Transforming Data into "Useful" Information

Information Overload is one of the things that we are all learning to deal with becasue of the Internet. Most people just choose to ignore the bulk of the data they are subjected to each day.

What if you were able to have a magic machine that you were able to tell they types of things you were interested in and then have it act as your personal filter to represent you on the Internet to silently listen to all of the interactions on the Internet on your behalf?

Although a few years ago this would have been more science fiction then fact today we are begining to see the bits and pieces to make this a reality fall into place. It is an exciting time to be working in the next generation interent area.

There are several things coming together that are making the advent of customized information gathering. The first are the information creation tools. Blogs are all the rage and people are finally seeing that this is a way to communicate ideas and information that is very powerful. Wikis, which I call the next generation of blogs, will take the blog concept and make it even more interactive so that groups can cooperatively work on documents with a single common result. The second piece to the puzzle is distribution. RSS/ATOM addresses the whole area of how do people keep up to date with all the information that is being posted. RSS/ATOM allows a blog owner to syndicate or give notice to who ever subscibes to their blog that new information is available that you might want to see. There are literally thousands and thousands of RSS/ATOM feeds that anyone can subscribe to a any time. There are readers, a lot are free for the download, that manage the feeds and organize the results.

So now you can create information and you can syndicate thoughout the Internet. Life is good, but it is in the process of getting better. The next step is taking all of the information in blogs and scanning it all and making it available based on your interests. This area is evolving as I write this post. The evolution of "tagging content" allow content creators to note key words in their information that people would be interested in. This concept is important because we are now crossing the line of having machines start to think on our behalf (hello symantic web!). Now when content creators post their information to their blog another set of new technology is now scanning all blog entries for key words and then aggregate all of that information into a master repository (sought of a google for blog content). The next step is that you subscibe to the master aggregator by key words that are interesting to you and then you get reports customized to you requirements. There are several start ups that are delivering this service today.

There is a lot happeneing in this area and it will truly make the phrase "information is power" be true for everybody.

Open Source is everywhere, what do I do with it?

I am very excitied about the next generation Internet and the phenomenal amount of development going on in the Web 2.0 area. As I start to look under the covers I am seeing some interesting trends. The biggest trend that I am noticing is that there is a large amount of development that is becoming "Open Source".

To corporate America open source is both a blessing and a curse. How do you handle open source in corporate America? This is a question I am begining to grapple with a I write this post. The question is not whether corporate America should use open source software, they are already doing that. The question is how do you use open source software so that it can be tracked, managed, and maintained just like commercial software that corporate America uses today?

There are a numebr of interesting start ups that are looking at this problem, they actually look at this as a opportunity. One of the companies that I have spent some time with is Source Labs (Seattle, WA). This start up (VC is Ignition Partners) has come up with an interesting approach to maintaining open source software. SOurce Labs will do the integration testing of the software stack their customer chooses to use and then help them maintain the stack. They will then test all patches and then package them up as upgrades. It is a great concept, I hope it works.

Open Source is a huge area that will change the whole way that the industry deals with software and making money for that matter.

Who will be the vendors of the Next Generation Internet?

Usually when a paradigm as big as this happens there is an opportunity for vendors to be dethroned and new vendor to gain prominence. I think that in the next couple of years there will be some interesting jockeying for position. It is clear already that certain vendors are starting to take the lead. Vendors like Google and Yahoo are leading the way as thinkers of what you can do with the Internet. They don't have all of the overhead that traditional vendors or the baggage that would weigh them down.

The paradigm shift is also an opportunity for venture capital to make a big rebirth and recover from the bubble burst of just a few years ago. This is different then the last time around for venture capital. Companies that are forming now are small with big new innovative ideas that are being watched as soon as they start development. As soon as somebody sees an inkling of value they are bought up. Just look at what Google and Yahoo have been doing for the last 6 months.

So what happens to the big boys (Microsoft, Sun, IBM, etc.) ? That is a good question which I think is being discussed by strategic planners at all of these companies.

Next Generation Internet Meets SOA

I have been reading and reading and reading all about the great things that are being done around Web 2.0 and other aspects of the Next Generation Internet. It is very exciting to see all of the new capabilities that people will be able to use and have at their finger tips.

One of the interesting things about all of the new developments that are happening is that the paradigm for innovation has changed. If you go back 10 to 15 years ago and look at where all the interesting innovation was happening you would see that it was happening on the business side first and then being adapted to the consumer side. It has now gone 180 degrees where most of the interesting innovation and development is going on on the consumer side first. The major leveling factor has obviously been the Internet, the world's largest testbed for innovation. Anyone can use it at anytime for almost no investment.

Now because of this interesting shift in innovation it has forced big business to look at innovation going on and then figure out how to adapt it to the business side of the house. What I beleive will happen is that business is going to figure out how to take advantage of all of this new innovation without destroying their exisitng production environments. Business have worked long and hard to create production environments (Data Centers, etc.) that have stringent rules and guidelines. New things that are inserted into this environment are typically subjected to significant integration testing to make sure that it will work correctly and more important not interfere or cause harm to the existing environment.

