Rule #1: When You Find Yourself In A Hole, Stop Digging

The saga continues over at Innovation Creators:

Lotus Notes - The Asbestos of Enterprise IT

On Friday, I threw up a post saying that, actually, it was fairly easy to leave Lotus Notes.   I described a way for any half way decent coder to pull information out of Lotus Notes by screen scraping content in what Lotus Notes calls a "database".   I suggested screen scraping because it requires zero knowledge about Lotus Notes itself.   The programmer only needs to know how to crawl through websites in a given domain.   

Source: Innovation Creators

"Threw up" is probably a good choice of words. The challenge with blogging is to not approach a complex issue in a flippant manner. Application and infrastructure migration from well-entrenched products is rarely easy. Notes/Domino is no exception.

"However, once you do extract the text data, it should be very easy to layer on top tools to update the content and systems for access control layers."

Source: Innovation Creators

It's not just the text data, it's the semantics behind the information, the meta data, the metamodel, the business logic and so on.

It is important to note that the Simple Recipe for Leaving Lotus Notes calls for the screen scraped content to be put into an Enterprise 2.0 style read/write Intranet system, such as iUpload, Blogtronix of SocialText.   In each of these web based content management and collaboration systems, the screen scraped content can come alive in a new dynamic environment.   The right end users can continue to edit things like your travel policy.

Source: Innovation Creators

Here's a mouthful "Enterprise 2.0 style read/write Intranet system". Excuse me ... we've just added more hyperbole and jargon on top of the over-hyped Web 2.0 meme. What if I have serious records management, compliance, identity management and security needs? What if I have offline requirements? And can someone outline for me exactly why these tools are "enterprise 2.0 style read/write Intranet systems" and others are not? What exactly are the criteria from a functionality and technical perspective? What business capabilities do these types of systems have to support?

Again -- as I said in an earlier post -- in terms of user experience, design, collaboration, community, social networking and edge vs. core perspectives, there is a lot I agree with when it comes to Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 -- especially around organizational dynamics. But the false prophet claims begin when people then exclude a lot of existing technologies simply because they don't have the sizzle of what might be out there now from specialized vendors (typically start-ups trying to claim some high ground to differentiate from entrenched market leaders). These specialized vendors know that they will have to add the type of features found in existing vendors but downplay those aspects (what a surprise). Many Web 2.0 / Enterprise 2.0 enthusiasts also downplay these issues as well. Yet organizations invest in technology over a long time period and needless rip-and-replace is rarely justified unless vendors stop adapting. In this case, IBM and Microsoft are adapting -- perhaps not as swiftly as we would all like -- but organizations (large enterprises) need migration and co-existence frameworks to support existing systems in addition to new capabilities.

Instead, I view knowledge workers as Innovation Creators, constantly evolving their business technology, process and people to handle new situations.   In today's globally competitive market, they are forced to constantly improve upon the way they do business.

McKinsey calls this kind of work "tacit interactions".   Tacit Interactions are gray areas of business.   Areas that require expert subjective judgement.   And constant changes in the business process.   If you build systems, you have encountered this in the form on constant changes in the system specification.

Source: Innovation Creators

I agree. But why does that exclude tools such as IBM Notes/Domino and Microsoft SharePoint? Or others. Do we really think that typical users in large organizations think about Web 2.0 or Enterprise 2.0? Perhaps it is just the fashion of the day -- like going to school with the socially accepted backpack. Most users and teams simply want to get their activities accomplished by working in a way that fits their individual and collective workstyle and lifestyle (for those remote and highly mobile). That might entail using a wiki or a blog or a virtual workspace or a web conferencing system or an instant messaging platform or taking advantage of the personalization features of an enterprise portal or a subscribing to a set of RSS feeds. Users should not have to feel badly or ashamed that they are performing at a high level using tools that some might not classify as a "Enterprise 2.0 read/write Intranet system". Such perspectives I find are quite egalitarian and somewhat condescending towards information workers and IT strategists alike.

We should be spending far more time on the organizational dynamics rather than arguing about the technology instantiation. There is a lot of valuable and innovative thinking around Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 at the level of how organizations are structured, the role of institutions, how to leverage the collective dynamics of people, groups and networks, and the influence of user-generated content and applications. The mistake we so often make as media pundits and IT professionals is taking good ideas and then implying that only certain vendors and technologies need apply. History has proven that type of thinking (putting technology first) to be flawed.

Comments

[Brett]

Great post Mike.You highlight the challenge I face daily working on collaboration strategy within the IT department of a large organisation. For a great deal of the Enterprise 2.0 arena the focus needs to be on the social behaviours they encourage and espouse and how these can benefit the organisation. Much of this is unproven in an enterprise setting yet we believe a great deal of promise lies in this area. Yet I find us constantly being distracted by premature debates around the technology underpinnings rather than agreeing that various technologies could serve the purpose and focusing our efforts on targeted approaches that allow us to validate and therefore adopt early on a targeted basis.