Stritar's chronolog

Me vs. IT 2.0 vs. Enterprise 2.0

Wed, 30 Jul 2014 20:41:46 GMT

In 2009, I was very excited to present a few funky things we've been developing with Neolab, at the largest independent IT conference in Slovenia. The world was obsessed with "2.0" back then, and we were determined to join that hype. Facebook was already big at that point, and it was becoming clear they will make a huge impact on the future of technology. Tim O'Reilly wrote a seminal article on the topic, arguing how Web 2.0, the new generation of the internet (and software!), has changed everything.

I was amazed by the potential of Web 2.0 as well. Since my main focus is developing business oriented software solutions, I started fantasizing about the possibilities of integrating those concepts into our (serious) applications. If our clients are buying premium custom software from us, we should try to deliver more features with high added value for them. Stuff that enables co-creation and collaboration. Which we did. And called it IT 2.0.

We wanted IT 2.0 to be much more than Enterprise 2.0. At that time, Enterprise 2.0 meant using mostly third-party tools for social networking, wikis, blogs or tagging, assimilating them into enterprise environments. On the other hand, we wanted to take the coolest concepts invented by social networking, wikis, blogs or tagging, and integrate them into our solutions in new ways. You see, our software isn't social per se, our software's main goal is to solve complex and specific business problems. But we've managed to put a social layer on top of that software, making the term Enteprise 2.0 simply not awesome enough to describe it.

But Enteprise 2.0 is awesome. It's actually very awesome. If O'Reilly defined Web 2.0 in 2005, Andrew McAfee defined Enteprise 2.0 in 2006. He was one of the first who has studied the implementation of social software (such as social networking, wikis, blogs or tagging) into enterprise environments. In doing that, he developed the fundamentals of Enterprise 2.0, naming it SLATES (Search, Links, Authorship, Tags, Extensions, Signals). This concept was later on extended by Dion Hinchcliffe with FLATNESSES (adding Freeform, Network-oriented, Social, Emergence) and the 4Cs by Niall Cook (Communication, Collaboration, Connection, Cooperation).

But social software (like any other software) is usually just a means to achieve something greater. The truth is, implementing Enterprise 2.0 tools into the enterprise isn't enough to make collaboration and open innovation work, organizations need to fundamentally change as well. Enterprise 2.0 enables a completely new way of doing business, walking hand in hand with lean and agile approaches, seeking new opportunities in connecting employees, clients, partners, suppliers and even competition. It supports the new global and connected world. But it requires a new way of thinking and a deep corporate culture change.

Organizational culture (change) is very important for innovation and adaptability, but in the academic field, pieces of this equation are missing. Until now, there haven't been many studies about how organizational culture impacts the implementation of collaborative environment and vice versa. But I'm set to change that fact. And I will soon need your help!

I've finally started working on my master's thesis, which will try to find out if there is connection between organizational culture and Enterprise 2.0 adoption. I have already studied 6 books and 50+ articles on the subject, and will soon deploy the survey, which will combine the OCAI (Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument) and a general Enterprise 2.0 questionnaire. Those who will help me and participate in the study, will get the final report in return, besides a concise comment / advice about their specific organization's situation (the survey is not available yet, please ping me on if you're interested). I'm sure the results will be worth the effort.

If IT 2.0 is about new generations of software and user experience, Enterprise 2.0 is about new ways of managing companies. Those who are able to implement such approaches can win big, but then again, not all companies actually have the opportunity to absorb this transformation. There are many huge obstacles for businesses to go 2.0. Stay tuned because soon, we will better understand why.

Solving global and local records in SaaS database design

Sat, 20 Jul 2013 23:50:56 GMT

Lately, we've been seriously considering developing a new version of our framework. This one is already a few years old, and besides other problems it's facing, it lacks one very important thing - it's not suited for SaaS (Software as a Service) applications. Often, we would like to host a few simple projects (like multiple web pages) in a single database, but we are also thinking about developing a product / service, which we could offer to multiple clients. Making a product for different clients that would live in the same database is not simple, and requires an architecture that is both rigid and flexible, micro-useful and scalable.

