Enterprise Services - At the speed of Internet innovation

Not too long ago, virtually every customized application required significant programming by a professional staff to implement the needs of an enterprise.  Then came Object Oriented Programming (OOP) as the saviour where the average Joe or Jane would be able to pick and choose from a world of programming objects, do a few clicks of the mouse and voila instant application. 

We'll it did not really turn out that way, but that does not mean that the thought was in vain.  The rise of customizable collaboration tools has hit the Web with a vengeance, making new business empires in the process.  Today, information organization has changed from filing systems to search systems.  Can't find the zip code for a city, you don't go to the US Postal service site, you hit a search engine and within seconds, you have your answer.

Want to organize your life and communicate with friends, there's Facebook and MySpace.  Need to share documents, there are offerings from Google and Microsoft (and plenty of others).   We are quickly becoming used to the availability of applications that are a click away that can serve multiple business purposes.  When we are deprived of these services, our productivity is significantly impacted.

Unfortunately, in many cases these essential tools are not available on the inside of a corporate enterprise network being blocked by network access policy or limited by corporate proprietary information policy.  So, as many organizations have found out, that as much as Internet access and good internal mission specific applications are critical for business operations, self-service collaboration applications on the inside of the corporate network can be just as critical.

Tired of creating a volumes of unorganized, non-searchable documents for customer service information, business process and procedures, competitive intelligence, product descriptions, and a myriad of other similar information?  These can all be developed and managed and supported by the appropriate functional or cross-functional organization within a business.  Wiki software and authoring tools are commercially available, at very attractive pricing I might add, that can be placed directely in the hands of those that are responsible.  This gets IT system administrative support out of the way for document changes and user access changes.  By assigning moderators to the Wiki environment, enterprises are finding that they can eliminate the barriers and this ensures that extremely high-quality and up-to-date information can be shared across the entire business, not just a single group within an enterprise.  Combined with a high-quality search engine, staff from across the company can search, view, and comment on information without having to drive through a myriad of hyperlinks that always seem to lead either nowhere or in a circle.

It is clear that an Enterprise Services environment, one that address not only access, remote access, network performance, and raw computing services for example is and should be a critical component of every company's or government agency's plan.  Instant messaging, self service websites that enable business process flow (e.g., Microsoft SharePoint), Wiki tools, and search engines are the tools that enable virtually instantaneous creativity by staff to organize information, get it shared, and let it be found.

As Michael Kennedy, Assistant Deputy Associate Director for Intelligence Community Enterprise Solutions for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence characterized it, his organization finds the outside tools that can be rapidly deployed at low cost that can scale, and he lets it loose on his community.  If it takes off, then it's a hit and an organizational success.  If there are few users then he throws it away.  With no two year requirement and two year development cycle, finding the right tools is nearly risk free and just plain nearly free.

In addition, there is always the next thing, being developed by thousands of large companies and entrepreneurs.  As these tools hit the Internet, it's like having your own research lab and beta test environment at no cost.  Why not put them to work for your organization?

Yes, you can have common Enterprise Services that adapt to users needs at the speed of the Internet.