In other places I’ve seen the headline ‘Google threatens Microsoft SharePoint with cloud collaboration’ which suggests Wave is ‘just another’ ‘online’ collaboration package. I’ve also seen statements suggesting it is ‘Twitter on steroids’. All of these comments relate to an old way of product comparison, based around features and functions. Pushing aside my preconceptions, my starting point is somewhat different. From my perspective, Wave relates to changing working practices and the need for tools to support new ways of working which in turn are being driven by new trading conditions. Of course there is also a personal lifestyle scenario to it; hence the link to Twitter, but this is a business blog so I will stay with the business use scenario.

Wolfram|Alpha's long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries. Wolfram|Alpha aims to bring expert-level knowledge and capabilities to the broadest possible range of people—spanning all professions and education levels. Our goal is to accept completely free-form input, and to serve as a knowledge engine that generates powerful results and presents them with maximum clarity.

After all, the Slow Food movement started in Italy as a reaction to a quickly degrading food culture in which more and more of the taste and experience was sacrificed on the holy altar of Agitated Speed. When a McDonalds restaurant was even opened at the Piazza Di Spagna in Rome, it was the last drop that made the cup run over (good metaphor, yes). Carlo Petrini founded the Slow Food movement and even made it to one of the Time Magazine 2004 heroes, just because he promotes the love for original food that is prepared and tasted with the time and attention it deserves.

Seems that the current approach to IT is ready for some tender loving care as well. Especially in this period of downturn, the anxiety for short-term patches may drive us in the arms of hasty solutions that only partially satisfy. Then they will leave the organisation hungrier and unhealthier than it ever was. Proper timing and focus can help us to rediscover what value we actually want to deliver through technology and what foundation we need to achieve that.

David Sprott, the well-respected founder of CBDI forum (“a think tank specializing in practices for SOA and architecture led software delivery and management”), recognises this too. He makes a good analysis of why doing things right – in Slow IT style – is necessary in an industry in which offshoring, agile development and Web 2.0 are promising, but all too often hysterically abused tools. He doubts however that organisations will be ready for Slow IT, as he sees many of them already ‘slowing down’ in terms of cutting budgets, reducing headcount and – in general – doing more with less. The emphasis is now on quick, effective results and advocating more ‘slow,’ he says, nowadays seems a bit like turkeys voting for Christmas.

The next trigger was the announcement in the Japanese press about NEC planning to reduce the price of its RFID tags to around 10% of the current cost. Seemingly, major advancements ‘in the field of semiconductor research’ will mean NEC can accept orders for 10,000 tags at $100 from July. The tags are supposedly compatible to all six global standards. This price breakthrough makes the use of RFID in areas such as retail supply chains much more viable.

I think they are doing both in Washington and we should all watch and learn from the patterns that are unfolding.

Barack Obama himself, to start with, is an excellent role model for any CEO that wants to grasp the potential of technology to transform business. He is obviously technology-savvy (without being a geek) and shows how to apply information technology in a pragmatic way. Many would argue that he got elected because of his smart use of Web 2.0 to reach out to his potential voters and mobilise a community. And after becoming elected he is still actively using all Internet channels to stay in touch with that community. Already in his campaign, he referred to technology as one of the most important tools to address the phenomenal challenges that America – indeed a complex business - is facing. Healthcare, education, energy, R&D: in the plans of Obama, technology would provide the breakthroughs to make his country leading again.

And now he is executing on the vision. Together with an impressive team.

The wish list has been in place for some time now, as well as some of the basic ingredients to build on, so we are now in the boring but critical phase of real ‘nuts and bolts’ work. I assume it’s for this reason that the announcements of real success didn’t hit the headlines too far after the ‘sexy’ announcement that the problem was being address. So what and where have we got to now?

A minor drawback indeed.

On the positive side of things Altshuller had all the time in the world to contemplate his approach. The rest is history and nowadays TRIZ (Теория решения изобретательских задач, well ok, Russian for ‘Systematic Innovation’) is one of the best known tools for anybody involved in innovation management. One of its key principles is that of Ideality. Applying it helps to overcome psychological inertia and find breakthrough solutions. This is done by focusing on the needed service, rather than on intervening problems or required resources.

Quite a useful approach when discussing the pros and cons of the cloud, so I found out this week when I was presenting a keynote at the very first Swedish cloud conference.

This explains why a constant series of new but individual web capabilities don’t justify the term. However, Apple lays claim to the term for its iPod and iPhone purchases which were needed to get access to the iTunes Store and its App Store. Email is also a good example. Was it the Killer Application that changed working practices, or was it the other way round? You can hardly have matrix working without the support email provides, yet you can argue that cheaper matrix working justifies the business case for email, as it’s a necessity, enabling capability across an enterprise to support its working practices.