The database model we currently use is doing quite well. It's able to support complex business-oriented systems, social portals and web sites, the core tables being the same across all applications. Sure, there are many redundant things, but we are aware where we should scale-down. More importantly, we have to decide how to upgrade this database model which is used in different applications to be able to work in a single database. I'm not that fond of using multiple databases or schemas in SaaS architecture, since this is a similar situation to which we have now, and it doesn't work that well. I'm certain having the same database for different clients is most suited for our business.

This means we will be having a ClientID (ApplicationID) in all the tables that will be used by all clients / applications. But what is the best way to take care of global and local records - records that are used by everyone versus those in only a few applications?

Let's assume we are building a CMS system for many sites, for which we will be needing two global Roles (Administrator, Moderator), but one instance will have its own Role as well (News editor). There are many ways we can go.

1. Local roles

This architecture means each client having it's own Roles. It's a simple solution, very flexible, but has many flaws - the most obvious being the benefits of global functionalities. E.g. if you're and Administrator, you can restart the site. Since we now have multiple Administrators (ID = 1,3,…), features like these get a bit harder to implement, and you can end up developing a totally different application for each client.

ApplicationID	RoleID (PK)	Role
1	1	Administrator
1	2	Moderator
2	3	Administrator
2	4	Moderator
2	5	News editor

2. Global Roles with a M:N table

The other option is to have global Roles, which are attached to a single application using a M:N table. This is an elegant and very flexible solution, but from my experience, you should avoid using M:N tables if possible. Of course, there are logical cases in which you can't, but you should always consider other options. Adding another table to the equation complicates queries, makes direct data browsing less understandable, besides raising the possibilities of errors.

RoleID (PK)	Role
1	Administrator
2	Moderator
3	News editor

ApplicationID (PK)	RoleID (PK)
1	1
1	2
2	1
2	2
2	3

3. Composite key

Another possibility that comes to mind is to use a composite key, which in reality, makes a single table from the above two (Roles, ApplicationsRoles). This allows using the same IDs for the same Roles in different systems. But it also requires having a composite key, which makes other things more complicated. It prevents making simple joins (you need to make a join by both primary keys), which means all the tables joined to Roles would need the ApplicationID field as well, even if they wouldn't really require it. Not to mention this model simply calls for trouble.

ApplicationID (PK)	RoleID (PK)	Role
1	1	Administrator
1	2	Moderator
2	1	Administrator
2	2	Moderator
2	3	News editor

4. Fake composite key

Sometimes, it makes sense using an additional primary key in a M:N relationship, so you can easily join the table further. We could do this as well, making the previous case a bit more easy-going. But this situation makes all the magic that we could do across the system a bit harder - since all the joins would be made using new local IDs, we are getting too close to the first solution (you can't make joins with the RoleID field, since it's not unique).

ID (PK)	ApplicationID	RoleID	Role
1	1	1	Administrator
2	1	2	Moderator
3	2	1	Administrator
4	2	2	Moderator
5	2	3	News editor

5. NULL-able ApplicationID

A different architecture enables using global Roles that have no ApplicationID, and local Roles that have it. Each application is set to use both sets of Roles, allowing flexibility and understandability. But this model has a problem as well - we can't prevent an application from seeing a global Role - those are intended for everybody, which means that in the long run, the system would start gravitating towards not having any global roles at all, to assure flexibility. To simplify - this architecture is great, but needs something that takes care of Denying.

ApplicationID	RoleID (PK)	Role
NULL	1	Administrator
NULL	2	Moderator
2	3	News editor

5. a) Creating a table for Deny

Let's put another application (ApplicationID = 3) into the equation, which, for some reason, doesn't want to have the global Role named Moderator (RoleID = 2). Adding another table to care of Denied Roles would solve the problem perfectly, but do we really need another table? We want to keep our database with as little tables as possible, so it's easier to use. That's why we should consider extending the Roles table to handle denying as well.

