Sample Gov 2.0 Application

Back on the blogging scene after a hiatus. Work has been tight with a number of projects to chew on in my day job. Had the opportunity to spend some spare time that I had with a few friends/contacts in Blue Star Infotech (a leading consulting firm), to guide them along on an exciting project to develop/release a sample application that illustrates many of the Enterprise 2.0 concepts discussed here in my blog. The sample app is based on a Government 2.0 scenario that fosters the notion of participatory ideation to actively engage citizens in the planning & execution of stimulus fund investments.

Check out the app @ http://gov20.codeplex.com/. Full source code and reams of documentation included for your viewing/learning pleasure. The folks @ Blue Star Infotech (BSI) have done a really good job on this.

Architects & developers should find this to be an effective & practical resource to connect the dots between the concepts discussed thus far in my posts and living/breathing code There are also tons of opportunities to extend the sample to integrate additional scenarios & capabilities.

Hope you find this resource useful. Comments/feedback welcome.

Cheers!
Karthik

Enterprise TRM – Tribes Relationship Management

It’s been a while since I last posted. Have been on a hiatus due to being fully engrossed in a new role that I have taken on in the Interactive Entertainment Business IS group. Having settled in, I will resume posting my thoughts on the subject of Enterprise 2.0 and all things related. Here is a quick one to get me started again.

I posted a slide show on Enterprise TRM (Tribes Relationship Management) @ SlideShare.net. You can view it here. The deck captures thoughts on Enterprise CRM in the digital/online services age. Thoughts/feedback welcome.

Next up will be a couple of posts that discuss applications of the Enterprise 2.0 Conceptual Architecture/Framework discussed in my earlier posts. The second in the series will discuss a working POC/demo app that can be downloaded (with source code) and explored offline.

Cheers!
Karthik

2.0 Service Architecture – A Conceptual Framework (Part 2)

In this post I will drill down into the conceptual 2.0 service architecture introduced in part 1 of this series.

2.0 services first evolved in the web startups community and permeate the online consumer ecosystem today. It would not be a stretch if one were to imagine that the vast majority of these services have evolved to their current state organically and over time in response to the evolving visions of their founders, consumer feedback, and in certain cases, market opportunities. Getting stuff done and released as fast as possible with minimal CAPEX & OPEX, enticing users, testing the waters, and constantly & incrementally optimizing investments/course correcting along the way…constitute the norms of execution in the consumer web startup ecosystem. While agile practices are good and recommended in general for 2.0 service initiatives of all kinds (consumer web or enterprise/business), thinking through related hard problems at the outset to guide resource investment decision making is also highly recommended. The following for instance are some of the top of the line challenges of significance to consumer web startups and enterprises:

Consumer Web Startup Challenges

• Cold booting a user community (How do I get from 0 to 100K users?)
• Operational infrastructure scalability (What happens when I get from 100K to 500K/1M users?
• Sustaining active user engagement (How do I keep my users plugged and actively using my service?)
• Connecting with untapped long tail user segments (How can I connect with users who are not Web 2.0 savvy?)
• Predictable Monetization (How do I make predictable money to keep my lights on?)
• Build v/s Buy technology implementation investments (Do I need to build everything to get my service up & running?)

Enterprise Challenges

• New technology investments – Build v/s Buy v/s Subscribe, Maturity, Familiarity, TCO
• Integration with existing line of business IT investments
• IT Ops Scalability
• Cold booting external community engagement initiatives
• Internal cultural barriers for adoption
• Measuring ROI

Identifying the challenges of pertinence to a 2.0 initiative and formulating a plan to account for them does not have to be a long winded multi-month/year process. These aspects can be thought through in an agile manner to arrive at a base set of parameters that guide scalable & adaptable investment decision making to enable agile, incremental, and evolutionary progress.

The Conceptual 2.0 Service Architecture introduced in part 1 of this post and shown below can serve as a framework to guide this process:

I will now drill into the layers and boxes of the conceptual architecture in the remainder of this post.