"This week the hotly debated topic of climate change will be discussed as key European policy makers come together in Copenhagen for the World Business Summit on Climate Change. The summit, attended by world leaders and energy experts including Ban Ki-moon, from the United Nations; Al Gore, former US Vice President; and Connie Hedegaard, Minister of Climate and Energy for Denmark, will aim to develop policy and innovative business models to drive a sustainable transformation of the economy and stimulate job creation alongside low-carbon solutions.

A recent Capgemini study (“Long-term sustainability orientations for businesses”) looks into this topic and measures how during the current economic downturn, many companies are focusing on short-term decisions in order to overcome day-to-day difficulties, particularly in regard to sustainable development. However, it is important for businesses not to lose sight of the long-term impact of their decisions, especially because the present short term economic signals are not indicative of future challenges They should continue to invest in energy savings and in decreasing their CO2 footprint as well as in lower consuming products (as the Light Emitting Diodes to replace the incandescent bubbles). However,because of the presently low energy prices and of the lack of available project financing, the Return On Investment on these needed improvement projects is too long. This is why Government’s support to boost these investments in industry and tertiary businesses should be decided.

The starting point was John Jordan in his excellent blog called ‘early indications’, which re-examined the case for offshoring work from the USA. He argued that the original case had been purely financial, but with time and scale it seemed that the original calculations were incomplete. John started with the base financial calculation, which assumes a savings of $400,000 per job, per year, and points out that for 3,000 workers, that means over $1 billion a year in cost savings – a point at which the case would seem to be irresistible to any hard pressed enterprise with active shareholders.

It’s not just the consumption side either, it has changed the software development side too, by introducing a ready market place for anyone who has a bright idea and given them a route to market complete with revenues. With more than 35,000 apps on the site already, it seems that this message has sunk in, and therefore real innovation is being unleashed too. Sometimes it’s frivolous at one level, but shows something pretty important at another such as ‘bumping’, which was the one millionth downloaded app, www.bumptechnologies.com being the ability to bump two iPhones together to initiate an exchange of information.

Interesting thinking and at the very least, it gives an extra dimension to the panel discussion on the podium. The topic today is the eternal tension between the long term and the short term. In the panel team we find enterprise architects, IT strategists and a market analyst (no, not exactly the underprivileged). The hypothesis discussed is that the shallowness of today’s economic climate asks for a more careful, architected approach. That way, the requirements of the business can be much better aligned with solutions and it will be easier to achieve – and demonstrate – the value of IT.

A politically correct argument that nobody can really oppose to.

Unfortunately, consolidation can sometimes mean huge, centralised databases and expensive IT projects with the potential to consume large amounts of money and take a long time to deliver anything. Even once the results are delivered, sometimes the ongoing management and maintenance can be an issue. All of this is before we even address the issue of whether the data can be cleaned and consolidated, if the various departments will cooperate for common good, at what they will probably consider is at the expense of the services they deliver, etc, etc.

I won’t argue with that belief, and indeed I have touched on this point before in posts on the topic of what exactly is cloud computing. The choice of the term ‘open’ is an interesting one as the word has many connotations, and after reading the manifesto, I am not certain which ones apply, so I tend towards the thoughts expressed by Guy Barrette on his blog on this topic. On the positive side, the introduction as to the reason for the manifesto makes a lot of sense. It starts by saying the topic has reached a fever pitch with no clear definition, and then states:

One thing is clear; the industry needs an objective, straight forward conversation about how this new computing paradigm will impact organisations, how it can be used with existing technologies, and the potential pitfalls of proprietary technologies that can lead to lock-in and limited choice.

This document is intended to initiate a conversation that will bring together the emerging cloud community (both cloud users and cloud providers) around a core set of principles. We believe that these core principles are rooted in the belief that cloud computing should be as open as other IT technologies.

Compared to that, our annual Queen's Day celebration on the 30th of April is not even that hard to explain. A monarchy? Sure, why not. Charming. Celebrating the Queen's birthday when it’s not even her birthday? Probably some good pragmatic reasons for it. Grown up people dancing in the streets with orange wigs on their heads? Well, we have seen that before on live television, haven’t we. Might even get used to it one day.

Only the ‘vrijmarkt’ (freemarket), that’s still a question mark to many. An American colleague who accidentally witnessed it once did an attempt to summarise. “So if I understand this well” he said with a worried tone in his voice “your idea of celebration is to open up your attics, get the old stuff out of there and then sell it on the street to other Dutchmen?”. I confirmed, hesitantly. It did sound a bit strange, the way he put it.

On the other hand, I do support the concept. In business, that is. It is a good idea to periodically go through your belongings. Wipe away the dust and have a good, contemplating look. Some assets shine more than expected. Others, no doubt can be thrown away immediately. It cleans up and creates more room to breathe. Exactly the energy boost you need after a long, cold winter. And then even make money with it, why aren’t they doing the same anywhere else in the World?