SOA/Enterprise 2.0. The Rebel Alliance takes on Deathstar-2.0

What is the driving force for *2.0 in the enterprise? Deathstar-2.0 jokes aside, Billy (Fusion ECM) and Jake (AppsLab) have been nutting this out. Billy's in the "its all about the data" camp, and Jake's taking the "power to the people" stance. Bex has chipped in with a view that "its about knowledge".

You may think its a cop-out, but I think its a case of you're all right. Depends on what perspective you want to take.

Yes, its all about me, but in the same way that driving around town is all about me. Until a semi wants to cut into my lane. On the road we have established ways of collaborating to keep things moving nicely (signals, lane markers, the odd toot of a horn). It's all about me in the sense that I want to safely get to where I'm going. But the roads department has a broader objective.

I'd suggest that the real difference with Web-2.0 in the wild is that there really is no broader objective to speak of. I blog. I like. That's good enough for me.

But in an enterprise, there's always an over-riding agenda that's bigger than any individual: profitability, customer satisfaction, market share etc. If that's not front of mind, you deserve a pink slip .. give you lots of time for facebook!

With that in mind, I'd like to share a visualisation of the enterprise I call the "SOA Sphere". Not perfect, by tries to cram a number of key concepts together:

• Information (data/knowledge) is the core asset of an organisation


• Business Services/processes/applications collaborate with users and act upon the knowledge base


• Security is an all-encompassing capability; a key enabler of innovation


• People live, breath and work together in the environment that these services create. No distinction really between employees, customers, partners or the great unwashed