by Bill Ives
August 27, 2007 at 9:17 am
· Filed under Enterprise 2.0
IBM has been doing work in the Enterprise 2.0 space for several years. Some IBMers call it “Info 2.0” as seen in these videos but it is web 2.0 inside the enterprise. David Barnes of IBM Internet Emerging Technology recently posted some videos on YouTube using QEDWiki and DAMIA. Starting with QEDWiki, these videos provide a nice introduction to enterprise mashups and how you can integrate multiple data sources. IBM describes QEDWiki as a “browser-based assembly canvas used to create simple mashups.” In the first example, you can see how multiple data sources around nautical shipping can provide complex information in one integrated source. There is a clip on adding widgets, another on getting information from the web.
I saw the predecessor of QEDwiki in 2005, Appliki, which was more externally focused, as well as their early enterprise applications. I especially liked the Unified Activity Management. As the IBM web site stated, “The goal of the Unified Activity Management (UAM) project is to recast collaboration technologies in terms of the meaningful business activities in which people are engaged, both to support the work of each individual person and team and — more significantly — the enterprise. This includes both formal elements such as workflows and structured documents, as well as informal collaboration such as chats and emails that is so critical to getting the work done.” It looks at work from an activity perspective and lets you chart business process (e.g. responding to an RFP) and associated best practices. You drag in documented sub-steps from other processes to improve your process. This goal of this research effort sounds quite similar to the goals of several of the enterprise 2.0 tools that I have mentioned this month.
DAMIA is a newer tool in the videos. As the IBM site mentions, working through a web interface (Firefox not Internet Explorer) , “IBM® DAMIA provides easy-to-use tools that developers and IT users can use to quickly assemble data feeds from the Internet and a variety of enterprise data sources. The benefits of this service include the ability to aggregate and transform a wide variety of data or content feeds, which can be used in enterprise mashups.” It allows you to assemble, modify, and preview mashups. It works with Internet feeds, as well as data from tools like Excel. Thanks to Tomoaki Sawada for sharing these videos.
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Hi Bill,
Great entry here - we’ve been working hard on those videos so thanks for checking them out. Just to clarify, Info 2.0 is a piece of Web 2.0. Specifically, Info 2.0 is the information management technology for simplified integration of data and content via mashups. It connects information from custom and packaged business apps, web, spreadsheets, and databases, making information access easier for users. In addition, it doesn’t replace but rather extends current IT investments.
The real differentiation here is how both structured and unstructured data is accessed, cleansed, etc and then used within mashups to deliver Web 2.0 apps. Anant Jhingran, CTO of IM at IBM, describes Info 2.0 as “access to information” that we formerly couldn’t get our hands on -
http://jhingran.typepad.com/anant_jhingrans_musings/2007/08/mashup-space.html
You can check out my blog for more info too: http://www.jroller.com/cooney
Cheers,
Lauren Cooney
CTO Office
IBM Information Management Group
Bill Ives wrote @ August 28th, 2007 at 6:56 am
Lauren - Thanks for your comment. My reference to Info 2.0 as a variation of Enterprise 2.0 was certainly a complement. Your additions help clarfiy its role within Enterprise 2.0, as well as applications outside the enterprise. Increased transparency and access to information is a key feature of Enterprise 2.0. I will certainly take a look at your blog.
Hi Bill –
Here is another good demo of a high-value enterprise mashup.
http://www.kapowtech.com/media/BP_Demo.html
Also, multiple sponsors are clustering in SF for the Enterprise Mashup Summit. See:
http://www.vncluster.com/MUSF.htm
-j
http://xri.net/=jheuristic
Todd wrote @ August 30th, 2007 at 8:14 am
When I think Enterprise 2.0, I think about what we are doing to place the user at the center of the conversation. Great stuff from IBM (Damia as Enterprise Pipes! ?) and Kapow (I actually have a few robots myself) — see Dappit.com too. But are these technologies really getting the user involved or the just more developer offerings.
Perhaps sprinkling in some “semantic glue” would help ease the user experience around assembly and don’t forget the resulting feeds need a place to live as results for the user (and they may not want to do another easy integration step into something like QED).
As a shameless plug we are trying to do a bit of this ourselves. But there is no doubt that IBM, Kapow and others are changing the conversation around information access and availability and that fits the remainder of Enterprise 2.0 landscape nicely.
Let us not forget, that even with the new tools of collaboration a lot of this new blog, wiki and media content will need to be mixed to truly support operational objectives, no?
Bill Ives wrote @ August 30th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
Todd - I agree that mashups do not directly put the user in the center. They are more of a developer short cut. However, by easing the developer’s burden, more time can be spent on user requirements and thus putting the user in the center. They also allow for business units to more easily develop their own applications. Bill
Bill, a bit different subject but may be of your interests from activity management perspective is CoScripor (fromerly KOALA) that was released latety on Alphaworks from IBM. According to IBM, CoScripter is a system for capturing, sharing, and automating tasks on the Web. CoScripter scripts contain human-readable instructions for completing Web-based processes, such as changing your mailing address or searching for real estate. If the CoScripter plug-in for Firefox is installed, CoScripter can step through scripts with you, showing you how to perform the task, step by step. CoScripter can also run scripts automatically, eliminating repetitive or mundane tasks for the user.
My understanding of this is that with this tools, user can program “activity” in machine readable format that can be shared for re-use by others and “could be mashed up ( correct? )” with other widgets to enable “activity” become a kind of UI to business process management system.
I need someone from IBM to correct my comment here, but you can read KOALA paper here
http://people.mozilla.com/~faaborg/files/20070509-CHI2007/p943.pdf
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