Mashing up the enterprise

I’ve spent the past few days mulling over the differences between mashups and the more traditional integration that’s done with enterprise applications. My initial reaction? There’s a lot more similarities than differences: in both cases, a third party uses published application interfaces to create functionality that integrates the capabilities of two or more applications/services. I know, that’s a bit of a simplification, but how soon will it be before overly complex (and expensive) enterprise integrations start taking advantage of the lessons to be learned from the mashups of web services?

Obviously, I’m not the only one thinking about this: the ZDNet SaaS blog just posted about enterprise mashups, and what’s needed to make them a reality.

Makes me want to go to MashupCamp.

Hooked on Analytics

BAM, BI, CEP, analytics: call it what you will. An article by Tom Davenport in HBR, Competing on Analytics (free!), discusses the value of shining a bright light on what’s happening in your business processes:

At a time when firms in many industries offer similar products and use comparable technologies, business processes are among the last remaining points of differentiation. And analytics competitors wring every last drop of value from those processes.

He makes the point that companies that become proficient at analyzing what’s happening with their business processes become the leaders in their field, like Capital One, Marriott and Amazon. These “analytics competitors” have top management buying in to the concept of analytics as a strategic differentiator, have multiple analytics initiatives going on, and are doing it at the enterprise rather than departmental level. I had a question sent to me via my Squidoo BPM lens recently about the BI/analytics marketplace in Toronto, and I had to admit that a lot of my local customers (and not-so-local ones) are still not seeing analytics as a strategic initiative, but are allowing it to languish in departmental applications where it provides ROI but (probably) not much strategic differentiation at an enterprise level. Read Tom’s full article for his full analysis of what the analytics competitors are doing right, and the difference that it’s making for them. He even pooh-poohs the use of the term “business intelligence” as being “the term IT people use for analytics and reporting processes and software”. Ouch!

The linked sub-article, You Know You Compete on Analytics When…, has a summary of the traits of a successful analytics competitor.

Business-driven EA

A thought-provoking post from Brenda Michelson on the Business-Driven Enteprise Architect, including some steps for the CIO to take in order to ensure EA success, such as:

Make Room at the Table for Architecture Leadership. The architecture leader must have a seat at the CIO’s table in IT leadership and business leadership settings. The architecture leader, particularly one with an architecture background, will listen and contribute to the discussions with an enterprise architecture perspective. Don’t filter his/her information through a leader with a non-architecture focus.

Software development methodology

An excellent article by Matthew Heusser about the tradeoffs in designing a software development methodology. I’ve been involved in software development for over 20 years as a developer, designer and architect, both within software product companies and as a systems integrator or consultant to large organizations’ IT departments, and I’ve seen a wide range of software development methodologies from rigidly-imposed waterfall to much more agile techniques. Many of my customers are large and conservative, and tend towards the more rigidly structured methodologies that fit into the larger corporate budgetary process. Heusser nails the problem with that:

For example, if the organization wants accountability and predictability, it may require documented requirements with various levels of review and signoff, and create a change-control board with the power to line-item veto changes in requirements that may affect schedule. Everything sounds good so far…until about six months later, when the VP of New Product Development can’t get the feature set changed in order to respond to a market demand. Some ninny down in software engineering is holding up the company’s ability to deliver products to customers, all in the name of “process improvement”!

He also examines the tradeoffs between estimates and code, delivery date or features, control or productivity, and organic decision making versus mechanic. He’s obviously a fan of agile development, preferring (like me) to get a simple working system in place first, then let the customer set priorities on what features to implement next.

(via Managing Knowledge Processes)

Business blogging in 2006

Nothing like starting off the new year with some new corporate attitudes: an article in today’s Globe and Mail (which in turn, reviews a Business Week article that I couldn’t locate) talks about business trends for 2006. One of these with which I completely agree is blogging as a marketing tool; it became painfully obvious with a mid-year Business Week cover on blogs that blogs have become mainstream. I’ve mentioned previously that this blog is my main marketing channel: I don’t do any sort of traditional advertising, and rely primarily on personal contact and word of mouth for new business. This blog is a way of extending that word of mouth (or “word of blog”) by putting my ideas and opinions online; not exactly an online portfolio, but a way for anyone out there who’s interested in working with me to learn a bit more about how I think.

