Information Architecture Thinking

Several technologies are proliferating the world of information. The complexities that arise when massive amounts of information in large organizations can lead to misinterpretations and misuse as they can appear to be illogical and irrational to anyone trying to understand their value and potential. It is essential to manage information systems throughout their life cycle for efficiency and effectiveness to serve their purpose.

The primary purpose of most business information systems are addressing the requirements of business applications. Business portfolio of applications can be broadly categorized as strategic, current operational, and support phase applications. They indicate the business organization’s priorities to address its current and future needs. When translated to the information systems world, they are called information systems or simply systems. Several software, hardware, and network technologies come into play for designing these applications to meet the requirements of the business.

In the Information systems environments, the influence of technology vendors, consultants, product lines are very overwhelming to evaluate design choices. While the fundamentals of the purpose of software, hardware, network, information access and storage are clear to any architect, clarity on the design issues themselves requires system, architecture and pattern thinking to ensure information flow as if designed for an optimal, digital supply chain not ignoring the human interface.

Enterprise architecture approach for business information systems thinking and design enables IT to be viewed as a system working to bring efficiency and effectiveness to a business organization.  Design patterns form the basis for an architectural approach to information system design.

Software engineering principles bring discipline and methodology to all phases of information systems development life cycle. Tools and techniques are developed to fit into the various phases. The fundamentals behind this discipline is to adhere to standards and concepts that affect the adaptability and flexibility of systems. The granularity of the concepts increases as the design becomes detailed for the purpose of interactions leading to principles such as abstraction, modularity, and information hiding avoiding redundancy and minimizing risks.

References:

Chessell, Mandy & Smith, Harald C.. ( © 2013). Patterns of information management.

Preparing for effective digital workplace

Every organization/ workplace is unique. There is no debate on the fact that  technologies enable organizations to move forward with efficiency and effectiveness in whatever stage the organization could be.

Social, mobile, cloud and data analytics cannot be dismissed as yet another cycle for the role of technologies. When technologies themselves transform to the stage that businesses can internalize their processes with technologies, new thinking arises that can bring change with unforeseen opportunities. 

What could be the role of the convergence of these technologies to the enterprise?

At each step of the process and stage of the product life cycle, questions can be asked how specific can it get to with technologies to serve the customer. What has been done at the workplace can be seen as a prototype for the last 50 – 60 years with software  technologies. Now is the time to get to details and more specific for the new digital workplace.  

Key opportunities  exist for the social workplace with applications over the platform and social as the layer. This requires planning for turning things in silos to putting them to use smartly for the employees, consumers and at the workplace. There is much to experiment, fail and try again in order to look for effectiveness in the digital workplace


[Ref: The evolving digital workplace, KMworld, Oct 2012].

Forecasts on Emerging Technologies

Curriculum for technology courses at schools routinely include discussions about forecasts on emerging technologies towards the end of course. I find that instructors tend to use the material to grow interest and to advice their students on what is in store. This is done both in the beginning and towards the end of course.

In order to grow interest on evaluating emerging technologies for students, several approaches can be tried.
One of the methods could be a discussion or debate on which forecasts worked and which did not and why. During the discussion, switching from present to past and going back to future on chosen technologies makes the story of technologies interesting. Several  "what if" scenarios can be added to the discussion. The exercise helps evaluating and differentiating influencing technologies for business and technology professionals.  It also helps understand the factors that lead to failure and success with technologies. As part of this, research methods can also be introduced to students. In short, stories of technologies can be interesting and intriguing to the audience with genuine efforts of the facilitator/ instructor.

I enjoyed reading the  article, Emerging technologies what's ahead for 2001 - 2030 by William Halal, Michael Kull and Ann Leffman. I read it as one of the articles in part 8 of the book titled Globalization and the challenges of a new century. My interest was intrigued at the accuracy of the forecasts when I read the paragraphs in the section on "The 2001-2010 decade" in this article originally written around 1997.

The following predictions were made about 15 years ago. Most of them are facts today.

