Loading ...Isn’t MDM about the enterprise?
Recently at the MDM Summit in Toronto, one speaker used the term “enterprise master data management” as opposed to just “master data management.” (MDM is the idea that data should exist within a business as a single version of the truth). The speaker said the term “enterprise MDM” is meant to emphasize that MDM is not just a department-level initiative, but one for the enterprise as a whole where data reliability and availability, among others, are key pillars.
But I wondered if using the word “enterprise” isn’t somewhat redundant given that MDM is meant to make organizations take a holistic view of their data by ridding of the scattered silos of data that often persist. The speaker also said that when seeking out an MDM vendor, organizations should use the term “enterprise MDM” presumably to get across the expectations of the software or consulting they intend to buy.
A survey by the MDM Institute found that the economic downturn has led to 25 per cent of MDM initiatives undergoing review and re-scoping. So, perhaps the redundancy in the term is useful not just for negotiating expectations with the vendor, but for selling the value of an MDM initiative to leadership. What matter is a little redundancy if it means saving an MDM vision from the chopping block?
Posted on July 2nd, 2009 by Kathleen Lau and filed under Future Technology, Software | 1 Comment »Add to: del.icio.us | Digg IT | Furl | Google | magnolia | StumbleIT | Wink | Yahoo! Technorati
Loading ...Knowledge Management is so Web 1.0 … You’ve got to leverage it now
Waterloo, Ont.-based enterprise content management vendor Open Text Corp. recently released a social media tool for corporate workers to collaborate through threaded discussions, communities, wikis, blogs, while integrating the platform with an ECM backend for compliancy.
To me, the software appeared to do in the Web 2.0 world what knowledge management was meant to do some years ago. In other words, be a repository of corporate information that now has turned digital. One company I worked for several years ago had a department dedicated to knowledge management that created an online repository of corporate documents, reports, whitepapers, all categorized according to content type. It was static in that only the administrator could post content. Users couldn’t add stuff nor leave comments or conduct a keywords search.
When I spoke to Scott Welch, product manager with Open Text’s collaboration solutions group, during a demo of the new social media tool, I asked him how the concept of knowledge management as we knew it several years ago fit into this product. Welch said it does have aspects of knowledge management in that users can store and collate content, but it’s so much more than that. It’s now more like leveraging that knowledge to do things like identifying expertise and common interests, and finding where a discussion on a particular topic might have taken place at some point in time in the organization.
It was clear from the demo that what has changed is not just how users are able to utilize that knowledge, but it’s the type of content that comprises that knowledge. The Web 2.0 world means that knowledge takes the form of things like threaded discussions within online communities, user profiles, tracked comments in the margin of a Microsoft Word document.
But while such a system is a great repository for knowledge in the Web 2.0 world, the system is only as good as the content that goes into it. I recall, in that previous company I worked for, we used a human resource management system that employees frequently referred to as “garbage in, garbage out” because input data was often not cleaned and duplicated, resulting in reports whose accuracy was questionable.
Similarly, social media tools are only as good a source of knowledge as what’s put into it. There are stories of enterprises deploying social networking platforms like wikis and intranets where the actual rate of employee usage turned out to be far below the expectation. Employees often require an incentive to use new technologies, and maybe the promise of better collaboration is not quite tangible enough. At any rate, organizations have some work to do in adapting knowledge management to the Web 2.0 world, starting with employee culture.
Posted on June 24th, 2009 by Kathleen Lau and filed under Web 2.0, social networking | No Comments »Add to: del.icio.us | Digg IT | Furl | Google | magnolia | StumbleIT | Wink | Yahoo! Technorati
Loading ...Quit likening it to Google … it’s just search
It’s not uncommon for vendors of software like content management and business intelligence to develop interfaces with keyword search functionality. Indeed vendors and users alike will often describe the search capability as “Google-like” by virtue of the fact that it offers the familiarity of the popular Google search engine.
But an analyst I spoke to recently said people should stop likening search functionality to Google. It’s just search, the analyst said, and this is how search looks like today. So get used to it.
Sure, Google Inc. is probably best known for keyword search functionality. But many software vendors have since caught on and have incorporated that style of search into their offerings, hoping perhaps to woo users with a comfortable look and feel. The form factor has become so ubiquitous that, really, it’s not about Google anymore. Everyone is doing it. Will there come a time when search will just be search, without reference to Google?