Infrastructure
At the bottom of the stack we have the core infrastructure with the components required to keep a service functional at its guts. This layer includes a server operating system and bread & butter services like a web server, file/unstructured content storage, a DBMS, networking services, and messaging services. Virtualization capabilities may also be a key component of this layer depending on the service type and scalability requirements.

LOB Systems
This layer is typically Enterprise/Business specific and comprises the line of business applications & services. Though not usually seen in a consumer web startup’s infrastructure, planning for LOB system integration services higher up the stack can enable interesting business opportunities for consumer web startups whose services have potential in a business context. The scenario that I will discuss in part 3 of this post will illustrate this opportunity.

Foundational Services
The foundational services layer is largely common across 2.0 services and includes the following:

• Unstructured content management
• Structured data access
• LOB System Integration to enable integrating a 2.0 service with line of business applications/services – of specific relevance to the enterprise/business context
• User identity management
• Services that enable social dynamics and experiences
• Search service(s) that span unstructured content, structured data, LOB systems, external services, and social metadata
• Usage Analytics to measure/analyze service usage and guide investments
• Synchronization to enable partially connected & multi-channel experiences for consumers
• Monetization services like advertisements, billing/payments etc

In general, enterprises (and consumer web startups, in many cases) should look to integrating with and leveraging existing best of class service offerings that enable these capabilities v/s re-inventing the wheels.

Custom Services
This is the layer at which Enterprises and the vast majority of Web Startups should ideally invest maximum resources & efforts in the context of custom service development. For Enterprises, it is the layer at which customized business value enablement is materialized. For Web Startups, it is the layer at which consumer value differentiation is materialized.

Service Interfaces/APIs
The Services Interfaces & APIs layer is crucial to enabling multi-channel service consumption, service integration (with external services), and service extensibility/composition. This is the layer at which the core capabilities are wrapped and exposed as standards based web services, syndication feeds, and scripting & programming language wrappers to enable the mentioned scenarios.

Delivery Channels
At the Delivery Channels layer it is important to be able to account for multiple channels of service delivery that have gained/are gaining adoption in the users ecosystem. In addition to the web browser…channels like mobile phones, PC apps, device consoles, external services with potential to integrate with & mutually benefit from, and web service repositories used to enable user mashup experiences are all delivery channels of relevance to achieving the maximum user reach potential. Having a well defined and implemented Service Interfaces/APIs layer is the key to materializing multi-channel service delivery.

Tools
On the tools edge, it is important to account for tools that can address the requirements of a) personnel responsible for developing and operating the service viz. Developers, Designers, and Administrators, and b) users who consume the service.

On-premise v/s Cloud v/s Hybrid
Not depicted explicitly in the illustration above are the conceptual solutions infrastructure deployment options available to materialize the layers and building block components of the Conceptual 2.0 Service Architecture. Choosing between on-premise infrastructure investments, cloud service providers, cloud hosting providers, or a hybrid model, is yet another decision making exercise in the context of 2.0 service initiatives.

In Summary…
A good understanding of the conceptual architecture/framework described above can be useful in navigating the maze of options available and making optimal investment decisions in the context of addressing the 2.0 service development challenges summarized above in this post. In parts 3 & 4 of this post (to follow shortly), I will discuss realistic scenarios (a consumer web scenario and an Enterprise scenario) to illustrate the application of this conceptual architecture as a framework for such decision making.

That’s it for today…stay tuned for more!

Cheers
Karthik

Web 2.0 is a bust…why should I care about Enterprise 2.0?

Prior to posting part 2 of the ’2.0 Service Architecture – A Conceptual Framework’ series…I will change tracks a bit and share my musings on this question that I have heard quite a bit in recent times.

The Web 2.0 bubble is seen by many as having already burst, or as being on its way to burst in the near future. Economist.com for instance refers to the current state of the Web 2.0 ecosystem as ‘The end of free lunch – again’.