Entertainment (streaming videos, Nintendo Wii, Netflix), knowledge sources for education (e-books, online libraries), news papers (Craigslist), commerce (amazon.com) and travel (priceline.com, expedia.com) are the foremost industries that are influenced and transformed by digital technologies visibly. Virtual reality, connectivity with multimedia, group collaboration have become part of people's home and work lives today. WebMD has grown to be the primary source of self care. These are just a few of the predictions then.

My next question was on the variety of research methods the authors might have used to predict with such accuracy.  For this, I followed Prof. William Halal's faculty page  that led me to his research project at
http://www.techcast.org/overview.aspx

There is much to learn at this site starting with the overview on research methods used to arrive at predictions and forecasts for technologies. This site is useful for managers, instructors who tend to do their own research for forecasting about emerging technologies. Personal level research is error prone due to lack of extensive research methodologies and expert consultation.

A must read article for the year can be found at http://www.techcast.org/featuredarticledetails.aspx?id=321

Collaborative Tools - Context for the Enterprise

Blogs, Wikis, Facebook and other collaborative tools are very easy to use. There appears to be high level adoption in the consumer web space (internet users are many, even a low percentage appears to be high in numbers). Inherent openness with no central control, ability for readers and participants to enrich content, ability to tag, link in order to organize and structure content are some of the features. Debatable area is control of users and content.

For the enterprise, adoption to openness is the biggest challenge.

Blogs and Wikis promote openness and participation from multiple sources (employees, participants in the supply chain and other stakeholders) in comparison to the closed channels such as email and instant messaging. Opinions expressed are open for further debate. Abnormal behaviors during participation is minimal as there is scope for self correction within the participating community.

The collaborative tools offer channels for direct communication regarding topics in an organization that would not have been addressed with multiple perspectives. They are especially useful for leaders to know the patterns of their organizations/ people they are leading.

The concerns on the risks due to uncontrolled openness as well as lack of compliance can actually be resolved in such open channels/ environments. However paying attention to the participants is the key. Genuine concerns need to be heard and addressed is the only approach to mitigate risks of openness. Facilitating such collaborative environments is key to successful organizations.

Community Managers/ Facilitators have a role to help keep the collaborative environment healthy. Establishing and enforcing policies for tone of the users and the quality of the content in the enterprise is important though.


Sources/ References:

Enterprise 2.0, New Collaborative Tools for your organization's toughest challenges by Andrew McAfee, HBS Publishing [Chapter 5, Uniquely Valuable, Benefits of enterprise 2.0].

Developing Strategies for web 2.0 in the enterprise


http://blog.whatever-company.com/index.php/2010/04/survey-enterprise-2-0/

Web 2.0 (definition)

Definitions and usage patterns of web 2.0 have been many and evolving. I find the following useful for clarity for a business/ enterprise.

1. Web 2.0 opportunities (source - New communication behaviors in a web 2.0 world)

- personal and engaging advertising,
- real time insights into people's behaviors to target advertising and services
- huge broand band traffic requiring new and faster broad band technologies
- growth of the enterprise 2.0 with interactivity web and peer-to-peer based software applications. Increased collaboration with usage of API's, mashups integrated into the software platforms, Virtual meetings, virtual interactions and product shows with customers.
- mobile web adaptations.

2. Web 2.0 Usage patterns
O'Reilly's site as well as Dion Hinchcliff's blog are comprehensive resources on the web.
Service oriented architecture (SOA), Mashup (aggregating content), SAAS (Software as a service), Wisdom of crowds, Tagging are drawing attention of those involved.

3. "Web 2.0 is not a new technology. It is an emerging usage pattern"
Chapter 1, page 41 of Enterprise Cloud computing by Andy Mulholland et al.;

Points to ponder:
What could be the context of web 2.0 for the enterprise? Any examples?

Enterprise 2.0

Andrew McAfee demonstrates how technologies can be sold to organizations with his craft of facilitation and story telling techniques in his book titled Enterprise 2.0. The book is about collaborative technologies - web 2.0. It is also about the revolution of way work is done understanding group dynamics, range of ties among people of the enterprise in depth.

