he co-founded Coradiant (acquired by BMC in 2011) and has since helped launch Rednod, CloudOps, Bitcurrent, Year One Labs, and several other early-stage companies. He works with startups on business acceleration, and advises a number of larger companies on innovation and technology.
A sought-after public speaker on data-driven innovation and the impact of technology on society, Alistair has founded and run a variety of conferences, including Cloud Connect, Bitnorth, and the International Startup Festival. He’s the chair O'Reilly's Strata + Hadoop World conference. He has written several books on technology and business, including the best-selling Lean Analytics.
Alistair tries to mitigate chronic ADD by writing about far too many things at "Solve For Interesting”.
Promiscuous online culture and the vetting process
Social networks have forever changed hiring and background checks
Social networks, and the big data to analyze them, will forever change how we vet candidates, whether for security clearance, employment, or political office. Technology can help employers check candidates' backgrounds, monitor their behavior once hired, and protect their online reputations. But using the social tracks we share — and what we omit — has important ethical and legal consequences.
Web operators are brain surgeons
Our increased reliance on web-based intelligence makes speed and reliability even more important.
As we become more dependent on our collective consciousness, web operators will be much more involved in end-user experience measurement, from application design to real user monitoring. We're in the century of the distributed nervous system, and web operators are its brain surgeons.