01/18/08

Enterprise Web 2.0 mainstream or downstream?

A recent Gartner, Inc research note ¹ informs us that 1) the use of the term “Enterprise 2.0” (E2.0) is on the rise, 2) vendors are starting to package Web 2.0 concepts and technologies for mainstream corporate consumptions and 3) the cultural changes needed to exploit this wave of technology will be as challenging as the arrival of e-commerce.

Examples of mainstream vendors packaging Web 2.0 capabilities into their products include Microsoft SharePoint that now includes features such as wikis, blogging and tagging as well as, IBM’s Lotus Connections which is focused on bringing together teams through collaboration. Lotus Connections enables users to create social bookmarks, tags and to build Web dashboards, blogs, and online communities and profiles, similar to those offered on Facebook or LinkedIn.

As a CIO, CTO, Senior Developer, or Chief Architect….you may be asking, “is this really going on in my organization and should I care?” My answer is “yes and yes!” Inside the organization, E2.0 will enable the flexibility and adaptation of development group composition with the energy in process flows, from which mashups will meet business processes and service oriented architectures. Unfortunately, end users are sometimes too impatient to wait for IT and their planning processes and initiate the end results on their own.

The key to harnessing E2.0 is “governance.” As Dion Hinchcliffe points out in his 12 Predictions for Enterprise Web 2.0 in 2008 ², “next generation governance will be demanded by IT to manage the proliferation of new SOA, E2.0, and mashups.” Governance is about setting the policies, procedures and processes that are needed for efficient and effective decision making throughout the business and IT organization. Solutions that offer SOA and E2.0 users boundaries, but not inhibitors to increased agility and innovation will go a long way to harnessing both SOA and E2.0….keeping both mainstream.

So I propose you ask around your user community “what tools” they are using to share information and collaborate with co workers. I am certain you’ll be surprised by the range of answers you receive. You must determine if this is an opportunity, a threat to corporate IT, or both and is this something that should be governed?




1. Source: Gartner Research – “In 2008, Enterprise Web 2.0 Goes Mainstream” Mark Raskino

2. Source: “12 Predictions for Enterprise Web 2.0 in 2008”, Dion Hinchcliffe

11/13/07

WOW...Can You Believe that the Web 2.0 Craze Started From a Conference...

The concept of "Web 2.0" began with a conference brainstorming session between O'Reilly and MediaLive International. Out of that discussion came the concept that the web was more significant than ever, with exciting new applications and sites popping up with surprising regularity. Strangely, could it be that the “dot-com collapse” marked some kind of turning point for the web, that a call to action such as "Web 2.0" might make sense? Undoubtedly it has, in the 3.5 years since, the term "Web 2.0" has clearly taken hold, with more than 10.5 million citations in Google. Yet…as with all phenomenon, there is still confusion over Web 2.0, Enterprise Web 2.0 and mashups. Let me attempt to clear the water here:

What is Web 2.0?
Let’s start with some basic definitions. Web 2.0 describes the second generation of the World Wide Web, which focuses on the ability of people to collaborate and share information online. Web 2.0 refers to the transition from static HTML Web pages to a more dynamic Web that is better organized, and is based on serving Web applications to users. Additional improved functionality of Web 2.0 includes open communication with an emphasis on Web-based communities of users, and more open sharing of information. Web 2.0 is sometimes seen more as a marketing term than a computer-science-based term. Blogs, wikis, and Web services are all seen as components of Web 2.0.¹

What is Enterprise Web 2.0?
While most of the Web 2.0 efforts have occurred outside of the corporate firewall, a growing number of companies have been utilizing what is fondly referred to as “Enterprise Web 2.0.” Enterprise Web 2.0 focuses on modernizing or building upon traditional in-house applications with components or widgets from outside the corporate firewall. Enterprise Web 2.0 empowers knowledge workers with Web 2.0 technologies like wikis, blogs, and mashups; providing them with the information they need, when and how they need it.

As Dion Hinchcliffe points out in the October 22nd, ZDNET article The State of Enterprise 2.0, “Effective Enterprise 2.0 seems to involve more than just blogs and wikis. The discussion often starts with these simple freeform tools and then progresses beyond these to platforms that are better for specific situations.”

“For example, enterprise mashups do for user-created Web applications, what enterprise blogs and wikis do for user-created content and structure. Predictive market products such as HP’s BRAIN platform and online innovation facilitators such as “Innocentive” are other potentially more sophisticated examples of Enterprise 2.0 platforms. I’ve witnessed prediction markets in particular become enormously popular in the last year or so as enterprises seek to better tap into the cumulative wisdom of their workers. Social book marketing is also gaining speed in the enterprise as a way of providing a rich information discovery mechanism internally.”

What is a Mashup?
The term mashup refers to a new breed of Web-based applications created by hackers and programmers (typically on a volunteer basis) to mix at least two different services from disparate, and sometimes competing Web sites. A mashup for example, could overlay traffic data from one source on the Internet over maps from Yahoo, Microsoft, Google or any content provider. The term mashup comes from the hip-hop music practice of mixing two or more songs. This capability to mix and match data and applications from multiple sources into one dynamic entity is considered by many to represent the promise of the Web service standard (also referred to as on-demand computing).²

Now the challenge: if these are the technologies of the future, how does a company such as LogicLibrary, an enterprise software company, take advantage of this buzz and market interest...more to come.


1. Source: http://blogs.zdnet.com/hinchcliff/?p=150
2. Source: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/m/mash_up.html