On Martin Koser’s blog I found the IT Flower, a presentation about enterprise software. Rod Boothby, the creator of this presentation (framework), did a very good job with it as the image of a flower is easy to memorize and helpful to explain (or discuss) different types of enterprise software and recent developments in the field.

The only thing on this framework I am not (yet) really comfortable with is the axis of “how work gets done“. To distinguish between structured processes and ad hoc processes is in itself ok. But being applied on the IT flower I ask myself, if for example blogs or wikis (appearing as “new productivity tools”) only fit for ad hoc processes. And all of us may find some examples in which Microsoft’s Office is used (or misused?) in structured processes (let’s only think of all those MS Access data bases used for regular controlling purposes).

But when we focus more on the horizontal axis of the framework the IT Flower really is a strong tool to make recent shifts in software development visible. Enterprise 2.0, as a term being introduced by Andrew McAfee (and not yet everywhere really accepted), is bringing a totally new dimension to organize work and to improve processes. Its main focus is on collaboration, but there is also a huge influence on established software (and its traditional use). That’s what the IT Flower makes obvious.

But even quoting Eric Schmidt (Google) and drawing an insightful flower about enterprise software can’t hide the fact that knowledge in companies about web 2.0 or enterprise 2.0 still is very low. What do you think?

Like

Unlike