ApplicationID	RoleID (PK)	Role
NULL	1	Administrator
NULL	2	Moderator
2	3	News editor

ApplicationID (PK)	DeniedRoleID (PK)
3	2

5. b) Adding two fields for Deny

In the most normalized way, we need two fields to take care of Deny - a boolean to mark we are working with a Deny record type, and an integer to tell which record we are denying. But what if we want to optimize even further?

ApplicationID	RoleID (PK)	Role	IsDenied	DeniedRoleID
NULL	1	Administrator	false	NULL
NULL	2	Moderator	false	NULL
2	3	News editor	false	NULL
3	4	NULL	true	2

5. c) Using an existing field for Deny

We could put information about which record we are denying into the existing Roles.Role field, since we don't really need it in these cases. But there's a major setback; if a non-numeric field would be accidentally stored in the denied Role, the SQL engine would throw an error.

ApplicationID	RoleID (PK)	Role	IsDenied
NULL	1	Administrator	false
NULL	2	Moderator	false
2	3	News editor	false
3	4	2	true

5. d) Using a single field for Deny

It's much easier to combine the first two fields into one, marking the record implicitly. If the DeniedID is NULL, it means we are working with a regular record, otherwise, we are dealing with a denying record. Information about which Role we are denying is stored in the same field, which works both as a boolean, as an integer.

ApplicationID	RoleID (PK)	Role	DeniedRoleID
NULL	1	Administrator	NULL
NULL	2	Moderator	NULL
2	3	News editor	NULL
3	4	NULL	2

The decision

The last architecture (5. d) is the one I think it's best. It's very transparent and flexible, and it has only one major problem I can currently think of; if only a few (of many) applications would require to share a Role, this wouldn't be possible to solve with this model, but I can live with that.

ApplicationID	RoleID (PK)	Role	DeniedRoleID
NULL	1	Administrator	NULL
NULL	2	Moderator	NULL
2	3	News editor	NULL
3	4	NULL	2

The SQL statement

I have played around a bit with the 5. d) and it works very well. Here's the SELECT statement that retrieves the records for each specific application, supporting the mentioned scenarios.

SELECT Roles.*
FROM Roles
WHERE
(Roles.ApplicationID = 3 OR Roles.ApplicationID IS NULL) --retrieve local and global roles
AND
Roles.DeniedRoleID IS NULL --use only regular records
AND
Roles.RoleID NOT IN --remove denied roles
(
SELECT DeniedRoles.DeniedRoleID FROM Roles AS DeniedRoles
WHERE DeniedRoles.ApplicationID = 3
AND DeniedRoles.DeniedRoleID IS NOT NULL
)

The same query, solved with a JOIN instead of WHERE IN, which is faster, but probably less understandable.

SELECT RealRoles.*
FROM Roles AS RealRoles --regular records
LEFT OUTER JOIN
Roles AS DeniedRoles --denying records
ON RealRoles.RoleID = DeniedRoles.DeniedRoleID --join by the ID of the role
AND RealRoles.DeniedRoleID IS NULL --but only those records that are real
AND DeniedRoles.DeniedRoleID IS NOT NULL --vs those that are denying
AND DeniedRoles.ApplicationID = 3
WHERE
(RealRoles.ApplicationID = 3 OR RealRoles.ApplicationID IS NULL) --retrieve my and global roles
AND
RealRoles.DeniedRoleID IS NULL -- take all regular roles
AND
DeniedRoles.RoleID IS NULL --that don't have a deny

Conclusion

There are many ways to solve a database model in a SaaS architecture, but because of many reasons, we've decided to use a single database with an additional foreign key that defines the client in all the required tables. One of the biggest concerns in this architecture is solving global and local records, but the model presented here takes care of most requirements a typical Saas system might stumble upon, by using a NULL-able ApplicationID, with another field to take care of exceptions that require denying.

This architecture solves most of the problems, and if you're leaning towards a single database architecture, it's probably the best way to go.