Posted on May 22nd, 2009 by Kathleen Lau and filed under Internet, Software | No Comments »Add to: del.icio.us | Digg IT | Furl | Google | magnolia | StumbleIT | Wink | Yahoo! Technorati
Loading ...Social networking isn’t just about Facebook
I attended a news conference this morning during which Ernst & Young LLP senior vice-president John Graham touched on Gartner’s top ten strategic technologies for 2009. Going through the list that included virtualization and cloud computing, he came across social networking, at which point he said, “I’m not exactly sure how that contributes entirely to the overall enterprise productivity initiative. But we all need a little distraction from time to time.” The audience then laughed in agreement.
Social networking is more than just Facebook, Twitter and Friendster. Certainly, in the consumer realm, those are the best-known applications. But in the business world, social networking can take on a different form and might be labeled as something else, but it is definitely a tool that drives productivity.
Team members collaborating on a project, for instance, may set up a corporate wiki where they can log tasks outstanding and completed, post their work for others to view, share tidbits and ideas, post links to relevant whitepapers and articles, etc. It’s basically an online community of individuals who share something in common – in this case, the project – and is a platform that enables them to connect with their team mates and stay abreast on where things are at, or, if you like, form a social network.
Instant messaging, too, is a popular tool in the consumer world with which users connect and chat in real-time. In a business setting, instant messaging functions in the same manner except the topic of discussion would be work. Employees in transit or who work remotely find it particularly useful for keeping real-time contact with colleagues back at the office, and vice versa. The telephone, in fact, functions in the same way … are telephones detrimental to employee productivity?
Besides sharing updates and work, wikis and instant messaging tools are good for maintaining worker cohesiveness, which can only contribute positively to productivity.
Graham may not realize it, but Ernst & Young employees are probably right now driving productivity using social networking in some form or another, like a collaboration tool, a blog, intranet with a wiki, etc. The audience that laughed along with Graham’s comment was, I estimate, of the average age of 45. Perhaps the definition of social networking among that age group is Facebook and Friendster. But instead of equating the concept of social networking to a couple of sites, people should maybe look at the features that define a social networking platform, and the benefits those features render to users.
Broadening the definition of a business tool will be good for business agility, and companies that realize productivity tools are no longer what they used to be, will surely emerge stronger.
Posted on April 8th, 2009 by Kathleen Lau and filed under Internet, Web 2.0, messaging, social networking | No Comments »Add to: del.icio.us | Digg IT | Furl | Google | magnolia | StumbleIT | Wink | Yahoo! Technorati
Loading ...Online workspace from Symantec in the pipeline
At Symantec’s ManageFusion event in Las Vegas, the company showcased some innovative technologies in the pipeline that, while very much at the research mode, appear quite interesting. (Symantec uses the word “innovative” to describe not just the product features, but the manner in which the products themselves are built.)
One of them, called GoEverywhere, was borne out of Symantec’s Business Incubator program that encourages employees to pitch new ideas to leadership, and if successful, get funding to develop it. Basically, it’s an online desktop hosted in the cloud “to make any PC your PC” (I don’t think that’s an official catch phrase, but it sure is catchy) so that a user can access their data and any Web application from any machine connected to the Web and feel like it is their very own machine.
GoEverywhere has a single sign on login, SSL encryption, doesn’t leave a footprint on the machine being used, and can associate credentials with Web sites the user frequently visits.
There is no code to install to use the service. It is currently in beta and free for whoever wants to try it, the goal being to keep improving the service so users get more comfortable working in the cloud.
GoEverywhere capitalizes on the hot Web 2.0 trend that sees users working remotely and accessing data in a seamless and agile manner, and joins the likes of Microsoft Office Live and Google Docs. While the idea of decoupling information from the underlying hardware is certainly where things are headed, Symantec is right to keep wanting to improve the service to make working in the cloud more palatable. Having your applications and data accessible from any random non-personal hardware can be a little discomfiting. Before mass adoption can be counted on, there is no doubt a cultural shift required to get users to really trust the cloud.
But once Symantec does deem the service ready, there will be a yet-to-be-decided business model attached. It won’t be free and likely will be by subscription based on storage capacity.
Read coverage of ManageFusion 2009:
Symantec adds intelligent software management to Altiris
Next Symantec CEO to focus on security
Process automation, endpoint virtualization reap fast ROI
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Loading ...What is the Curve?
