March 2007

In business you have masses of reports and documents that represents one single object – order sheet, invoice, shipping papers, production reports, sales reports, support reports – no end to error sources and checks, balances and reconciliation are required…. One single system, The real world object is the thing of interest, represent that with one single data-object that captures all that happens to it…. No more pre-set accounts, abolish accounting (required GAAP reports can be produced out of sight deep down in the basement for the government accounting trolls) and develop Your Own Measurement Methods. Here’s a suggestion: Imagine that a widget procured by your firm is represented by a widget-data-object and that the widget-data-object is punted from a procurer to supplier to the shipper to the chap on the dock. The widget-data-object presenting work orders and input fields in each step – “Hi, I’m your blue widget with serial number 2346 just arrived from supplier X, please move me to the warehouse…. The widget-data-object not only supplies the work order and information needed, but also captures what happens to the real widget in real time.

Author Lee Bryant says (among other things) in the context of SaaS: Despite the hype and hope invested in SaaS, at Headshift we still spend far too much time banging our heads against a brick firewall and sometimes overcoming the most absurd levels of bureaucracy to do some basic computing and networking tasks. Right now, it is far easier to integrate external data and application services and bring it inside the firewall to complement internal systems than it is to share internal systems with external applications…. I’m willing to admit that saas faces the problem of data integration just as much other applications…. If their AppSpace offering takes off in any way then it has the potential to become the natural social computing partner to the main SFdC applications…. Although many of the article comments are aimed at the barriers to social computing, I am heartened by Lee’s observation that: …more people thankfully are reaching out to use simple web tools to work around the organisational calcification of conventional IT. They are often the people you and I both talk to in many companies, and the encouraging thing is that they are to be found almost everywhere, even in what are ostensibly the most conservative organisations.