How could a movement like Web 2.0 that has fostered several insanely viral & popular social networking/media services like Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, SlideShare, Digg etc. be seen as having hit or trending towards such a low? While there could be numerous opinions and theories for this, the Economist.com write-up referenced above IMO nails the crux of the ’2.0 bubble burst’ perceptions…predictable monetization strategies required to keep the lights burning and wheels churning have been an after thought for the vast majority of the players (predominantly web startups) in the 2.0 ecosystem. Like traditional brick & mortar businesses, each Web 2.0 service is also an online business operated as a (small) company (aka startup) with operational costs, and requires a consistent source of funding to remain functional. While a venture capitalist or investor or in some cases the founder may invest initial cash based on potential to help bootstrap, sustaining such investments without demonstrating an ROI is impractical (and having a couple of million active users without active revenue generation is not ROI, at least not the kind required to sustain the longevity of a service)

‘Let’s rake in the users first, and worry about/figure out monetization strategies beyond advertising later in the game’… has been a commonly recited mantra in the ecosystem. Though a viable source of income for multi-faceted giants like Google and possibly sufficient to keep the the top 1% of siloed Web 2.0 services spinning for a while, relying solely on advertisements today is not a very viable pillar to lean on given the current state of the global economy. In layman terms, a few other top of the line general factors that have contributed to the slumping trend/state of the Web 2.0 ecosystem include:

• Deferring the quality and tough problems of addressing the ‘who?’ and ‘why?’ dimensions of ‘paying for a service’
• A limited view of the target demographics who could benefit from a service – consumer centricity and a prolonged ignorance of monetizable enterprise/business opportunities
• Multiple ‘Me 2 style investments’ with significant deltas between the leaders and the followers – case in point being the number of photo/video sharing services and social networking communities that permeate the web today v/s the number that have attained their user reach potential

The above observations are not meant to imply that there are no web startups out there that have thought through these quality problems and are investing in value differentiating service offerings with credible monetization strategies over & beyond advertising. SmugMug, Socialtext, Zooppa, and uTest are examples of such (likely lesser known in comparison to the likes of Facebook and Twitter) services whose offerings and monetization strategies (ranging from value differentiation in a populated consumer context, to being unique providers of services with potential to benefit business operations) have personally impressed me. It is just that there are not enough of such services around to claim the Web 2.0 movement as being a success in the economic context (at least not as of yet).

Given the general uncertainty and perceived state of the Web 2.0 ecosystem, it is not uncommon for folks in the traditional brick & mortar enterprise/business segments to question and be very skeptic about the value proposal of 2.0 investments in an enterprise/business context. I personally am an optimist when it comes to the value potential of 2.0 investments in the context of an enterprise/business. My optimism is based on the following foundational pillars of thought:

• Unlike a web startup, an established Enterprise/Business is an operation with product/service offerings that actively generate revenue via established monetization channels (viz. there are people who invest in/pay for the products/services)
• Unlike a web startup, the operational costs of a profitable Enterprise/Business are accounted for by the company’s established revenue streams
• The essence of Web 2.0 does not exist in one off viral consumer centric services that permeate the web today (YouTube/Facebook/Twitter/etc. != Web 2.0)
• The generic notions of viral user engagement, social dynamics, and network effects that are prevalent across popular Web 2.0 services, constitute the essence of Web 2.0. These notions are the pillars of the social web today and the enablers of related disruptive experiences/capabilities that have gained viral adoption while enabling users to accomplish personal and mutual goals in a variety of contexts. These notions are here to stay and are broadly shaping user expectations of applications and services in the contexts of both personal and professional usage
• Investing incrementally in enabling viral user engagement, social dynamics, and network effects to foster greater productivity and disruptive (in a good way) engagement models in the context of core enterprise/business functions (employee collaboration, marketing/sales, hiring, B2B, B-2-Customer, B-2-Community, internal business systems etc.) to materialize significant organizational agility and benefits, constitutes the crux of Enterprise 2.0
• There exists a plethora of opportunities for current & next generation web service providers to materialize predictable monetization strategies through mutually beneficial services/service options that enable the materialization of the ‘The Enterprise 2.0 Opportunity’