I “graduated” from the Blogging Idol sometime last year, and said I’d like to try my hand at blogging for “Ahead of the Curve”. Then I promptly dropped out of the blogosphere, and became a lurker for a while. No excuses - just busy, not inspired, not motivated in the winter - but here I am, back again. I’ll see if I can think of interesting things to post more often.
In watching this blog for a while, I can’t help but think it hasn’t got very many readers right now. Hopefully this can change! Congrats to Kathleen Lau for keeping the posts flowing! The most recent one is what got me started…..buzz words. And my question is: Is “ahead of the curve” another buzz word, and if so what does it mean?
I ask that because it’ll help me to decide what to write about. A few weeks ago I was reading an IEEE magazine that was talking about the work going on to create robots that are smarter than we are….in 20+ years from now. I assume that’s ahead of the curve! I’ve also seen a few magazines making their annual predictions for 2009. Are these “ahead of the curve” or are they right on the curve?
Anyway, perhaps this group’s name is just like “next generation” and its really just an excuse to look at what’s going to hit us next. I’ve seen “adoption curve”, hype cycles, roadmaps, etc. also used. A couple of years ago I’m sure we would have called a focus on Green IT ahead of the curve.
Let’s see where this road will take us, and see how many curves there are to get ahead of. All ideas and suggestions are welcomed - I’m pretty keen on data center automation, systems management and ITIL automation these days, so you’ll likely find me chatting about those a bit.
Don Sheppard (Blogging Idol 2008)
Posted on March 10th, 2009 by Don Sheppard and filed under Future Technology, messaging | No Comments »Add to: del.icio.us | Digg IT | Furl | Google | magnolia | StumbleIT | Wink | Yahoo! Technorati
Loading ...Is it still ‘next-generation’?
A friend of mine recently told me he gets incredibly irritated by certain phrases like “in this space” as in “companies that toil in this space are well positioned.” It should just be referred to as “a segment of the industry,” he snorted. He also cringes when he hears “business model” as in “we’ve adopted a hosted services business model.” My friend indignantly said, “Why is it a model? It’s just a business.”
He thinks such “sexy buzz words” and phrases were created to fool people into buying things during the pre-dot com era. That may very well be the case. But, such phrases have, today, evolved into regular vocabulary, fluidly rolling off people’s tongues as they talk of the IT industry. It’s all part a continual cycle in which, as time progresses and new technologies and fascinations emerge, new buzz words and phrases, too, will inevitably emerge.
I don’t mind “space” and “business model”, but I am beginning to tire of hearing the phrase “next-generation.” These days, everything seems to be next generation to an eager technology vendor looking to market its products or services. I suppose the label is useful for painting an image of innovation, forward-thinking, and so-not-like-the-stuff-you-already-have. I don’t doubt the phrase markets a company and its wares quite well, except it begins to lose its novelty the more you hear it. And, I’m hearing a lot of it.
Unlike its predecessors – “space”, “business model” – the phrase “next generation” has a shelf life. Some years from now, people will associate, perhaps not so consciously, “next generation” with a particular era in the world of IT, and therefore with particular technologies that will in the future be viewed as past-generation. I’m not sure marketing folks will be lining up to use it at that point.
But that’s okay, because sooner than we think, there will be another short list of buzz phrases that everyone is eager to use, and which, too, will soon lose their lustre.
Posted on March 4th, 2009 by Kathleen Lau and filed under Future Technology | 2 Comments »Add to: del.icio.us | Digg IT | Furl | Google | magnolia | StumbleIT | Wink | Yahoo! Technorati
Loading ...Facebook wants to be friends again
Following a widespread online backlash sparked by its stealthy move to alter its terms of use, Facebook is now extending the olive branch to its irked user by way of giving them an opportunity to have a say in the creation of the networking site’s new privacy policies.
At a press conference on Thursday, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg said the company has committed to holding a virtual Town Halls following the announcement of the new Principles and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities for 30 days.
Users have until the comment period scheduled to close at 12:01 am PDT on March 29 to comment on the proposed policy.
Those who want to know more about Facebook’s proposed policy can go here.
To join online groups involved in reviewing these matters, click here.
The terms of use flap stems from Facebook’s move to introduce changes the the site’s terms of use. Under the changes, user content were deemed properties of Facebook giving the company rights to do as it please with the content.
