Could you explain Twitter to a 5yr old? Some things are just difficult to explain, and this week we look at the challenges of trying to explain complex technical concepts to everyday people. SHOW: 611CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwCHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW SPONSORS:CloudZero - Cloud Cost Intelligence for Engineering TeamsstrongDM - Secure infrastructure access for the modern stack. Manage access to any server, database, or Kubernetes instance in minutes. Fully auditable, replayable, secure, and drag-and-drop easy. Try it free for 14 days - www.strongdm.com/signupMonitor CI Pipelines and Tests with Datadog CI VisibilityStart monitoring the health and performance of your CI environment with a free 14 day Datadog trial. Listeners of The Cloudcast will also receive a free Datadog T-shirt.SHOW NOTES:Back to the Future of Twitter (Ben Thompson, Stratechery) I GET HOW IT WORKS, BUT WHAT DOES IT ACTUALLY DO?Many of us use Twitter on a daily basis, but if you had to explain it to someone, could you explain what it is and what value it provides? Many of us are tasked with a similar challenge in trying to explain our day-to-day work.  EXPLAINING COMPLEX THINGS IS HARD. MAYBE THAT’S A SIGN THAT IT’S TOO TECHNICAL OR SHOULD BE BROKEN APARTWhat problem does something solve? Who has that problem? Does the problem need to be solved by a product or a platform?Does the product align to one or many people’s jobs?Does the platform align to one of many people’s jobs?If it’s a platform, do the people with the problem want all of it?Does the platform approach limit your ability to monetize it (e.g. too restrictive)?Could you platform be valuable if it was broken up? FEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter: @thecloudcastnet