A million dollar question that now deserves some attention is whether the Web 2.0 movement should be written off as yet another bubble burst in the holistic sense? My personal net-net take on this is “No, the 2.0 movement is not a complete write off”, it has fostered some key paradigms that are here to stay and that are actively shaping (knowingly or unknowingly) investments in a variety of segments. Numerous opportunities still exist to apply these paradigms in ways that yield mission critical benefits and impact the top & bottom lines in a variety of contexts (Enterprise/Business operations, Consumer services, Non-profit organizations, Govt/Public sector operations, and industry verticals). Materializing these opportunities to turn the tide on the slide down to yet another bubble burst is a higher order bit of greater significance than say adventurous ventures to define/shape a Web 3.0 movement.

Drawing an analogy in the context of the current times, the down state of Web 2.0 today and the opportunities on hand to turn around a bubble burst, are similar in subtle ways to the cause(s) of the current state of economic recession and the measures being adopted across the board to restore balance with an eye towards emerging stronger at the end of the tunnel. I see ‘The Enterprise 2.0 Opportunity’ as having the potential to be a game changer in the context of enabling Enterprises/Businesses and emerging web startups to cope with these trying times and emerge stronger at the end of it all.

In my future postings, I will get down to specific examples of cross-cutting opportunities and share my thoughts on factors of relevance to related business & technology decision making. I would also love to hear your thoughts on this subject!

Cheers!
Karthik

2.0 Service Architecture – A Conceptual Framework (Part 1)

In my post on ‘The Enterprise 2.0 Opportunity’ I had shared my thoughts on opportunities to implement and/or integrate 2.0 style services that fostered social dynamics and network effects for organizational benefits in the context of core business functions like internal collaboration, B2B, and CRM/B2C. Materialization of the Enterprise 2.0 Opportunity is eventually achieved through the integration of 2.0 services at/across these edges and with core line of business systems supported by the Enterprise IT infrastructure.

If you are an Enterprise technology decision maker chartered with the responsibility to make a recommendation on an actionable technology investment strategy to materialize an Enterprise 2.0 roadmap, the following are thoughts (in no specific order) that are you are likely already wrestling with or will be wrestling with soon:

Architecturally speaking how should I be envisioning the solution layers and building blocks that collectively constitute a framework for Enterprise 2.0 investments?

Is it possible to materialize the desired capabilities without disrupting our core existing IT infrastructure?

What would be a pragmatic investment strategy in the context of materializing the capabilities – self-implement, buy & integrate, or an hybrid approach?

What about cloud computing options? Are there cloud services that we could subscribe to and integrate with to address all or some of our requirements?

How do we ensure that the services which enable the desired capabilities integrate seamlessly with our existing line of business systems – internal, B2B, CRM/B2C etc.

How should we approaching these projects from an SDLC perspective…it seems like the classic Enterprise SDLC practices would be counter productive to delivering and materializing ROI from Enterprise 2.0 projects?

Given the high degree of user centricity and user empowerment in the 2.0 culture, how do we account for governance in the context of core Enterprise assets that support the experiences?

What other hard problems should we be thinking about in advance and how do we plan for them without impacting agility in execution & delivery?

All tough questions that need to be thought through and addressed by technology decision makers.

The following is a Conceptual Architecture that I had drawn up when working on Project Kobe (a Web 2.0 service development resource kit). This Conceptual Architecture can serve as a valuable framework to guide architectural and implementation decision making during the course of a 2.0 service development project:

You can watch this MSL (Microsoft Learning) snack to get an overview of the application of this framework in the context of planning, architecting, and implementing Web 2.0 services. If you are experienced in the Microsoft Platform, you can also download the sample project included in the Project Kobe Resource Kit to explore an implementation that applies the framework in the context of sample consumer style Web 2.0 service.

A number of the concepts discussed in the snack videos and the resources included in the Project Kobe Resource Kit also apply to Enterprise 2.0 initiatives. In part 2 of this post I will discuss the conceptual architecture illustrated above in greater detail and more specifically in the Enterprise 2.0 context.

