Remember the first time you landed on a paper about cloud computing “as a service?” How much of the tech jargon in there could you decipher? Chances are, not much, especially if your line of work rarely crosses paths with digital innovations.

Albert Barron, Sr. Software Client Architect at IBM, realized this on a bicycle ride when he rambled terms like SOA, WS, REST, JSON, SaaS, PaaS, and TLA to a friend who could barely articulate them back, let alone get the point of the story.

Recalling a session hosted by a distinguished professor of finance who used real-life examples to explain corporate leveraged buyouts (purchasing a home), Barron decided to tone down the fancy talk and relay to his friend the basic principles behind services that leverage the cloud. He used pizza – and its underlying ‘components’ – as an example. As it turned out, it’s brilliantly intuitive to explain as a Service this way. Enjoy!