The Enterprise 2.0 Octopus

I like to refer you to a blog post by Sam Lawrence, CMO of Jive Software. I reckon the cute red octopus in his blog post is a perfectly good analogy to reflect the current state of information collaboration landscape in a company.

As an Enterprise 2.0 evangelist, I am constantly on the look out for ways I could best explain this to a client. There are a lot of mix-mash regarding what Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 is really about.

I guess the biggest challenge is that most corporations these days understand collaboration perhaps a little differently from what Enterprise 2.0 is preaching. The following quote, taken from the great book of WIKINOMICS, attributed to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, could not elaborate the point any better :-

"When you say 'collaboration', the average forty-five-year-old thinks they know what you're talking about- teams sitting down, having a nice conversation with nice objectives and a nice attitude. That's what collaboration means to most people."

In fact, I was having a very interesting chat about the word "tacit" with a client a while back. Tacit is a word commonly used in the Enterprise 2.0 world. While my comments are reserved in this blog post, it is nevertheless interesting to always find out the perception of different people on Web / Enterprise 2.0.

I hope this red octopus will serve as a friendly introduction to Enterprise 2.0, and kudos to Sam for demonstrating this.

Congratulations, Paul & Grace !!!

I like to dedicate this blog post to my best mate, Paul Wong [pictured above], who tied the knot today.

Like me, Paul is also a nut with emerging trends, albeit focused in the BI domain. Paul was one of the originator in coming out with the idea to expose analytics via dynamic queries ~a.l.a Facebook style in applications. 

He has since moved on to another firm, and I will greatly miss having an opportunity to work with him. I hope to have an avenue to work together with him again some time in the future.

Congratulations mate, I am really proud of you  and may you live happily ever after with Grace !!!!

PS: The picture above does not depict the real life job of Paul. In reality, he develops/sells BI solutions, rather than tickets to the Ferris Wheel. 

Finally....iPhone SDK

Back last year, I have bragged about the iPhone/iTouch SDK. Today, I have downloaded the iPhone SDK (that's clocked in at 2.10 GIG !!!! ).

I have seen and experienced a lot of Web 2.0 applications that have been re-designed just for the iPhone (or iTouch). Twitter has made its debut with an iPhone version, and so is Google GMail.
Meebo has a iPhone interface that I have used religiously while chatting with my friends lazing on the couch !

Software development for the iPhone seems to get easier by the day. A tutorial by AkitaoRails has shown how easy it is to create Web Applications for Rails.

Software monoliths like IBM has even supported the iPhone openly, as you can read here.

Having read about the power given to developers through the SDK, I have a very enthusiastic feel about the potential of the iPhone in the corporate mobility market. The mobility market thus far only offers good email integration, and minor clunky integration with backend systems such as SAP.

IBM will perhaps spearhead this initiative, and the outcome of developing/integrating Lotus Notes with the iPhone will be interesting to watch!!! It will perhaps be a gauge-ometer for other competitors to assess the potential of the iPhone.

I won't be waiting though. Being a Web 2.0 technologist, I will be toying around with this technology in the coming months, and see how far I can get with the iPhone.

Perhaps learning Objective-C (yet another language) is the biggest hurdle for me... It looks very similar to C, so should be quite fun !!!

SCRUM - Agile Project Management

I would like to redirect you to a blog post by Jeremy Thomas on SCRUM.

Unlike the traditional waterfall model in project management (where milestones, scopes are set), SCRUM offers a collaborative methodology for the software teams to adapt and manage changes in a AGILE way. With clients getting more demanding each day, this can have a huge impact on requirements and scopes (and ultimately, the lives of those good people hacking away to get the product/solution done). The BEST thing is, this can be changing on a daily basis.

The traditional model of most consulting or SI firms in managing changes are through the submission of "Change Requests", where Impact Assessments are normally done in order to envisage the Order of Magnitude (or cost, for non-consulting folks) for the CRs. Upon approval, the standard SDLC kicks off. The problem with this model: Agility is severely lacking.

With clients getting ever more demanding, and the market becoming more competitive, the winners are those who can most satisfy the clients. The fall apart comes in, as Jeremy pointed out in his slides, when the communication between the top and bottom of the food chain breaks in managing change. (Developers Vs Project Managers Vs Business Analysts)

Survival of the Fittest no longer holds in such environment, but rather "Survival of the Most Adaptive". Managing change is imperative, and most importantly, must be done in a Agile way.

A few good outcomes from adapting such methodology:-

1. Better product, as the functionality are more closely aligned with the demands. No point slaving on a product that has agreed requirements, but no one uses.
   
2. More client satisfaction. Clients love consultants who listen.
   
3. A collaborative approach means a closer team, and that means improved productivity,and overall satisfaction for the team.

Is Web 2.0 turning into a red ocean ?

A thought recently came to me: Is Web 2.0 turning into a red ocean ?

For those who are unfamiliar with the term, red ocean is a term used in W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne's hit book "Blue Ocean Strategy" to depict a highly contested market space. It is published and used in Harvard Business School as a reference textbook. Below is a quote description of a red ocean.

In the red oceans, industry boundaries are defined and accepted, and the competitive rules of the game are known. Here companies try to outperform their rivals to grab a greater share of product or service demand. As the market space gets crowded, prospects for profits and growth are reduced. Products become commodities or niche, and cutthroat competition turns the red ocean bloody. Hence, the term red oceans.

The above term pretty much sums up what we see in the industry today, with all the competing products in the marketplace. The link is here.

A Blue Ocean is in contrast to Red Ocean. It represents a uncontested market space. It is untainted by competition, and hence demand is being created rather than fought over. There's basically no competition as the rules of the games are to be set by the players.

When Web 2.0 was coined, no one really know what it is. Then you started hearing about Facebook, NING, Google Orkut, MySpace. Then you started seeing the social elements being brought out to consumer tools such as social bookmarking, social website discovery/sharing (StumbledUpon). Today, you can see major vendors started "Web-2.0-ing" their applications (Oracle CRM, IBM's Web 2.0 Domino Suite, etc etc). There are tons of Web 2.0 startups that flow from Silicon Valley in the US and parts of the world, offering often very similar product sets with very little differentiation.

With the spike in the surge of Web 2.0 applications, it's getting harder and harder to differentiate between products. Most importantly, where is the $$$$$ in a Web 2.0 startup? Will an over-investment/stimulation in mediocre startup create another bubble in the industry? Too much supply with no real demand can be problematic.

What are your thoughts?