Why the time is right for the Networked Enterprise

Here I blogged about the cloud as an enabler for the ‘networked enterprise’.

The reasons why I think the concept will take off now are:

1. The emergence of truly collaborative platforms that leverage the enterprise network.
   (Disclosure: I’m the owner manager of http://www.sabisu.co/)
   
   Only now is the technology in place; social business software (or Web 2.0 or Enterprise 2.0) situated in the cloud is the only way for the networked enterprise to return value.
   
   Without these technologies enterprises are back to building specialised point to point bridges with increasing expense blocking implementation and complexity nullifying returns.
   
   
2. Studies are beginning to show the benefits of deploying web 2.0 and cloud technology; this should convince the pragmatists that the emphasis in ‘social business’ is on the ‘business’ part. Until this point, they've had ample anecdotal evidence to belittle the impact of social networking. It's the arrival of studies like this that should change things.
   
   Of course, the social networking side of things is important but without point 1, the collaboration platforms, you've got nothing better than LinkedIn (which is great, but to a point). If the 'networked enterprise' concept is going to return value, you need the collaboration capability too.
   
   
3. People are ready; Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn have rocketing user numbers – each of those users is getting a starter course in the power of the network and the ease of using a web 2.0 application. Collaborating with a user in another organisation isn't scary when you've already LinkedIn with them...and even if you haven't, the very existence of these platforms gives you the permission to work beyond your organisation - the psychological barrier has been removed, so the boundaries fall too (as explored in Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point).
   
4. Corporates are (almost) ready:
   
• Deperimiterisation is coming as Execs start to drive adoption of ‘consumer’ technologies (oh go on, I’ll mention the iPad) in the enterprise. This removes a psychological boundary; they expect at work what they get at home, but crucially vice versa.
  
• Savings seduce: IT departments are seeing the time, cost and hassle savings. If an end user can get the service they need direct from the cloud - and for very low cost - then the temptation is to stay out of the way.
  
• Corporates are beginning to understand that the biggest security risk is people, rather than some esoteric hack attack.
  
• Corporates understand that the ‘cloud’ is an extension of ‘vendor hosted’ and generally they have experience of this already. So it’s not too scary.

Of course, there are obstructions and gaps which will slow adoption. But those who do adopt will have a significant competitive advantage - and now for the first time, they can.

Does the cloud mean enterprise relationships will mimic personal ones?

Until now, the usual behaviour for enterprises is that they work together for the duration of a contract then they part. The concept of the 'Virtual Enterprise Network' is a good example; a temporary affiliation of multiple enterprises to achieve a given aim.

Contractually that might be the case, but an enterprise doesn't actually do anything; it's the people that make up the enterprise that do things, and even though the affiliation is contractually temporary, the relationships between people are permanent. 

Cloud computing can change this; it can provide a common demilitarised zone that many organisations can share. Whether it's a virtual private cloud or a 'public' cloud is irrelevant; for the first time there is a place that's permanently online, always on tap and can be made to hold to common standards. Until now, it's been a case of choosing a partner and investing in development to connect and exchange data with that partner, hoping to offset the whole lot with an ROI calculation that someone with a pot of money believes. Now, you can describe the data exchange in a common standard, hook up to a cloud solution and wait for everyone else to join in - the investment is made by the guys the enterprise pays to host your cloud solution.

This allows enterprises to form links that are more like the links people forge between themselves. How often do you de-friend someone on Facebook or LinkedIn? You don't; you keep them in your network 'just in case'. Enterprises can keep others in their network, just in case.

So the position of the cloud between organisations should allow those personal relationships to be realistically represented at an enterprise level; the links between organisation can left in place indefinitely, to be used as required, with little cost implication.

This would support Kevin Kelly's argument in What Technology Wants that over time technology trends towards complexity, for if the cloud is indeed a common DMZ then the future looks very complex with every single organisation generating more connections and never deleting old ones.

The implications are many but here are some that occurred to me:

• The walls around an organisation are destined to become ever more porous. It's unavoidable that there'll be multiple external cloud solutions that the enterprise will want to connect to. 
• Independent consultants and SMEs (with the emphasis on the 'S') could find themselves on a level playing field with much bigger organisations.
• Ultimately the enterprise could become dominated a loose affiliation of knowledge workers, rather than dedicated employees.

And it means that there's no such thing as a 'virtual enterprise network', or a 'collaboratively networked organisation', or any other variant: there's simply a networked enterprise. 

Further thoughts on MMORPGs & collaboration

This is a great blog post:
http://shanleykane.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/online-collaboration-sucks/

For me, that's what blogs are all about; a personal mash-up of experiences shedding light on something new.

