Saturday, March 29, 2008
Traditional SOA Governance
A recent Forrester report, "Scoping Strategic SOA Projects", has a nice discussion of what I would call centralized SOA governance. It's a good jumping-off point for the journey toward more agile business processes. However, there's very little Discovery flavor to this....I suspect this kind of framework will be considered hopeless dated five years from now. Nevertheless...a good departure point.
Power Users Hate AJAX Apps?
A recent Forrester report asserts that Power Users of client-based business apps will be disappointed in AJAX except for "mash-ups."
Whether that's true or not, my snap reaction was that AJAX is mostly focused on allowing a relatively small number of facets/dimensions of a context to be combined in unexpected ways. If Power Users are mostly doing sophisticated analysis, then I would expect them to find AJAX-based apps to be of limited usefulness.
The small number of facets in an AJAX app and the simple/sparse controls limit sophistication and constrain analysis. This both a weakness and a strength...if you're doing Discovery/Exploration in a narrow context, then an AJAX app can be "just right."
Whether that's true or not, my snap reaction was that AJAX is mostly focused on allowing a relatively small number of facets/dimensions of a context to be combined in unexpected ways. If Power Users are mostly doing sophisticated analysis, then I would expect them to find AJAX-based apps to be of limited usefulness.
The small number of facets in an AJAX app and the simple/sparse controls limit sophistication and constrain analysis. This both a weakness and a strength...if you're doing Discovery/Exploration in a narrow context, then an AJAX app can be "just right."
Governing BitTorrent
Seems like I first became aware of BitTorrent 2-3 years ago. At the time, the thing I thought was really interesting was that it had metadata hooks that offered some real potential for discovering & organizing emergent communities of interest. Since then, it's moved to the center of the file sharing war between file sharers and copyright holders.
Until this week, Comcast had been blocking torrents since they were consuming large chunks of a finite resource. This week, they stopped blocking them....however, the price is that all users are subject to bandwidth restrictions. All this makes sense since it seems like bandwidth demand is likely to always exceed supply.
BitTorrent is a fascinating piece of technology that highlights the difficulty of decentralized governance. Although there is no single BitTorrent governance baseline/standard (and its governance capabilities continue to evolve), my impression is that BitTorrent governance is relatively complicated given that (a) it's a very narrow problem (sharing large files in a bandwidth constrained environment), and (b) it only focuses on a small number of factors (e.g., how fast you can download, how much you share).
It makes me wonder if the complexity of decentralized governance increases at least exponentially when compared to centralized governance....regardless, it seems that centralized just won't scale, so we're forced to explore the decentralized landscape...not something we're comfortable with or know much about since (a) centralized approaches been effective until this point in time/complexity, and (b) we hate anything that's not easy to command/control.
I've followed various discussions about emergence (CAS, chaos, etc.) since stumbling across Gleick's "Chaos" shortly after it was published in 1987. I even slogged through Kauffman's "Origins of Order" in the late 90's. One theme that continually emerges is a search for "information for free". I'll stay out of the controversy about how successful this search has been...and simply note that, as far as I know, there's no mature theoretical foundation upon which emergent control capabilities can be built.
Bottom line: when it comes to order/information, I've not seen any emergent governance capability (that "works") that is anything other than narrowly focused on a small set of specific cause-effect relationships. Which makes me suspect that we'll ultimately wind up with IT/business governance that's more centralized than most folks anticipate today. That does NOT mean it will look like what we think of as "centralized." For example, DNA is a centralized governance mechanism in the sense that the same data is in every cell (except red blood cells). It's radically DEcentralized in how the information is translated into action. And, the more we discover, the more complex it gets...e.g., there are other information molecules (RNA, etc.). If BitTorrent & DNA are any indication, designing governance that's truly agile/adaptable is in the distant future....and it's likely to be a long, strange journey.
Until this week, Comcast had been blocking torrents since they were consuming large chunks of a finite resource. This week, they stopped blocking them....however, the price is that all users are subject to bandwidth restrictions. All this makes sense since it seems like bandwidth demand is likely to always exceed supply.
BitTorrent is a fascinating piece of technology that highlights the difficulty of decentralized governance. Although there is no single BitTorrent governance baseline/standard (and its governance capabilities continue to evolve), my impression is that BitTorrent governance is relatively complicated given that (a) it's a very narrow problem (sharing large files in a bandwidth constrained environment), and (b) it only focuses on a small number of factors (e.g., how fast you can download, how much you share).