A case study in agile development: the algorithm for Ljubljana Realtime's event discovery

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 20:01:16 GMT

When we started working on Ljubljana Realtime, we decided to approach it in an agile way. Amongst others, we wanted to use a few interesting lean concepts such as rapid development, Minimum Viable Product and the Build - Measure - Learn iterations. Less than two months later, the results are in, and they are very pleasing. The MVP in the shape of an activity map was developed in a few weeks, only to show there is a lot of social noise which will somehow need to be taken under control. But that's currently low priority, since the first pivot is already taking place, slowly shifting the focus from the rich map application towards an event discovery algorithm and stream. That's where I see the most potential of Ljubljana Realtime, and in the last weeks, that's where the most work was done.

Launch

Ljubljana Realtime event discovery engine uses Foursquare trending venues and geo-tagged posts from Twitter, Instagram and Flickr to discover what's happening in real life. At least 6 people checked-in on Foursquare or two different people tweeting or posting photos in a single hour could mean something is going on. These events are posted to Twitter and Facebook, with links to the posts. A few versions of this algorithm were already deployed, each one solving new problems, resulting in a few micro Build - Measure - Learn cycles in a single month.

Iteration 1: Foursquare, no duplicates

The first version of the stream (bot) was a simple one, at that point it was meant to work as promotion for the map. The only thing it knew how to do was to wait a few hours until it posted the same thing again. I think Foursquare checkins are alive for three hours, so if a trending venue was still trending after that time, new people had to checkin and the venue was still buzzing.

Problem: Plain, no real added value.

Iteration 2: Adding activity from other sources

When we were trying to make some space on the crowded map, we started grouping posts from Twitter and Instagram by the nearest Foursquare venue, which meant having less boxes on the screen. This turned out to be quite a complex thing to do properly, but it was worth the effort. On only a few occasions, one venue would have multiple posts in a single hour, and in most cases, that meant something was happening there. This provided another very interesting potential for the activity stream. Actually, it made the stream bigger than the map could ever be.

(I love it when such things happen, when you are trying to solve a problem, and it turns out there is much more hidden behind the resolution.)

Groupping posts by a venue. Did Ljubljana Realtime just discover an athletic meeting taking place?

The next problem: Activity in some venues, specially generic ones such as "Ljubljana" would trigger the stream almost every day. Similarly, some large venues, such as supermarkets, would be trending too many times on Foursquare.

Iteration 3: Balancing the posts

The algorithm needed an update, which would lower the amount of times when a venue would be recognized as an event, either on Foursquare or on other channels. At first I though about an upgrade which would set the amount of people or tweets needed to trigger the "event discovered" action for a specific venue. This would enable us to reduce the importance of some venues, but it would also require manual work. Luckily, we came up with another brilliant idea: the more times a venue is trending, the harder it is for it to be trending again, at least for the next few days. Automatic balancing.

Venues with the most discovered events. Generic ones, besides massive places, such as train stations, cinemas, squares and shopping centers are too dominating.

The next problem: At this point, we have launched other test instances of Ljubljana Realtime (Maribor, Zagreb and Zurich), to see how the system behaves in other environments. Some cities are bigger, some are smaller, which means they produce different amount of activity. Besides, different services are used differently in different cultures.

Iteration 4: Supporting local instances

Foursquare is big in Croatia (Zagreb), but not so much in Switzerland (Zurich), which means Zagreb Realtime's stream had a lot of Foursquare trending posts, while Zurich's had a lot of "Increased activity on Twitter and Instagram" posts. It was obvious that local instances needed different algorithms. While having an option to set the amounts which would trigger the post on a specific venue would be too much to moderate, having the same logic on a specific region could work. And it does. Zagreb now needs more people checked-in on Foursquare, while Zurich needs more unique people tweeting or sharing photos.

Number of discovered events by type (Foursquare vs. Twitter + Instagram) on each day. Foursquare trending venues are dominating Zagreb, while social streams are dominating Zurich Realtime.

