The Tech Evangelist2008-07-04T18:07:55ZJP MorgenthalCopyright 2008, JP MorgenthalSPHPBLOGInformation in Exile 1) I don't want to blog where I'm blogging anymore, but is there a way to easily move my entries to an alternate site? (NOTE: I have not researched the availability of tools to do this yet, so they may exist)
2) Now that I'm moving my blog, where should I move it to? Google, Facebook, Windows Live, ....?
3) Is blogging still important, or is it now more effective to just post notes around the web like the bulletin board on college campuses? I received great visibility on posting a link on Plaxo Pulse.
]]>http://www.avorcor.com/morgenthal/index.php?entry=entry080603-0926242008-06-03T00:00:00Z2008-06-03T00:00:00ZProductivity losses from Facebook should exceed the Web + IM combined Facebook is a productivity sink (unless you're a Facebook developer, then you're doing pretty well). Expand your network while trolling friends networks, write on their walls, play a few games against your friends, send them some karma and try on some superpowers. These are just a small sampling of the activities available to your common cubical dweller.
Does this mean Facebook is bad? No, individuals needs to take responsibility for their own actions. Using Facebook on your own time is probably a lot of fun. Doing it on your company's time is wrong, as is personal email and phone calls. However, that's never stopped employees from abusing these privileges and it won't stop now. Companies may have to limit access to Facebook and other social networking sites that don't have redeemable business value, such as LinkedIn.]]>http://www.avorcor.com/morgenthal/index.php?entry=entry080527-2140102008-05-28T00:00:00Z2008-05-28T00:00:00ZThe Most Important Lesson I've Learned About the Information Technology Industry A design is only as good as the potential for it to be put it into practice.
I tend to come up with extremely elegant, agile and extensible designs. What I've learned, however, is that not everyone sees the elegance of the design as quickly as I do. They either are unable to see the value because of lack of experience or because other pressures are forcing them to limit their attention span to produce less elegant solutions faster even if they might incur the cost of having to be re-designed at a future point in time.
While I am glad to finally be able to accept this truth, it is a bit disheartening, because it means that most businesses are truly limited in its ability to apply technology effectively to their business problems. However, accepting this postulate means that now I can focus my attention on how to help them injure themselves the least. Most importantly, I learned that sometimes, we have to change the requirements because we cannot change the people or the tools.
Hence my new postulate:
Faster, Cheaper, Better -- Pick any 2 People, Tools, Elegance -- Pick any 2]]>http://www.avorcor.com/morgenthal/index.php?entry=entry080526-1131422008-05-26T00:00:00Z2008-05-26T00:00:00ZIs it a sin to like Microsoft? I thought about using Google Mail, as I just set up my daughter's Dash with it and it works fine, but the Dash has a built in client for Microsoft Live accounts and, well, it's just simpler to use than going all the loops and twists to make Google mail IMAP work on the phone.
Once I was in and exploring my new Live space and inviting people in, I began to think about all the criticism that would soon be flying my way. After all, I was signing up for the Borg version of a personal site. Then I began to get a little annoyed. What's so bad about using Microsoft's products if they meet your needs? Have we gone so far to the left in the computing industry that we can only use products from Microsoft's competitors? Am I creating the mortal sin of going against the all powerful Google/Facebook/Yahoo! contingent for email and an online personal space?
Look, I like .NET, I like C# better than Java, I like IIS better than JBoss and I like ASPX better than JSP. Why? I find that I'm able to do more with these tools faster with less effort. That's my personal opinion. Sure I wish I could do all this on an open source platform (yes I know about Mono), but that's still a project, not a product.
Truth be told, I think Microsoft develops some pretty good tools. ]]>http://www.avorcor.com/morgenthal/index.php?entry=entry080520-1704182008-05-20T00:00:00Z2008-05-20T00:00:00ZWhen did I get old? It's not the platform, because Google has better widgets and better infrastructure. LinkedIn connections have more business value than Facebook connections. Ultimately, the value of Facebook comes down to fact that our youth have too much time on their hands and are willing to share more useless information than any generation before.
At this point I realized that I'm no better than an adult in 1965 telling other adults that "those Beatles are a bad influence on the kids." Its not like I don't see the value in using technology to connect up and share information. If I didn't see that value, I wouldn't have joined the movement behind XML and Web Services in its infancy. I just never dreamed when we created those early standards that they'd be used to speed the sharing of a picture of a teen's derriere.
