Complexity Is Definitely the Way to Go
November 20, 2008
My newsreader flagged “Enterprise Mashups Need Complexity to Create Value”, an article by Gil Yehuda. I surmised that Mr. Yehuda landed a think tank type job. I was right. He works at the mid-tier consulting outfit Forrester Research. I think that Forrester has an “in” with ZDNet, so the article appears as part of “The View from Forrester Research”. The point of Mr. Yehuda’s write up is:
… each data mashup is interesting, the right combination can transform my work behavior. There’s a who, what, when, and where, that all have to intersect onto a map and onto a calendar.
The idea, I think is to take multiple mash ups, use them as building blocks, and create mash ups of mash ups. In Mr. Yehuda’s opinion, these meta mash ups deliver:
data streams that matter most to me, (e.g. my CRM data), along with other streams and network information, it results in new information. The triangulation of these data sets means that I could predict whom I meet and what to do when I plan my trips. Moreover, my manager would be able see where the team’s travelers are now, and where they will be in the near future. My sales manager could see which of us will be traveling nearby other clients, and she may want take advantage of the proximity opportunities. Travel still happens, but we can get more value out of each trip. Enterprises like to hear that.
The conclusion to the write up is:
I have renewed faith in the relevance of mashups to enterprise computing. It’s just more complex than splashing a data set onto a map. That’s OK, enterprises are used to leveraging complexity to create value. And mashups can be the building blocks to enable their success.
I have mixed feelings about M. Yehuda’s argument. In a very general sense, I think that applications will combine data to deliver solutions. For IDC, Sue Feldman and I described Google’s dataspace work. Take it us, creating a dataspace to make meta mash ups work is not trivial. Some thorny problems have to be resolved, and I don’t think most organizations will have the appetite, the technical expertise, or the resources to handle the data management issues such as transformation themselves.
Instant potatoes, like facile consultant assertions, are a side dish with empty calories, not the main course.
However, on a more “here and now” level, I think Mr. Yehuda is 25 percent right. First, how can I accept him as an expert in Enterprise 2.0 when I don’t know what that means and when Enterprise 1.0 outfits are struggling. Mr. Yehuda must not correlate stock prices and quarterly reports with an organization’s ability to embrace Enterprise 2.0 technology. I do. Companies in the financial gutter won’t be doing much Enterprise 2.0 thinking until those firms can pay their bills and keep the lights on. Second, what the heck is knowledge management. I write a column for a publication called KMWorld, and I am upfront about my lack of understanding what this buzzword means. My current view is that it doesn’t mean much beyond information applied to decisions in an organization. Finally, people who “connect the dots” make me nervous. The dots have to be related in a meaningful way. Grabbing a range of applications that can run in a browser is not connecting dots. The collection is an impressionistic arrangement. I am not convinced that Mr. Yehuda is a management Marc Chagall based on his essay.
Let me urge you to read his article and make your own decision. My thoughts are:
- Forrester is generating blather. Organizations looking for intellectual calories in this marketing soufflé may get cotton candy, actually pink cotton candy
- The technical hurdles are significant
- The idea of mash ups is easy to talk about. Delivering these in an organization to employees who are worried about their jobs is quite another
- Security may be more of an issue than it seems to be. If an organization is mashing up and collaborating, the organization may have to produce the information germane to a legal matter as part of the discovery process. “We can’t do it” may not satisfy some legal eagles.
Let me close with a comment about search and this meta mash up stuff. Users don’t want to type key word queries. Users want systems to solve problems, be intuitive, and work without latency from a range of access devices. I think we are making progress because for the first time in 30 years, people accept the fact that key word search doesn’t meet the needs of most employees looking for information. Now comes the hard part: finding ways to deliver information in context so that a user has access to a system that does not require training to use and delivers the needed info quickly.
Mash ups, like mashed potatoes, are a side dish, not the main course. Trying to get me to see instant potatoes as the real thing makes me reluctant to dive in. What do you think? Will you bet your job on an Enterprise 2.0 mash up to make your company hit its numbers next quarter? I am on the side of simplicity, cost control, and point solutions. Complexity delivers more empty calories and wastes money.
Stephen Arnold, November 20, 2008
Comments
6 Responses to “Complexity Is Definitely the Way to Go”
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Stephen, I would recommend taking some time to get familiar with the enterprise mashup platform offerings from IBM, JackBe, and Serena Software. These solutions all do an elegant job of empowering employees to create ad-hoc applications with no programming skills. All the technical pieces are under the covers of the application or dealt with by IT professionals who have the skills to create web services. Microsoft Popfly — which we expect to eventually become Microsoft’s offering in this space — is similar, and anyone can create simple mashups today without engaging a sales rep. You can get a pretty good feel for the lack of complexity.