I had a funny experience in a meeting a month ago with two people from a large systems integrator: the sales guy asked me how, as a one-person firm, I do sales and marketing, and I told him that this blog was my key marketing tool. His expression was something between distaste and derision, while his project manager colleague asked me what a blog was. Knowing what I already know about blogs and other types of viral marketing, and reinforced by the opinions that I’m seeing everywhere (including the G&M/BW article quoted above), I can see that these guys — and likely a large part of their organization — are on the wrong side of the digital divide, and they don’t even know it: in fact, they would describe themselves as being on the cutting edge of technology. It put me in mind of an older gapingvoid post about smarter conversations: I especially like point #5: “Ruthlessly avoid working for companies that ‘don’t get it'”. Many of my customers embrace the smarter conversations concepts, even if they don’t know what a blog is (yet), so I’m not ready to fire any of them yet; however, I can do my best to avoid partnering with SI’s who don’t get it, since that usually results in an experience akin to a steamroller running over me.

Over the past few months, I’ve bookmarked a number of posts about business blogging, and this has been a good opportunity to review them. I’m not a “professional blogger”, that is, I don’t get paid to blog (and the ad revenue isn’t enough to even cover my ISP charges), but I see blogging as an essential part of my business because of the global microbrand potential: I am a tiny brand but have the potential to provide my services anywhere in the world, and this blog is part of what gets me out of my own backyard. I provide some niche services out in the long tail, so I’m marketing to a few customers spread over a large geographic area.

The Content Factor’s To Blog or Not to Blog states a key point, although their message is targeted at larger companies: “Companies don’t blog; people blog.” This blog contains my personal opinions, not some groomed marketing-speak that I think will sell my services. My premise is that if you read my opinions (and even agree with them sometimes), then we’re more likely to do business together sometime in the future.

Mike McLaughlin on Guerrilla Marketing asked Should Consultants Blog?, and stated that you don’t really need to blog if you work in an industry where blogs are “still an oddity, not a fixture”. I couldn’t disagree more: I work almost exclusively with financial services and insurance clients, typically with their back-office operations, where blogs are definitely an oddity. However, I’m starting to hear many comments from people within my clients’ organizations about how they’re reading my blog (which they found because it’s right there in my email signature) and are learning something from it. Presumably, that adds value to their business day, reinforces their good opinion of me and my skills as they applies to their business, and therefore improves our business relationship. Don’t assume that just because your clients are in a “traditional” industry that they aren’t interested in expanding their horizons by reading some blogs of value. Especially yours.

Gadget week #5: Video iPod

I received one of the new video iPods as an early Christmas present, and I’m loving it. Although I loaded up a bunch of music that I’d ripped for my previous MP3 player, I mostly use it to listen to podcasts and audio books. There are a few video podcasts that I’m watching on it; although the screen resolution is great, I’m unlikely to watch anything as lengthy as a TV program. I’m starting to like the iTunes interface; I was using the much simpler iPodder (now Juice) for podcast subscriptions previously, but this has the advantage of easily synching them up with the iPod and doing a whole lot more than iPodder does. Earilier this week, on the subway coming home from a client, I watched the daily 5-minute video podcast from Rocketboom, then listened to a chapter of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Cool.

The down side: the control to scroll through the menu lists is a bit jumpy sometimes, making it hard to land on the right item. More importantly, however, there is a weird interaction with my new Blackberry: when I have them tucked side-by-side in my handbag, the iPod volume changes (usually increases) when the Blackberry transmits or receives data. I originally thought that there was a fault in the iPod, but noticed that it was actually a device interaction one day when on the subway: as soon as we hit an above-ground spot on the line where the Blackberry could send/receive, the iPod volume changed. I’m guessing that the Apple engineers never tested for that. And one last complaint: why can’t they use a standard USB cable instead of one with a proprietary connector at the device end? Even the Blackberry uses a standard USB cable with the mini-port at the device end, but Apple has created one more piece of cable on my desk.

That’s it for gadget week — see you in the new year!