As I get older, I also am very concerned that we have created a generation of individuals that don't know how to communicate without the support of an electronic device. I watch my teenage children, they talk to their friends over AOL, SMS, Wii, Facebook and e-mail. When there's somewhere to go or when planning to get together, its a stream of SMS messages.
I don't know when I got old, but I'll be darned if it didn't happen. Hey Frank, screw you, being young at heart doesn't stop you from totally not getting the real youth!]]>http://www.avorcor.com/morgenthal/index.php?entry=entry080517-1617122008-05-17T00:00:00Z2008-05-17T00:00:00ZMcCain Names Drawdown DateMcCain Names Drawdown Date
John McCain announced that he'd win the war and bring the troops home by 2013. I wonder how much he's betting on the Mayan apocalyptic prophesy for 2012. If the 2012 prophesies turn out to be nothing more than an astrological Y2K, McCain's might be in big trouble!]]>http://www.avorcor.com/morgenthal/index.php?entry=entry080515-2147472008-05-16T00:00:00Z2008-05-16T00:00:00ZThe Corporate Brain For people, this is most recognizable when considering addictions, such as smoking or alcoholism. Unless the person consciously works to change their behavior, then the brain will continue to force the person to repeat their addictive behaviors. In it's less recognizable form, people gain new neural pathways when they create new memories. Until they access those memories, those pathways will exist, but not be accessed.
What this tells us is that companies need to take extraordinary efforts to bring new team members into the fold. I am familiar with many companies where a handful of individuals become identified as "heroes"--the group of individuals that are known because they consistently deliver. In these same companies, I've also seen many very capable individuals that are not getting a chance to participate and contribute because the company's natural behaviors are to go to the "heroes" first. One could say this is their addiction.
Overall, the hero syndrome works well for companies with regard to responding to crises situations. However, most companies don't measure the downstream impact of the hero situation on the rest of the organization. For one, it creates animosity for others capable of fulfilling the needs of a given situation, but not given the chance. Secondly, the company is at risk in the event that a hero leaves the fold. It's a short term impact though as this is an event that will force the company to access one of it's new neural pathways, thus raising one or more others up to the new rank of hero.
For me, the larger issue at hand is overall productivity. The company is a machine. When it leverages only known neural pathways, the machine is not running as efficiently as it can and the company is spending money on resources that are not being fully leveraged. By not expending the necessary energy to force the machine to change with the introduction of new neural pathways (new resources) it cannot scale efficiently. ]]>http://www.avorcor.com/morgenthal/index.php?entry=entry080515-1839232008-05-15T00:00:00Z2008-05-15T00:00:00ZThe Architect's Dilemma Those who have worked in software development, whether in corporate IT or in commercial software companies are most likely familiar with the analogy between building software and building buildings. That is, the architect designs the building and the software developer builds the building. Sometimes there is the equivalent of a structural engineer, but most often times the analogy is left in its simple form as a means of differentiating the roles and to demonstrate the separation of concerns and skills.
The importance of the analogy is to instill that without proper architecture up front, there is significant risk your building might fall down. However, the aspect no one discusses of this analogy is that the engineer is on site full time during the build out, while the architect does 80% of their work up front and then might provide intermittent reviews while the build out is occurring.
How do general contractors deal with this? They hire architectural firms to perform the design and review function. How do organizations deal with this function with regard to software? They hire the architect full time. Hence, the architect’s dilemma--what they heck am I supposed to work on when no new buildings need designing?
Additionally, it’s not uncommon to find that most commercial entities start building their software with engineers alone foregoing the architecture until a crises occurs, resulting in the answer, “let’s get an architect in here.” The belief here is that the architect will save the day and make sure all the buildings under development will meet coding standards and remove all future worry. Oh yes, and this is all to happen without tearing down the building and starting from scratch.
The architects answer of, “you need to start this over and do this right,” is often met with rejection and animosity toward the architect. Moreover, usually an engineer will come up with some hack to get the build out going again, which results in the architect now a full time expensive resource who in their mind couldn’t even come up with the simple answer that some engineer 1/2 the price figured out.
This all results in the architect stuck in a position where they deem all those in charge around them to be blithering idiots who have no care for the quality of the things they build as long as it leads to the end result of recognizing the revenue. In the case of real buildings, this approach cannot occur because life and death are at stake. However, in the case of software, since the impact to the actual business is minimal, when compared to loss of human life, the organization ends up with a group of hackers that look like heroes and a few architects wondering how they got into the mess they’re in.
