BPM Inferences for ‘06

This is my first monthly BPM column for Business Process Trends. In order to set the stage for a new year of BPM, here is a set of inferences for ‘06 based on my personal experiences, insights and desires. Some are fairly straightforward, others highly speculative, but most should matter to all BPM practitioners. Interestingly enough, the first inference—BPM will go mainstream—got a step closer to being fulfilled this morning: IBM just announced the release of the new System i5, also known as iSeries, also known as AS/400. As part of this announcement they are featuring a front & center quote from yours truly. Intalio|BPMS becomes the first BPM solution to be available for System i5, and if that does not make BPM mainstream, I do not know what will.

Business Rules and BPM

A trackback to one of my BPM posts on this site raised the issue whether BPM and business rules should rely on the same engine. The confusion on this point continues to surprise me. Maybe some people consider any piece of process logic involving a bit of business data a “business rule,” so the process engine should be a business rule engine, right? Wrong. Business rules and business rule engines, as they are understood by vendors and users of rule engine technology, are about making decisions from a collection of assertions or “facts.” They are especially useful when the potential set of facts is large, such as those determining whether to approve a loan, what premium to charge for car insurance, or the applicable discount to a particular customer for a particular set of products at a particular point in time. These kinds of decisions come into play on occasion in BPM and in those cases the process engine invokes a ruleset deployed on a business rule engine.

Office 2.0 Mashup List

In order to keep track of the various integration projects I am currently working on, I have created an Office 2.0 Mashup List. These projects are managed through a new Basecamp account. Feel free to contact me if you want to participate.

Calendar Sharing & Publishing

Calendar sharing & publishing is one of those things that is really hard to get right. People use many different tools and techniques to manage their time, and boiling them down into a single user interface has proven to be quite difficult. The confidential nature of many events and the interleaving of private and public […]

Office 2.0 Bug Tracker

Obviously, I am a big fan of the concept for Office 2.0, but as with any new idea, many are quick to point to where it falls short and why it won’t work. Well, let me side with those guys for a minute and preempt their arguments, because to a large extent, they have very […]

Data Backup with Office 2.0

Office 2.0 removes the need to backup your personal hard drive, but it does not mean that you should not backup your personal data. When your data is managed by reliable service providers such as Google or Salesforce.com, the likelihood that they could lose it is significantly lower than the risk or losing your laptop or getting it stolen. Nevertheless, I’d rather be safe than sorry. This article explains how I backup my data online.

Rules for Office 2.0

In defining the Office 2.0 setup I am using, the following rules are applied:

No client application other than a web browser
This is the essence of Office 2.0: one should be able to perform most office productivity tasks without having to use any client application other than a web browser. That means no email client, no word processor, no spreadsheet, no presentation tool. Nothing but a web browser. Of course, special needs create exceptions to this rule. For example, I am still using iTunes to listen to my music and Adobe Photoshop to work on pictures, but other than that, all my productivity applications are online now.

Interoperability and Service Cascading

One of the great things about industry standards is interoperability. For BPM, having a process designer based on BPMN allows us to import process models from other tools such as IDS-Scheer ARIS, while adopting BPEL for process execution gives our customers the ability to deploy their processes on our process server as well as IBM’s or Oracle’s. The same is true with Office 2.0, and here is an example of service interoperability in action.

My Office 2.0 Setup

The concept for Office 2.0 is getting more and more popular these days. Mercurytide recently published the well-written A life online: living decentralised, a list of Office 2.0 services (many thanks to Assaf for the link), while Rod Boothby is keeping his Web Office Directory constantly updated with new goodies. Not to be undone, I […]

Zoho Websheet Works

The people at AdventNet have been busy as of late. Following the development of the amazingly effective Zoho Writer, they have been working on the long-anticipated Zoho Websheet, which is the best Office 2.0 alternative I know to Microsoft Excel. The service still is in beta test, but you should expect a release very soon now.
I […]