It makes me wonder if the complexity of decentralized governance increases at least exponentially when compared to centralized governance....regardless, it seems that centralized just won't scale, so we're forced to explore the decentralized landscape...not something we're comfortable with or know much about since (a) centralized approaches been effective until this point in time/complexity, and (b) we hate anything that's not easy to command/control.
I've followed various discussions about emergence (CAS, chaos, etc.) since stumbling across Gleick's "Chaos" shortly after it was published in 1987. I even slogged through Kauffman's "Origins of Order" in the late 90's. One theme that continually emerges is a search for "information for free". I'll stay out of the controversy about how successful this search has been...and simply note that, as far as I know, there's no mature theoretical foundation upon which emergent control capabilities can be built.
Bottom line: when it comes to order/information, I've not seen any emergent governance capability (that "works") that is anything other than narrowly focused on a small set of specific cause-effect relationships. Which makes me suspect that we'll ultimately wind up with IT/business governance that's more centralized than most folks anticipate today. That does NOT mean it will look like what we think of as "centralized." For example, DNA is a centralized governance mechanism in the sense that the same data is in every cell (except red blood cells). It's radically DEcentralized in how the information is translated into action. And, the more we discover, the more complex it gets...e.g., there are other information molecules (RNA, etc.). If BitTorrent & DNA are any indication, designing governance that's truly agile/adaptable is in the distant future....and it's likely to be a long, strange journey.
Managing Innovation
Forrester as a new report entitled "2008: Innovation Management Services Take Off". It asserts that, in a softening economy, CEOs will place greater emphasis on innovation, and will look to consultants like BAH and McKinsey to help them better manage innovation.
It has some good suggestions, but my initial reaction was that innovation (as an Exploratory activity) probably needs "management" that is a little different that the traditional plan, organize, control, direct, staff.
Finding the right mix of art and science is probably more art than science.
It has some good suggestions, but my initial reaction was that innovation (as an Exploratory activity) probably needs "management" that is a little different that the traditional plan, organize, control, direct, staff.
Finding the right mix of art and science is probably more art than science.
Interesting Lighting Technology
If you're interested in LEDs, CFLs, etc. then you'll probably find this short video on ZDNet interesting.A 250 watt plasma light bulb from Luxim that puts out 140 lumens per watt...but after skimming the data sheets, I'm not clear on whether we'll ever see it in a relatively small package (1-10 watts) for portable lighting (e.g., flashlights).
And, the efficiency is not that far above where the best LEDs are today...though I'd guess that there's been a lot more R&D thrown at LEDs to this point.
Finally, I'm not seeing any cost figures...maybe too soon to tell how cost competitive it will be. This article (whose LED efficiency numbers are dated) seems to think they'll be a bit pricey for a while.
And, the efficiency is not that far above where the best LEDs are today...though I'd guess that there's been a lot more R&D thrown at LEDs to this point.
Finally, I'm not seeing any cost figures...maybe too soon to tell how cost competitive it will be. This article (whose LED efficiency numbers are dated) seems to think they'll be a bit pricey for a while.
More "Execution-Exploration" Fodder
In other forums, I've discussed at some lengthe the challenge of integrating the exploding Exploration-oriented IT capabilities (e.g., Web 2.0) with the traditional Execution-oriented IT capabilities (e.g., Oracle, SAP, etc.). For this blog, I'll just point out that similar contrasts have been discussed by others....Exploitation-Exploration (Tushman, HBS), Push Programs - Pull Platforms (Hagel and Seely Brown), Performance - Learning,Innovation (Singer and Edmondson), Volume vs. Complex Operations (Moore).
Don't know that there's anything new in Dennis Howlett's recent post, but it is another data point highlighting how the emerging tensions are approaching what he calls a "war."
I guess it was about 3 years ago that I was part of a small enterprise architecting team that observed that this war was coming and that it would be the users vs. IT...as I've mentioned before, it's similar to the PC/LAN conflict of the 80's...though I suspect that the emerging conflict is far more fundamental/significant and will therefore generate much more tension and last longer.
Don't know that there's anything new in Dennis Howlett's recent post, but it is another data point highlighting how the emerging tensions are approaching what he calls a "war."
I guess it was about 3 years ago that I was part of a small enterprise architecting team that observed that this war was coming and that it would be the users vs. IT...as I've mentioned before, it's similar to the PC/LAN conflict of the 80's...though I suspect that the emerging conflict is far more fundamental/significant and will therefore generate much more tension and last longer.
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