Hence, it is my belief that until the IT industry recognizes software architecture in the same way as construction recognizes building architecture, that software architects will forever be frustrated by their situations.]]>http://www.avorcor.com/morgenthal/index.php?entry=entry080510-1817012008-05-10T00:00:00Z2008-05-10T00:00:00ZWhen Agility is Absent, The Customer Suffers Again, my experience surrounds the rollout of their new online program and exchange benefits. As it turns out, the connection between Blockbuster retail and Blockbuster online is stove-piped. Hence, the retail stores support the program, but are not directly responsible for it's business unit.
How do I know this? What else is there to do but talk when you're waiting for the store manager to come override an issue at the register due to an inadequate IT support for a new business initiative.
What I saw as the result of this inability to deliver support for new business initiatives in a timely fashion was: A) my time was wasted, B) the people behind me time was wasted and C) the store employees grew more and more frustrated with these issues.
Retailers need to realize the cost of not having agile systems, will eventually be reflected on their employees and in front of customers. For me, it is to the point where I am re-evaluating NetFlix once again.]]>http://www.avorcor.com/morgenthal/index.php?entry=entry071201-1028162007-12-01T00:00:00Z2007-12-01T00:00:00ZThe Parable of the Supply-Chain (what Avorcor does) However, the king soon realized that Erp couldn't help him in obtaining the foods he wanted to eat when he wanted to eat them and didn't know where the king's favorite playthings were stored in the kingdom. So, the king creates three new minions to help him run the kingdom -- WiMuS, TiMuS and SCisM.
For awhile King Ceo was happy because the kingdom was now running smoothly and he was able to have whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it and he knew where everything was in the kingdom. However, before he knew it, King Ceo realized that his kingdom was now split into four distinct factions that refused to work together and King Ceo was once again saddened by his new situation. Moreover, King Ceo couldn't just remove the minions because they had become so deeply rooted in the workings of the kingdom and each had their supporters within the kingdom. To remove any one minion would risk causing major disruption to the entire kingdom.
Then, one day, a King from another land came to conquer King Ceo and because the kingdom was split into factions, King Ceo did not have an accurate picture of how he would defend the kingdom from attack. The King was also only getting partial information from each minion that was designed to make them look better in the King's eyes.
So, King Ceo did the only thing he could, he created agents of the kingdom and had them infiltrate Erp, WiMuS, TiMuS and ScisM's factions and report on all their activities. And, finally, the King had a complete view of his kingdom and was able to assemble a defense that allowed him to fend off the attackers and even take over their kingdom.
Avorcor produces the agents that infiltrate your multiple factions and allow you to create an accurate picture of your company and develop strategies that will help you to succeed.]]>http://www.avorcor.com/morgenthal/index.php?entry=entry071107-2205332007-11-08T00:00:00Z2007-11-08T00:00:00ZWhat Does "as-a-Service" Really Mean? Case in point, use of the term "as-a-Service". What does it mean if being semantically accurate? It means being delivered as a service, thus serving a consumer. How does that translate into a business model where the software is rented on a use basis? Isn't that Software-as-a-Rental or Software-for-a-Fee?
Software-as-a-Service means software acting in the role of a service provider, the software, not the company providing the software. So, something delivered "as-a-Service", to me, means that something is being served up to consumers. It would be great if that's what the majority of the world understood SaaS to be--software being provided as a service to a community--but they believe it means Software-as-a-Rental and they think that because the marketeer's created that association in their minds.
We chose Supply-Chain-as-a-Service for the name of our product suite, because we turn the supply-chain into something that is serving up metrics, notifications and data to a community of users that are interested in that information. Instead of the supply-chain being something that just operates, we make it something that can be instrumented. We believe this change will dramatically change the way that businesses respond to supply-chain activities. We also believe that it's possible because we turn the supply-chain from something that acts in a vacuum to something that provides a service to the organization and it's business partners.]]>http://www.avorcor.com/morgenthal/index.php?entry=entry071103-1409412007-11-03T00:00:00Z2007-11-03T00:00:00ZIf Blockbuster Was Service-Oriented, They Could... Why do I say this? Blockbuster most recently changed their online distribution plans from unlimited in-store exchanges to plans that limit how many in-store exchanges you are entitled to a month. READ: THE BUSINESS PROCESS CHANGED
If you as a consumer go into a Blockbuster and ask how many exchanges you have left in a month, they tell you they don't have that information available. READ: IT COULDN'T RESPOND QUICKLY ENOUGH TO MEET THE NEEDS OF THE BUSINESS.