On Thursday, Zuckerberg admitted to “past mistakes” and reiterated that:”We do not own user data, they [users] own it. We never intended to give that impression and feel really bad that we did.”
From now on, he said, the Facebook community would be notified of any planned policy changes. The site will also allow a period of time for Facebook users to comment on the proposed changes.
If comments or interest in the change reached a certain threshold then the change would be voted on by the community, he said.
It is probably stretching things to far to say that what started out as a Web 2.0 embarassment is shaping into the beginings of online democracy.
But this is a rare opportunity for users to voice out their thoughts online and potentially have a say in the decisions of a company that controls something so contentious as user generated digital content. The way Facebook proposes to determine the merits of user comment — via online interest — also speaks of how social sites have provided individual and public opinion a new platform.
Users should take up Zuckerberg on his call and let Facebook know what they want.
Posted on February 26th, 2009 by Nestor Arellano and filed under Computer Science | No Comments »
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Loading ...Data centre horsepower vs. cost?
A U.K.-based pricing and tariff research company called Tariff Consultancy Ltd. recently reported that the cost of data centre racks has increased across certain European countries. The U.K. and Austria were found to have the highest average prices, and Portugal, Denmark and France have the highest rate of price increase in 2008.
Tariff said the advent of virtualization technology has made it possible for data centre racks to offer way more processing power, but that also means they require more power to run and therefore more money to keep that power running. And because more horsepower is produced, more heat is generated which then hikes the cooling cost.
So, while new rack technology offers the great promise of added horsepower and the capability to run more applications faster, that gain is sadly negated by the cost of powering and cooling the facility.
Given that the idea of hosting one’s IT infrastructure externally, or maintaining a remote backup location, is becoming less alien to businesses, data centre service providers and their customers will increasingly demand technology that can render one benefit but not at the expense of another
Also, as the Web increasingly becomes the new desktop, demands for bandwidth and processing power are also on the rise. And companies are offering ever-more prominent online components to their business, like Web services, which, again, require added horsepower.
It’s true that there are ways to lower data centre costs, for instance by locating the facility in colder geographies where ambient cold air would replace an otherwise expensive cooling mechanism. But the sheer remoteness of the facility would likely add to the cost of delivering the service to customers. So, is it really possible to attain an equilibrium where one can reap horsepower but at a reasonable expense to the budget and the environment?
Posted on February 20th, 2009 by Kathleen Lau and filed under Future Technology | No Comments »Add to: del.icio.us | Digg IT | Furl | Google | magnolia | StumbleIT | Wink | Yahoo! Technorati
Loading ...Facing the music of Facebook’s terms of service
Facebook might have averted a potential mass revolt by pulling, for now, terms service which in effect says the social networking site owns or co-owns whatever content is loaded into the site.
Tuesday’s speedy about face, to the previous terms of service might have Facebook some breathing space to “resolve the issues that people have raised,” as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in his blog, afer 70,000 facebook users joined forces to voice their anger.
Essentially, the recalled terms of service says that “you grant Facebook and irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute…” when you join and upload data to Facebook.
The recalled terms also stated that Facebook can “use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising”.
In a much earlier blog titled Fifteen year of the Web, and Facebook 15 years from now, Shane Schick noted that social networking has changed the World Wide Web by shifting its emphasis from information to relationships.
Shane also observed that people tend to “congregate as user” not in open, public services, but in company-owned sites. “If CERN had invented Facebook, its focus would probably not have been on advertising opportunities but the chance to enlarge the online conversation,” he said.
Recent developments would suggest that Facebook, in a span of five years, has quickly outgrown its cuddly “relationship” with its users.
Although it beat a hasty retreat from its earlier position, Facebook’s actions would serve to remind us that most social sites are not really our friends.
Far from being a bunch of fun loving friends offering cool widgets to help us while the time away and connect with other friends looking to while their time away, these are business entities. Businesses are there to make money.
This should remind us to be more conscious of the fact that we could be signing away our rights to our own content each time we click that agree button.
If the price of admission into social networking sites is giving up your rights to your personal data or content, perhaps it’s time to start looking for that open, public service space that would seek to enlarge online conversation rather than one that is just out for advertising opportunity.
Posted on February 18th, 2009 by Nestor Arellano and filed under Computer Science | No Comments »