Your question about how firms will adopt and rationalize Enterprise 2.0 software in light of a difficult recession is a very valid concern, and as someone who looks at this very closely I agree that mashups are likely to get dinged pretty badly. While the promise of E2.0 software — better productivity, repeatable human-centric processes, and reduced resource redundancy — is especially attractive during an economic downturn the truth is that most firms are not yet thinking along these lines. Mashups specifically have a higher cost than most E2.0 software since someone needs to create and provision all those services.
The legal side is a big concern as well. Unfortunately there are no precedents as to what sort of usage record firms must keep for discovery purposes. If a finance firm is accused of insider trading will the prosecution want to see the mashup the trader was using at the time, and further still the data that was onscreen at the time of the trade? I’m sure they will. Can we provide that data today, probably not, but the vendors in this space are working on it and, frankly, mashups are still pretty immature. But I fully expect it to fill in over time.
While firms may not be thinking about these tools while they try to keep the lights on and make payroll the value they could provide is not changed. My impression was that Gil was looking to discuss some of that value, not if businesses would actually take advantage of it. Further it is worth keeping in mind that this was a blog post; since Forrester is a paid research firm most of the really good stuff is behind the paywall. If you’d like to take a look at some of our more substantive research just let me know, I’ll gladly send along a report or two on mashups.
Finally, to try to answer the question of “how can I accept him as an expert in Enterprise 2.0” you’ll have to take my word on it. Gil is very sharp, does great research, and has been instrumental in implementing these sorts of tools in the past before joining Forrester. I’ve been working with him closely since he was hired and have been nothing but impressed.
Anyway, if you want to talk more on mashups just give me a hollar.
-Oliver Young, Analyst, Forrester Research
Oliver Young,
Your examples underscore the substitution of complexity for sharply focused solutions. I can’t take your word on a person’s being an expert in a made up discipline. The difference between the work done by firms such as McKinsey and BCG and other firms pivots on the people’s expertise in specific business and technical disciplines. The credentials for a person at Booz, Allen & Hamilton or Bain in 1977 spoke for themselves. Today, it seems, buzzwords and glittering generalizations are gaining pride of place. Is that why some firms are not truly objective, focusing on running conferences and recycling reports as annuities to the very companies whose products are themselves the subjects of the study? Consulting firms want their consultants to have high profiles. For that reason, a Web log post may be as, if not more, important than a sponsored, for fee study about an area that the consulting firm is trying to “own”. I am an addled goose and know that I’m too clueless to understand Enterprise 2.,0 MBA speak.
Stephen Arnold, November 21, 2008
Stephen, I can understand the skepticism; there is a lot of garbage out there and far too many whitepaper for hire firms. Personally I am very proud to work for Forrester and the firm has an excellent reputation in the market for objectivity and insight — I personally have been taken to task by several vendors for writing unfavorable reports on products and markets — but ultimately it is something you will need to asses for yourself.
I can assure you, however, that blog posts see just as much scrutiny from vendors and other interested parties as “official” reports. They are typically written at a much higher level of detail, but still have the same depth of consequence.
Oliver Young,
I flunked English 101 but I did okay in Stephen Toulmin’s logic class. He used to say, “Methinks thou dost protest too much.” Dr. Toulmin probably cadged this from a hack like Shakespeare, but the comment is in my opinion appropriate to responses to the Enterprise 2.0 (whatever that is) rejoinders. As a failed consultant to some so-so outfits like Booz, Allen, I am also an addled goose who suspects the Enterprise 2.0 essay I wrote hit a nerve. Well, maybe not? Thanks for posting. Oh, if you don’t resonate with the name Toulmin, here’s link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Toulmin
Stephen Arnold, November 22, 2008
Stephen, it was not the objective essay content that struck a nerve it was the personal attack on my colleague and firm. As I mentioned above there are plenty of good reasons to take a skeptical view of social software; claiming Forrester or its analysts are in the pocket of technology vendors is not one of them.
Oliver Young,
How can one be an expert in something that does not exist except as a buzzword. Enterprise 1.0 companies are going to have a tough time making it to a mythical Enterprise 2.0 world because there is nothing but baloney and hype to build upon. The technologies of the “Enterprise 2.0” world are little more than services based upon Internet Protocol related operations. I am sure you and your colleage are bright lads. But until there is a fungible Enterprise 2.0, it’s tough for me to accept “credentials” for a mythical discipline. Keep in mind that I am an addled goose, and your firm is far superior to the cranks at McKinsey, Bain, and BCG.
Stephen Arnold, November 23, 2008