If Blockbuster's system was service-oriented, they could have easily implemented the necessary services and deployed the change to the POS to call those services and deployed the changes when the business process change occurred. Instead, now the customer and the employees in the retail outlets are frustrated and annoyed. Additionally, the retail outlet cannot tell you when you are checking out if the title you are holding is on it's way to you, so I've had about 3-4 collisions where I rent a title only to get home and find the title in my mailbox.
Blockbuster, give me a call, I can fix this for you....oh, and I'll also fix your loophole for in-store exchanges.]]>http://www.avorcor.com/morgenthal/index.php?entry=entry071030-2020022007-10-31T00:00:00Z2007-10-31T00:00:00ZEnterprise SOA is a Lark Without Organizational Change I explained that I believe that Enterprise SOA without organizational change is a pipe dream. You cannot have a command and control hierarchy overlaid with a loosely-coupled mesh that is invasive of several domain areas simultaneously. I used the example of customer data. I said, if a company is really buying into E-SOA, then they should create an organizational unit who's sole purpose is the capture and management of customer data. If this is their sole purpose, you can bet they'd ensure reuse across the organization or they would soon be disbanded.
But, saying that you're going to make CRM an enterprise initiative and have an CRM service that all groups will use without organizational change is like Eisenhower creating a covert operations unit that was jointly owned by the military, white house and congress. We all know how well that one turned out.]]>http://www.avorcor.com/morgenthal/index.php?entry=entry071023-1617562007-10-23T00:00:00Z2007-10-23T00:00:00ZJoe Versus The Toaster This entry is about agility versus the toaster and by toaster I mean canned application that does some basic tasks well, but is costly to customize and leaves you with a bastardized application that is different than the vendor's base product. I won't reiterate here all the issues around that.
Still, it seems that this is the conversation that I am most often having with interested parties regarding our products. It seems that most technical folks get agility, want agility, but need to constantly weigh choosing agility over the toaster. The toaster is easy, it looks a certain way, has known buttons and has a well-defined interface, but handles only 50-80% of the job.
Agile allows for rapid creation of complex business processes, does not have a specific user interface, but manages the needs of the business 100%. It can have some basic data management user interfaces, but the real value to the company is to automate key cost-savings or revenue-generating business processes for optimal efficiency.
So, what is the key issue? The decision maker usually understands agile, but is concerned because s(he) just cannot see and touch the agile solution until it's done. This has to be one of the biggest issues concerning anyone that is considering moving to a service-oriented solution and I understand their concerns. Still, this hurdle needs to be overcome if we are going to proceed to the next plateau of computing.]]>http://www.avorcor.com/morgenthal/index.php?entry=entry071023-1242122007-10-23T00:00:00Z2007-10-23T00:00:00ZSOA Services Does Not Need To Equal Stateless The bank holds my money.
There a hundreds of examples of stateful services in the real world, so why are many architects recommending stateless services for SOA?
I believe the cause behind this stems from a lack of understanding of service-orientation and a too much technological perspective surrounding SOA. You would not want a Web Service in a SOA-designed application to require stateful messaging because it would limit scalability. However, that does not mean that a service cannot maintain state on behalf of the consumer returning information about that state and acting on that state over time.
I've been working with replenishment systems and JDA E3 Advance Warehouse Replenishment takes a new feed of data every night, combines it with the data its aggregated over time regarding a set of products and then determines what items need to be purchased from suppliers. This is more a service than some of the services I've seen released by so-called SOA vendors. And, even though some would call this a batch-based system, it still meets the criteria for a service in an SOA in my book.
Which illustrates that batch ain't always bad. After all, replenishment is not a real-time activity, nor does it need to be and I'm a big believer that a well-designed service sits somewhere between batch and real-time. ]]>http://www.avorcor.com/morgenthal/index.php?entry=entry071020-1840162007-10-20T00:00:00Z2007-10-20T00:00:00ZFor Some, Inventory Management Is More Than Quantity and Location For example, how many locations is the items stored in? Should one location's items be used before another? Is there a cost associated with storing an item (e.g. scan-based trading)? What are the different units of measures stored in that location (e.g. 2 inner-packs and 12 cases)? Can items be easily grouped together and then broken down? Can I reserve a particular item within a particular case within a particular lot?
These are just some of the questions that arise when managing inventory, unless of course, you are managing inventory as a subprocess, which then means you have data duplication, perhaps even synchronization, and thus, potential for error.
Robust inventory management requires users to dynamically assign multiple attributes about the items and where they are stored, which is why our 4.0 version of the location management service allows users to create very powerful dynamic relationships between locations and between locations and items. My belief here is that if the implementation of the inventory management system needs to be changed to support the needs of the business, it's probably not the right solution for your inventory management needs.