How would you explain the cloud to your grandmother?

"I like to use figurative language when explaining complex concepts to others. I find this is very successful when teaching others about technical concepts that a person has little to no frame of reference for.

In this instance, I would explain to my grandmother that the cloud allows individuals and companies to take advantage of centralized storage and processing. I would then ask her to imagine that she stores all of her money in her mattress, and she does not have a bank account. It would be difficult to pay her bills in today's world. However, if she deposits her money with a bank, she has access to checks, a check card, and other services that make it easy to connect with others and pay for goods and services.

I would then explain that the cloud works similarly. Companies are able to store and process massive amounts of information and assets easily using shared services as opposed to having to buy their own 'bank' and manage all of those services on their own. They are able to learn on expertise and the best practices that would cost them a lot of money to build internally."