That’s it for today. More to follow soon…

Cheers!
Karthik

The Enterprise 2.0 Opportunity – Fostering Network Effects for Organizational Benefits

The sustained evolution of the online consumer web has resulted in the surfacing of a number of ground breaking and disruptive user engagement paradigms that are redefining the “online service provider-to-consumer” ecosystem. Broadly recognized as shaping the Web 2.0 phase of the Internet, these paradigms are materialized as integrated applications & services that enable the notions of viral user engagement through surround user communities and resulting network effects (within and across communities) to foster service adoption and promotion. While these paradigms have gained broad traction and acceptance amongst web startups targeting online consumers, the opportunities of their applications in the traditional Enterprise/Business context are in the infant stages of being materialized.

The Emerging Web Movement

There are several reasons for the general conservative pace of adoption of the Web 2.0 paradigms in the Enterprise/Business context…lack of tried & tested practices for predictable success, the failure rate of consumer web startups who apply related paradigms, a mind boggling number of related platform and technology options – many with limited or no proven enterprise/business credibility, and overall a general lack of clarity in the context of a conceptual framework to identify investment opportunities, prioritize & materialize investments, and measure ROI. There are also several misconceptions in the context of what constitutes “Web 2.0 investments” for an Enterprise/Business, the top misconception being a revamped and self-managed Web 2.0 style online web property as being the utopian investment.

Viral user engagement, social dynamics, and network effects constitute the cornerstones of the Web 2.0 movement in the consumer web. Adopting and applying Web 2.0 paradigms to achieve organizational benefits in the context of a traditional Enterprise/Business necessitates the need to explore, identify, and incrementally invest in targeted opportunities, both new and within existing processes/investments, where the incorporation of viral user engagement and social dynamics has the potential to benefit the organization. The figure below summarizes my thoughts on these opportunities and identifies the core constituent elements that roll up to compose the broader Enterprise 2.0 opportunity:

The Enterprise 2.0 Opportunity

My future postings will expand upon each of the constituent “2.0″ elements shown above. In addition to rationalizing the related concepts, I will also strive to present actionable solution frameworks to enable experimenting with and pursuing related investments. The following is a brief summary of each of these elements to wrap up this post:

Collaboration 2.0
The application of Web 2.0 paradigms to foster enhanced employee collaboration within an Enterprise/Business. This is widely seen as constituting “Enterprise 2.0″ by many, though my personal viewpoint of Enterprise 2.0 in a holistic sense is broader and also includes the following core elements.

B2B 2.0
The application of Web 2.0 paradigms to foster enhanced partner collaboration and relationship management.

CRM 2.0
The application of Web 2.0 paradigms to foster enhanced collaboration with customers and non-affiliated communities. The growing popularity of the consumer web (fostered by the Web 2.0 movement) necessitates the need for an Enterprise/Business to invest in identifying and engaging in related channels where customers and user communities of relevance have an active presence. Integrating with such communities has the potential to result in the materialization of previously untapped customers and partnerships. The partnerships can span traditional B2B style opportunities as well as green field B2OCSP (Business-to-Online consumer service provider/Web startups) and B2I (Business-to-Individual) relationships such as community evangelists, community workers etc. The potential for such investments to result in the onboarding of a variety of relationships that benefit an organization, extend the classic notion of CRM to a more generic XRM investment.

Identity 2.0
Fostering relationships across these diverse channels of relevance to an organization necessitates the need to deeply integrate related channels with mainstream Enterprise systems. Achieving such integrations at the systems level in a scalable manner calls for a fundamentally different approach to federating user identities across the channels. Watch Dick Hardt’s excellent presentation on this topic for a conceptual overview of what this entails.

That’s it for today folks…stay tuned for more in the days to come. Your feedback/comments/questions are all welcome, so feel free to post them and I will do my best to reply when clarifications are requested.

Cheers!
Karthik