Yesterday I was talking to a guy from a large media company about its social media strategy. The company is already successfully using social media for distributing and sharing content with its customers, but it doesn't have as much corporate presence as it might like. How might we use social media to talk about ourselves, to let people know about, say, job vacancies or our corporate ethics, he asked.
A media company is judged by its customers according to the range and quality of the content it provides - the company essentially provides a platform for this content. But how do you talk about the platform without interfering with the content? Will customers be turned off if we use the platform to talk about the platform?
At one extreme, there will be customers who really don't want to know about the platform at all. @dgwbirch tweets "I don't want to be friends with my bank, I want to be friends with my bank account. I want to follow my credit card, not my issuer".
But at the other extreme, there will be customers who may value other kinds of interaction. For example, a media company is always swamped with requests from young people for internships and work experience, and we can only grant a limited number of these requests. But suppose we could use social media to give a much larger number of young people the opportunity to develop some skills and show what they are capable of, provide them with decent feedback, and allow them to earn some token of experience that they could mention on their CVs.
Note how an innovative approach to strategy (in this case social media strategy) is driven by a quest - looking for different and innovative ways of creating direct and indirect value within our ecosystem. The widespread success of social media depends significantly on the fact that people are motivated by all sorts of things other than money.
When I was a teenager, I entered a DJ competition, for which I had to nominate three singles. I chose one current hit, one old hit, and one new release. I failed to win the competition, and I guessed that my choice had been too obscure for the mainstream. The new release I had chosen was a folksy cover version of a song by Joni Mitchell; several months later, it started to get some airplay and shot to number one. I'm sure there's a lesson there somewhere.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Unicom EA Forum
Here is my presentation from the Unicom Enterprise Architecture Forum in London on Thursday September 29th.
And here is Philip Boxer's presentation, which outlines his approach to what I'm calling the Third Agenda.
And here is Philip Boxer's presentation, which outlines his approach to what I'm calling the Third Agenda.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Notes on Interface
At an architecture workshop in Vienna last week, I put together a few slides to address some questions about interfaces. I promised to post an expanded and cleaned-up version, and here it is. Some of this material was developed with my former colleague Lawrence Wilkes. If you have more questions please ask.
Friday, September 09, 2011
The Topography of Enterprise Architecture
#entarch A lot of the terminology of enterprise architecture depends on some basic categories and distinctions, which help to define the dimensions for various schemas and frameworks.
But the meaning of these terms depends on your perspective. See for example my previous post What Does "Top-Down" Mean?
One popular categorical distinction is between “ideal” and “real”, with a progressive series of intermediate states. This category implies a process known as “realization” moving from the “ideal” towards the “real” (for which the Zachmanites prefer the mediaeval word “reification”), and a contrary process known as “idealization” moving from the “real” towards the “ideal”.
(The Zachmanites claim that this distinction derives from some unnamed ancient Greek philosophers, but I have not been able to verify this claim. The earliest sources I can find for this idea are mediaeval Christian and Arabic philosophers such as Ibn Arabi and Ockham.)
But it is interesting to see exactly what people regard as more “real”. For example, many people seem to think that the technology model is more “real” than the business model. In other words, a pattern of magnetic dots on a physical data storage device counts as more “real” than the flesh-and-blood customer that this pattern of dots represents. Such a technologically based notion of “reality” may be useful for some purposes, but it is inescapably a technological perspective. And no EA framework that uncritically adopts a technologically based notion of “reality” can claim to be free of a technological bias.
- Top-down / Bottom-up
- Ideal / Real
- Abstract / Concrete
- Espoused / In-Use
But the meaning of these terms depends on your perspective. See for example my previous post What Does "Top-Down" Mean?
One popular categorical distinction is between “ideal” and “real”, with a progressive series of intermediate states. This category implies a process known as “realization” moving from the “ideal” towards the “real” (for which the Zachmanites prefer the mediaeval word “reification”), and a contrary process known as “idealization” moving from the “real” towards the “ideal”.
(The Zachmanites claim that this distinction derives from some unnamed ancient Greek philosophers, but I have not been able to verify this claim. The earliest sources I can find for this idea are mediaeval Christian and Arabic philosophers such as Ibn Arabi and Ockham.)
But it is interesting to see exactly what people regard as more “real”. For example, many people seem to think that the technology model is more “real” than the business model. In other words, a pattern of magnetic dots on a physical data storage device counts as more “real” than the flesh-and-blood customer that this pattern of dots represents. Such a technologically based notion of “reality” may be useful for some purposes, but it is inescapably a technological perspective. And no EA framework that uncritically adopts a technologically based notion of “reality” can claim to be free of a technological bias.
What does "Top-Down" mean?
#entarch There seem to be several different ways people use the term “top-down”.
In a debate on community regeneration, Matthew Mckeague writes "What I don’t think can be forgotten in the ‘bottom up’ ‘top down’ debate is that it shouldn’t be a binary choice. There’s a balance to be struck and professional skills and networks can’t be underestimated. It’s where the balance sits that we need some further debate."
See also The Politics of "Top-Down"
- Management hierarchy. Top-down means traditional command-and-control. See my post on Multiple Styles of EA.
- Decomposition/Refinement. Top-down means starting from broad vision and principles; bottom-up means starting with concrete detail and evidence.
- Large versus small. Top-down means starting with the big pieces and assuming that the small pieces can be fitted into the gaps left by the big pieces. See Nick Malik's piece Should SOA be Top Down or Bottom Up, which I discussed in my post on Service Planning.
- Planned versus emergent. Top-down means directed and planned, bottom-up means collaborative and emergent. See my post on Emergent Architecture.
- TO-BE versus AS-IS. Top-down means starting from the future requirements of the business; bottom-up means starting from the available assets.
- Generic versus Specific. Top-down means starting from an apriori (generalized, enterprise-wide or industry-wide) schema (Kant); bottom-up means starting from the specific local requirements (Hume). This is a possible interpretation of Ali Arsanjani's posts So is Kant right or Hume? and Back to Kant and Hume. See my post on The General and the Particular.
In a debate on community regeneration, Matthew Mckeague writes "What I don’t think can be forgotten in the ‘bottom up’ ‘top down’ debate is that it shouldn’t be a binary choice. There’s a balance to be struck and professional skills and networks can’t be underestimated. It’s where the balance sits that we need some further debate."
See also The Politics of "Top-Down"
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