I totally buy it. Back in '92, MMORPGs were MUDs and were all text over Telnet; I was a heavy user of Razor's Edge (a CircleMUD in Liverpool) and Infinity (based out in the US somewhere) at the time. Now, at that time MUDs migrated into being 'talkers', which were literally just text chat rooms. This didn't have the same attraction to me because on a MUD you were doing something, whether it was trying to level-up, get hold of a particular bit of kit or whatever. The attraction was working (gaming) together, in a shared environment, with instant communication and the right toolkit for the job...

Anyway here's how I'd extend @shanley's blog into the corporate environment:

1. Collaborators need the raw data

Most workplaces are much duller than the environment created in WoW. Corporate life is spreadsheets and docs; it's data. So when @Shanley describes it as a 'shared experience', for the corporate it translates simply into access for all collaborators to the data that describes the work to be done. It absolutely can be a shared experience though; you just need a single place where everyone can get to the same data at the same time on their terms..

...which means that IT departments need to move from compliance and control, to enabling and de-obstructing; the modern IT department function is to get the business data to where it needs to be - which might be somewhere outside the enterprise...

Perhaps the one place where you could justify a rich graphical interface is where the physical environment is important, say, if you're trying to collaborate on a problem with physical constraints. This could be valuable in hazardous manufacturing, petrochemical or nuclear plants. Real potential for 3D WoW interfaces there.

But for most office workers I think that in practice the interface has to be a portal variant; whilst the experience may be shared, each user needs access to the data, tips and tricks that allows them to add value - in the same way that a user on a MMORPG has particular capabilities or tricks up their sleeve.

I think that's a pretty good analogy for a day at the office.

2. User Autonomy Means Increasing Complexity


So it's going to be awfully difficult to hold everyone's personal configuration isn't it? Well, I don't buy that. Technology has moved far down the path of personalisation but it's not going to stop any time soon. I accept that a corporate is going to want to set users off in the right direction (e.g., everyone in a particular role starts with the same UI layout) but if I can re-configure it to make it work better for me, why can't I?

As Kevin Kelly says in 'What Technology Wants', the technology trends towards increased complexity; that complexity is everyone in the world doing it their way.

If every user is forced to look at their work - a document, project or whatever - in the same way, you lose the illumination that a shift in perspective can provide. The data may not change, but I might choose to view it in a different way...of course, this will root out those who depend on presenting data in a particular format to support their position.

3. Communication Features != Collaboration App

Couldn't agree more. Every application trumpets it's collaboration capabilities. Without the sharing of the data that describes the issue/project/work item itself, you can't collaborate on it, because what you're actually doing is going after the data, copying and pasting it into a messaging system (email, OCS, Lotus Notes, Google Docs).

You have to have the raw data to hand so that you can have that 'shared experience' and truly collaborate.

If that's the case, how many collaboration systems are really out there?

4. Sounding Off

I think finally the technology is mature and the corporates are looking to the value and competitive edge of working closely with their partners, suppliers and customers. The solutions are just beginning to become available; the value propositions are only just being clarified and supported with case studies and benefits evidence.

The main obstacle is in the minds of the risk averse IT departments, who are still blocking Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn, and have yet to realise the power of the network.

WikiLeaks & Transparency

As suggested in Jeff Jarvis' blog, we shouldn't kid ourselves that this is the beginning of any kind of change; we are not on a road to transparent government just because Wikileaks got hold of lots of secret political communications. I'd argue we could only be on a road to transparent government if those in power decided it suited them best and moved in that direction. This has not and will not happen because there is no universal acceptance of what 'transparency' means and therefore no clear indication of what benefit those in power would gain from increasing it.

The only reason this data has been made available is that the US government hasn't controlled it properly; a decision post 9/11 to improve data sharing across agencies has seen political communications which were originally limited in scope opened to an audience of about 2.5m US government users. As soon as that happens, a leak is inevitable. If these communications had been limited access as they used to be, a leak of this magnitude wouldn't have happened.

There's a lot of data which is still very much controlled and we'll not see for another 50 years or so. Only that which suits the current government's agenda will be released; sure, some other stuff will find its way out as it always does, but it's just as likely to force governments to tighten up controls as it is to increase transparency.

The interesting thing for me is that the technology involved to get this data was basically antiquated: CD-ROM and USB key. This is a failure of basic security rather than a master black hat hack (or white, depending on your point of view I suppose). At a time when corporates (my line of work) and governments are really worried about the security of new technology, it's the old stuff that trips them up every time.

The easiest way to get data out of an organisation quickly? I reckon it's email. Until recently, attachments over 2MB or so wouldn't reliably go through mail gateways, whereas now much bigger attachments get transmitted just fine. Perhaps the next big leak will get out that way.