First, he builds the context with stories of businesses handling their problem areas and their desperate need for help.
Then, he provides history/ or the trials of technologies in providing the required help, the standardized beliefs about technologies contributing to group work, setting the stage for trends in solving "old problems with new approaches".

Readers are bound to be curious about the solutions that the author has to offer to solve their own organizations problems in the area of collaboration. The author continues to engage the reader building the case for web 2.0 with refined definitions during stages of discussion, trends that led to better tools, take away points of similarities and differentiators of the technologies offerings.

He clarifies possible skepticism on the use/ relevance of the technologies based on their features and their capabilities. The utility of these technologies for different purposes is then re-emphasised.

The author describes the patterns on the concerns/ risks of leaders for adoption of the technologies. Guidelines to deployment are provided.

In essence, the table of contents deliver what is promised in this book.
Very influential and informational book for the people deciding on adopting web 2.0 technologies for whatever be the type of organization.

Enterprise Architecture - What does it mean to an IS professional?

Enterprise Architecture can be viewed from several perspectives by Information Systems professionals. Performing a job task analysis is a way to get a handle on this complex job role.
I would emphasise on the following view points.

View enterprise architecture as a framework for business applications management. The enterprise architecture is arrived at with the participation of senior level members from the systems as well as the business side.
Communicating with the stakeholders on matters such as identifying system context, understanding systemic qualities, planning for risk mitigation for projects, security, service level agreements for systemic qualities are some of the tasks that fit in the architectural tasks.

View enterprise architecture as a layer above the information technology architecture. It is a foundation for operations and business execution. Business processes, information architecture, applications and technology architectures are arrived at based on this foundation.

The core message is that arriving at the enterprise architecture demands the collaboration of mature business and information systems professionals.

Arriving at enterprise architecture is a learning exercise about the operations of the business for the senior executives. It is about commitment to focus and lead the continuous business transformation. Enterprise Architectures uses the benefits of better business processes and technical capabilities due to effective information systems.

Reference:

1. http://www.cio.com/article/478931/Understanding_Your_Enterprise_Architect_A_Guide_for_Managers

2. Enterprise Architecture As Strategy, Creating a foundation for business execution by Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill, David C. Robertson (Harvard Business School Press).

3. http://www.cio.com/article/101401/The_Rising_Importance_of_the_Enterprise_Architect

The advent of the Microprocessor

The influence of the microprocessor invention on the trends and shifts in the computer hardware industry is the subject of discussion here.

The building blocks for the control of all electronic equipment (from the simple microwave oven to the avionics equipment in aircraft) include silicon components or semi-conductors. Electronic components such as processors, Integrated circuits (ICs, chips) are fabricated from semi-conductor materials. The factors that are used to determine their selection for a product include performance, size, price and power consumption. Understanding how a designer tradesoff among the factors, depending on the technologies they are used for, is an interesting exercise.

For example, for mobile computing power consumption is an important factor. Batteries limit this factor. Processors are rapidly moving from the previous 5.0 volts to 3.3 volts. Lower voltage implies lower power consumption. Processor power management is especially important in the portable market.

The microprocessor or the computer on a chip led to new approaches in computing.
The architectures could emphasize and exploit the price/ performance ratio of the microprocessor technologies.
Several technological milestones can be noted in this connection.
In the '70s it was the mini-computers. The PC revolutions began in the '80s. Client server technologies emerged in the early to mid-90's. The distributed technologies were combining the matured computer and communication technologies taking advantage of the Internet by the end of the '90s.

Moore's law highlighted the doubling of processor performance about every 18 months. This assumption was based on the single core processors. The newer Processor architectures go beyond Moore's law. Multi-core processors are achieving more stability and increased processor perfornance at lower power and heat. 64 bit processing can handle more memory in the machine. This means larger applications which are memory intensive can get better performance.

These improvements have widened the scope and power of the mid-range servers.

Points to ponder:

How could the improvements to processor architectures influence computing areas such as multi-threading, parallel processing, virtualization?

What could the combined influences of multi-core processors, multi-threading, 64 bit processing be on X86 servers.

Which servers could be gaining or losing market share due to these improvements?