Gadget week #4: HP dvd640 DVD recorder

This was a birthday present (well, at least he doesn’t buy me kitchen appliances), and it’s great to have a super-fast CD and DVD reader and recorder that — in theory — burns the DL (double-layer) 8.5GB disks. Ripping an entire music CD using iTunes takes less than four minutes; writing a 4GB data backup to DVD is faster than I ever imagined possible. Although I bought a lightweight external CD writer/DVD reader with the tc4200 (which has no internal CD drive), I keep that for travel and use this racehorse for everyday use.

The down side: the “in theory” bit about the 8.5GB disks. I bought a pack of TDK DVD+R DL disks, which appear to meet the specifications, but had no luck burning. After several back-and-forth emails with HP support, they admitted that “DL discs that are manufactured using the ‘2P’ process will not be compatible with the dvd640 series”, and recommended that I buy HP (of course) or Verbatim disks. It would have been nice if they had mentioned this in any of the product documentation or on the product website before I spent $30 on a pack of 5 disks, or even if they explained what the dreaded “2P” process is and how I can tell whether disks were manufactured with that process from the packaging. Apparently HP is working on a firmware upgrade to try and fix the problem, but I’m not holding my breath. In the meantime, I bought a 100-pack of 4GB disks for under $50 at Costco, so I’m quite happy with $0.50 per disk instead, even if they are only half the capacity of the $6 ones.

Gadget week #3: Blackberry 7290

I admit it, I’m a Crackberry addict. I have been for years, since I bought my old 957 and started having access to my email wherever I went in North America (well, almost everywhere: since it ran over the digital pager networks, there were some large holes in rural areas). After more than four years, I decided that there wasn’t room in my handbag for my old Nokia phone and my 957 — and they were both starting to be an embarrassment in front of my geeky friends — so I combined functionality and went for the Blackberry 7290. It’s a GSM/GPRS phone/email/PDA all-in-one device that is supposed to work almost anywhere, although I haven’t travelled outside of North America since I bought it, but it’s certainly worked everywhere that I’ve been, including many places where the older technology didn’t work. I really like how everything is integrated: I get an email from someone, and as long as they’re in my address book (which I synch with my Outlook address book), I can call them directly from the email. Or email them back. Or SMS them. All without looking them up in the address book as a separate operation.

The down side: the screen is smaller than the old 957, although the good resolution and colour makes up for that somewhat. However, I did have to bump the font size in order to hold off the bifocals for another year. There are a few functions that I’d like to be more convenient, for example, call forwarding (which I do whenever I’m in my office) requires way too much navigation.

Gadget week #2: Crumpler “Luncheon” computer bag

Buying a new computer naturally made me think about buying a new computer bag to put it in, even though I don’t do the amount of travel that I used to do. My old Kensington backpack-style bag has travelled a few hundred thousand miles with me and is showing its age; plus, I wanted to lend out my (still usable) older laptop and it was more convenient to put everthing in the old bag.

Originally designed and made in Australia, although now manufactured in China, I’ve heard good things about Crumpler bags and liked what I saw on their website so went searching for their computer bags in Toronto. I thought that my new laptop would fit in the smaller “Breakfast Buffet” bag, but it was just a bit too tight due to the thickness of the machine, and didn’t leave enough room for the paperwork that I inevitably end up carrying along: the Luncheon bag is a few inches larger and gave me the room that I needed for everything. The bag appears to be pretty much indestructible, although time will tell, and definitely fashionable. I bought the olive green one with an electric orange interior (I figured that the orange exterior wasn’t quite corporate enough), and I can’t imagine that I’ll see very many the same in my travels, which means that no one is going to pick up my bag by mistake. I had to venture into foreign territory to find it: Carbon Computing, a store that caters to those of the Apple persuasion. A very different experience from the usual PC store, where the (invariably male) sales clerk wants to talk about bus speeds regardless of what you’re buying; I was helped by a waif-like young woman whose regular job is in the arts, and she waxed poetic about the bags and how much she loves hers, even though she puts an iMac in it.

The down side: there’s no outside pocket for holding boarding passes and the like while dashing through airports, requiring me to open the front flap completely and dig inside for things that won’t fit in my tiny handbag. That front flap has the stickiest Velcro on it that I have ever seen — I think that you could stick yourself to the ceiling with a small patch of this stuff — so opening the bag is a noisy and slightly energetic activity.

Also on the down side: that Velcro is quite rough, and I managed to abrade one knuckle while digging into an inside pocket that also fastens shut with Velcro.