The Apprentice: Choose Life

Paraphrasing Heisenberg and Lord Acton, if measuring something corrupts, then putting it front of a TV camera corrupts it absolutely. And so the Apprentice starts again; the most inaccurately named and badly conceived programme since the last one.

The BBC hyperbole machine is already spinning at maximum again, with the web site, radio appearances, spin off shows and blogs all present and correct. Every newspaper is in the process of being fed appropriately outrageous stories guaranteed to cause pain and embarrassment for anyone unfortunate enough to be related to or a colleague of one of the vapid contestants. Then they'll crop up as a 'talking head' on business issues all over the BBC, holding forth on issues that are actually important, or perhaps fronting a dumbed down business programme for a world with the attention span of a...oh, whatever.

The worst thing is that no one cares. We're now at the long and painful arse end of the reality TV cycle where the format is exclusively consuming itself to such a degree that Big Brother is cancelled, with virtually the entire audience inured to the hype by a fresh brand of tough cynicism and a couple of mildly amusing Ben Elton books. Thus the feedback loop is cemented and furthered as the extensive promotional mill demands further grist, achieving ever greater heights of exaggeration to get the real ultimate prizes; revenue generating votes, half witted opinions from viewers at 10p a shot.

Therefore the public gets what the public wants and vice versa; every time a viewer votes for a self aggrandising fool - so much more so for subjecting themselves to the editing razor of a machine that places them at the bottom of the hierarchy of importance - the tactics employed by these programmes are validated and extended. Television is discredited as a medium and we blindfold ourselves with dire consequences because we reduce the impact of everything we see through the big LCD in the corner of your living room; it's not just a television, it's a Lowest Common Denominating machine.

So what to call shall we name our beloved programme? What is it? It's a stupid and loud job interview with a load of obnoxious idiots so I propose; "JobCentre Plus: London", which would permit a new JobCentre plus franchise in not just every country, but in every city in every country. Now that's a model for growing a brand.

Next time, I'll be describing how Lord Sugar can benefit from the secrets of the immortal living dead.

Tread carefully, for upon these pages you stake your future

At present I find Gladwell's arguments on social media hold water and Mirani's Guardian article by turns supports and contradicts it with it's examples, despite the headline. Both comment on the current use of social media rather than the future.

The future is a quite different thing because social network connectivity is only a fraction of the equation. Much more important is the data; your opinions, expressed in a medium which is permanent and accessible.

Schmidt (Google CEO) was only half joking when he said that in future, people would change their identities to avoid being linked with their past indiscretions online. Suddenly, the post you put up in Facebook in your crazy early twenties will be used against you when you're going for a highly paid job in your mid-thirties.

What this means is that how you use your on-line identity will take on much more importance. You will think twice about supporting controversial causes because you'll have heard stories of those denied an opportunity because of causes they've joined or opinions expressed on-line.

The consequence of that is that the act of putting your name on an on-line petition or publicly supporting an opinion will increase in importance and the links described accurately by Gladwell as being weak at the moment, will become stronger.

Tread carefully, for upon these pages you stake your future.

Lessons from Max, the Lego spaceman

My daughter's off to Legoland Discovery Centre in Manchester today - her second time. Last time we were there I bought this little guy, who we'll call Max (because my daughter likes 'Where the Wild Things Are').

Max took me back to my childhood in an instant. Space Lego in particular was my toy of choice for what seemed like years. Other toys may have got a look in but it was building numerous spacecraft variants from just the Galaxy Explorer set that I really remember - and it looks like I'm not the only one.

Couldn't resist showing you this, it's great:

I now understand that as a child it teaches you some great lessons. In fact, only now is it clear that the lessons apply to many areas; developing ideas, strategies, managing people...

Here are the ones that occurred to me today:

1. Components come in two families; infrastructure and individual. The infrastructure delivers that which is necessary; the individual delivers that which is desirable. You need just enough infrastructure to keep the individual in place.
   
   (In Space Lego terms, just enough plain blue 1x4 bricks to keep the yellow angled windows in place.)
    
2. Following the instructions is enjoyable but it's more rewarding trying to produce something new; building things and breaking them, then keepnig the best groups of components.
   
   (If you've found the optimum configuration for some hinging vehicle doors you're going to use it again and again.)
    
3. ...which means that sometimes you don't have to design.
   
   (All you have to do is to try bolting together the optimum components groups in a few different ways - you'll get something useable.)
    
4. It's a training ground for creatively spotting synergies; bolting items together from different kits teaches you to try the less obvious.
   
   (For example, you can stand Max on his tip toes...I'll leave you to figure out how.)

BTW, my daughter (aged 2 and three quarters) insisted on a Lego Woody figure (the informed Toy Story choice) and a pink brick for mum. I think it might be time to scour eBay and get her started on Classic Space; the only Lego that matters...

T