Business is going to need a way to grab hold of pieces of the new technology and run with it. Their traditional means will be too slow and will allow competition to leap frog ahead of them. I think that there is going to have to be a little innovation in the way they start integrating new technologies.

Here is my idea. The businesses are going to need a "safety zone" a way of plugging in new technology and make use of it right away and not cause damage. I will call it a "bridge" and by definition it will provide enough safety to the business so they can plug things in and not have to worry about the integrity of their environment.

A perfect bridge technology is SOA. Most major businesses are on their way to desgining and implementing SOA infrastructures for their environments. SOA is a services architecture that will allow businesses to shield themselves from the riff raff that could screw up corproate environments by ratcheting down accessibility by the way a service is offered. Web Services through SOA could be used as a safety factor that would be able to sense and respond if there was a problem.

SOA will also provide an integration paradigm that will allow all of that cool open source stuff being deveolped on the consumer side with all of that bet your business technology on the business side.

Socialization will be key

With the coming of the next generation Internet it is apparent, at least to me, that the key to making this whole thing work is the concept of Socialization. I think that this term will become more and more important and we will see it cropping up more and more.

The best way to look at Socialization is through an example. In big business Socialization is the way you get things done. In this scenario we have John sitting in his office when he gets a phone call from one of his field offices. The caller explains a problem that they are having in that field office and asks John if he can help come up with a solution. John agrees to study the problem and get back to the caller.

John now walks down the hall to Bob's office and Tom's office and asks them to join him in his office to discuss the problem call he just received. They all head for John's office where he draws out the problem on his white board. The three of them have a preliminary discussion and then go off to study the options and agree to meet back in John's office in an hour.

An hour goes by and they meet back in John's office and discuss their findings. John takes the input from Bob and Tom and along with his own work to create a solution to the problem. John then calls the field office and explains the solution that he has come up with and how to implement it.

The sceanrio is common place in most major corporations. We are an "Office Centric" business society. The "Office Centric" model has been around for years and has been refined, optimized, and somewhat perfected. It is the way business gets things done.

Now take a look at what is happening to the business environment and you will see the following starting to happen. There is a big move underway for large companies to send people home to work. There are good reasons from the large corporation's standpoint; there are tax incentives from the federal government and there are significant savings in real estate that can be had from consolidating office space.

While big business has bought into the cost savings and has started sending people home to work they have not considered what it has done to the Socialization aspect of getting business done. When you send people home you break the "Office Centric" model. All the time spent over the years to make this model work has now been sacrificed in the name of cost savings.

Now don't get me wrong I am all in favor of cost savings it's part of the way businesses stay in business. What I am advocating is fixing the Socialization model so that it supports the way businesses want to conduct business. There needs to be a re-examination of the Socialization models necessary to support the new way of doing business and it's not just people working from home. It's people who are mobile all the time and don't come into an office very often.

There have been a lot new terms that have sprung up to descibe the new modes of handling these scenarios; mobile workers, hoteling to name a few. For the last few years people have been trying to solve these problems by throwing technology at it. And there has been limited success. Although technology is part of the solution to take full advantage of technology the underlying process and procedures that govern the current "Office Centric" Socialization model needs to be addressed.

When you are in the office there are certain base level services that you get automatically based on the premise that you are in the office. They are; administrative (stationary supplies, someone to answer the phone, some place to get buisiness correspondence/packages and send), Security (people are not allowed in uless they belong), Human Resources (benefits questions and resolve problems), Information Security/Compliance (business information is protected), Technology (computers, networks, peripherals like color printers), the water cooler.

It is easy to overlook the base level services listed above becasue you have been getting them for so long that they are transparent. You don't even know that they are there unless someone takes them away. When they are removed you would surely notice it.

When you remove people from the office and send them home you are in essence removing all of those basel level services that they were so use to getting. It is not apparent at first but, once they try to get things done from home they quickly realize that things are missing.

So now that we have identified the problem how do we fix it? Initially it is not a technology problem. The problem is to figure out how to be able to supply those base level services listed above in the new environment. This is an exercise in process and policy which needs the attention of the groups that offer the base level services. You need to meet with HR, Administration, procurement, compliance, information security. In theses meetings there needs to be discussion on how the current policies and procedures can be modified and update to reflect the new Socialization models that are evolving.

Once the Socialization model is addressed it will be easier to step back and figure out where to plug in technology to support the new policies and procedures. It should be obvious that one of the keys to this new Socialization model will be communications and collaboration and that is where the next generation Internet will shine.

Welcome

The next generation Internet which includes Web 2.0 is going to revolutionalize the way things happen. It will effect our business and personal lives and may make both of them easier to bare.

We are entering into to an era of Socialization that will free the boundaries that have limited the way we work, play and generally interact. It is an exciting time that will benefit from the creativity of many.

I look forward to the "oustside the box" thinking that it is going to take for this all to take off and flourish.