The IT Flower and Enterprise 2.0
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?
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Hi Matthias,
Thanks for the post. I think you point out an interesting issue. Perhaps the axis should be “How work should get done”. You are correct to point out that, today, many knowledge workers both must do ad hoc transactional work and followed structured processes. And in both cases, today, they use MS Office. In other words, they are using tools designed for ad hoc knowledge work to try and do things that the tools were not designed for and are not well suited to.
Great comment. I’ll have to alter the paper to include your feedback.
- Rod
Thanks Rod for your comment! I have seen so many examples where project work started using MS Office. Later, the results led to a more or less strutured process and people continued working with their excel sheets designed during the ad hoc project work…
But we have to see that MS Office has got advantages on this topic, too. Think of an Access data base regularly used (structured process). Now a project gets started and the team simply uses a copy of the normal data base in order to try out new things. This is an easy and practical shift which can help to save a lot of time (in the project work).
Hi Matthias,
A really interesting issue: the knowledge-content in web 2.0 companies. As Dilbert said: “Web 2.0 is a platform” and I think that says a lot already. The interesting thing about platforms is that they are really hard to compete with, unless you build your own platform. But as tools become more widespread for building them, the Intellectual Property and Network-value of single platforms becomes less and less valuable.
Both me and Jeremy have written about this in some form or another. Jeremy complaining about how open source is hurting IP and me about how I see the internet as one big pile of process innovations.
Andy Oram on O’Reilly Radar had interesting thoughts about the current age and what comes after it. Even more important was the discussion afterwards. The fact is that we are surrounded by lots and lots of data now, but we are only at the forefront of really using it. Tim O’Reilly speculated that the manufacturing age would follow, which I would interpret as the age where we shift the networks we have built on the internet to devices. Imagine a Facebook-phone, just for your friends!
In other words, I don’t think the flower-paradigm is fully grown into a tree yet. There will be definitely be other “Types of work” following Knowledge apps.
Love it! Very interesting concept, but I think it mixes a number of things that aren’t related, like SOA (a software design architecture) and SaaS (a software business model).
Hi Jeremy,
You are correct that they are different things (SOA & SaaS), but they point of the framework is to show that they are related in that both are designed to facilitate a structured process combined with transactional work. Note that SaaS and traditional enterprise software are both in the same quadrant.
Matthias,
Your example of people using an Access db as part of a structured process one day and then using a copy of that db to develop an ad hoc solution is really great. It shows clearly that there were tools that existed in that quadrant before the new class of web based tools focused on this space. The difference is that Access didn’t have true network effects, where as it is possible for web based ad hoc platform tools to have network effects.
I’ll have to point out the exception you have noted in a blog post.
[...] Tech IT Easy, wo ich gelegentlich in englischer Sprache schreibe, habe ich die IT Flower ebenfalls besprochen. [...]
Okay Rod, I understand now. Thx