Upgraded to Simpy

I liked del.icio.us a lot, but two features convinced me to upgrade to Simpy: first, Simpy allows you to create private bookmarks; second, it provides a REST API that I intend to use to synchronize my bookmarks with the various links I store into Salesforce.com. Obviously, I must not be the first one to upgrade […]

Browser Extensions Considered Harmful

Browser extensions such as plugins and toolbars can improve one’s browsing experience, but they also create a dependency on one particular browser setup that goes against the principles of Office 2.0. For this reason, I have decided to use them in very rare occasions only.
One of the most useful extensions is the Google Toolbar, especially for […]

Open Source in 2010

As previously mentioned, I attented the SDForum meeting on The Future of Commercial Open Source earlier today. Jonathan Schwartz was a no-show and John Markoff was replaced by Larry Augustin at the last minute. Nevertheless, Tim O’Reilly’s insight on open source, as reported by Sam Ramji, and the audience made of a who’s who of […]

Office 2.0 Communication Tools

Email is good, but sometimes something bigger, faster or noisier is required. Think bicycle versus Harley-Davidson. Well, I don’t have the Office 2.0 version of a hog quite yet, but I found the parts and have been using them successfully.
Bigger—Sending and Receiving Large Files: YouSendItThis free service lets you send large files (up to 1GB) that […]

For a New Software Distribution Model

As Martin LaMonica from CNET wrote recently, enterprise software companies are starting to feel the pinch when selling to corporate IT buyers. Commoditization through Open Source on one end, consolidation of the industry around a handful of behemoth players on the other, make it increasingly difficult for enterprise software vendors to compete in an effective manner. This article makes a case for a new software distribution model that will change the rules of the game.

Rationale for Office 2.0

I am often asked to explain the benefits of Office 2.0 over traditional approaches. Office 2.0 is all about using Web 2.0 online services instead of desktop applications, and storing data online rather than onto one’s desktop or laptop hard drive. These two little things, when applied in a systematic manner with the help of state-of-the-art services can bring the benefits that follow.

The Future of Commercial Open Source

This Thursday I will attend The Future of Commercial Open Source think tank organized by SDForum at the Network Meeting Center in Santa Clara, CA. Among other agenda items, Tim O’Reilly, Founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media and early Intalio investor, as well as Jonathan Schwartz, President of Sun Microsystems will host a roundtable moderated […]

Destination Ukraine

At Intalio, we started looking at offshoring part of our software development work in late 2004. During the first half od 2005, we focused our attention to India, flew there a couple of times, talked to about 20 firms, and finally engaged with one. After experiencing a significant turnover in the employee base of our offshoring partner, we decided that the model was not working for us and that we would be better off keeping all software development onshore, in-house.

Our primary goal with offshore had been to reduce costs, but cheaper does not mean better if you cannot capitalize on a team that keeps together over a long-enough period of time. At least this is my personal experience with software engineering. In that game, your most valuable assets walk through the door at the end of the day, and this is true offshore as much as it is onshore. This post tells the story of what changed my mind about offshore, and how we are doing it today in a very successful manner.

For a New Etiquette of LinkedIn

Yesterday, what could be described as the first union of LinkedIn power networkers was created by Christian Mayaud, one of LinkedIn’s most connected users, and certainly its most articulate commentator. The LinkedIn Lions Forum was started among rising concerns that LinkedIn Corporation, the company that has custody of the eponymous network, was not letting power networkers grow and use their networks in ways they felt entitled to.

At the time of writing, 529 users had joined the group and 270 messages had been exchanged. The issue, masterfully presented in a recent interview with Christian Mayaud, is a complex one that deserves some explanation. What is at stake is the long term viability of LinkedIn as a tool for power networkers, and I believe that a new etiquette of social networking with LinkedIn is required for the network to remain as effective as it is today.

Getting Things Done with Office 2.0

If there is one management book that significantly impacted my work last year, it certainly is David Allen’s excellent Getting Things Done. I have been using David’s methods for personal organization over the past nine months, and all I can say is that it works. If you have not read his book, I recommend that […]