The next problem: The basic algorithm requires two different people to tweet/post from the same location in one hour. In case of Zurich, this amount was set to three, but it turns out this situation happens rarely, around 10 times fewer than with two people, or only two to three times a day. Obviously not enough.

Iteration 5: Improving the "increased activity" weight

You can only have a whole amount of people tweeting in the past hour. Two or three. In our case, we needed something in the range of 2 1/2. The modified solution adds the number of posts divided by ten to the number of users, which means that currently, at least two people making at least three posts in an hour will determine a trending event in Zurich. This is not a perfect solution from the event discovery view, but it does what urgently needed to be done: prevent having too many tweets in the stream.

The next problem: we currently have four Twitter accounts that tweet events for these four cities. Our target was for each of them to make around 10 - 15 tweets a day, which seems like a number that is not spam. But how can a person see which of these events is THE event?

Iteration 6: Going super venue level 2

The latest version of the algorithm now recognizes two levels of events. An event (mostly 6 people on Foursquare, mostly 2 different people tweeting), and an outstanding event (around 12 people on Foursquare, around 4 people tweeting). Our goal was to make this super event happen only once a few days, on rare occasions two times per day, and it has already happened a few times.

Sometimes super events happen, with tens of posts in a single hour, such as the one for Philips Fashion week. These events definitely require more exposure.

The next iterations

At this point, I'm very satisfied with how the algorithm works, even though a few other modifications need to be done (specially to support different days of week specifics and behavior). By measuring what is happening, learning from that information and building the next releases based on that knowledge, the activity stream logic has come a long way from the initial version. Measuring is crucial, and rarely we have went to such extent to enable this in the widest way possible (e.g. the update to balancing the posts based on the previous events would be trivial by itself, but we wanted to log things that would happen but didn't happen, besides things that actually happened).

These cycles of Build - Measure - Learn can be a lot hard work, but they provide great results, which are also very fun and rewarding. Some people simply need to see how deep the rabbit hole is. Do you have any other interesting cases or experience with this approach?

On iPhone, toys, the enterprise and of course, Windows 8

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 07:34:06 GMT

Flashback 5 years ago. In 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone, the original model, which had no 3G support and cost more than any other mobile phone. At that time, Nokia dominated the market, with almost 40% market share, and Samsung was gaining ground on Motorola, both owning around 15% of the industry sales. Funny, how things change in so little time, but what's even funnier, is how the competition reacted to the iPhone. Some of you may remember how Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, laughed at the iPhone, saying that it's pretty much an expensive toy that would never penetrate the enterprise. History proved him wrong, and we can only guess if this was one of the most bitter predictions he ever made.

Apple proved that with proper marketing, a toy can find its place in the enterprise, a place traditionally owned by Microsoft. We must understand that even if a lot of Microsoft's revenue does come from the Windows division, most of it still comes from their enterprise business (Business Division + Server and Tools). But is the enterprise ready for a radical user interface such as Windows 8's Metro? I hope Microsoft isn't overcompensating for the totally wrong estimate about the success of the iPhone, because it's hard to believe they will be able to pull something similar off. Sell another toy to the enterprise.

I love Windows Phone 7. The user interface is great, the user experience is intuitive and fun. I like what I've seen about Windows 8. I think it's fresh and modern, something that even Apple could be proud of. But what worries me is its adoption in business environments, which is Microsoft's core business. The phone and a tablet are primarily casual gadgets, the personal computer is not. And there is already quite a bit of bad press around about the upcoming new version of Windows. Some have already said the next Vista situation might happen, and that most people will stay on Windows 7, like they did on XP before.

I think the average user in the enterprise in not that tech-savvy. Imagine a 50 year old secretary, struggling with the new fundamentally different environment of Windows 8. Businesses have already had problems with implementing the new Office 2007, at it was only slightly different than the previous version (compared to the differences between Windows 8 and Windows 7). Who will pay for the massive training required by users to adapt to the new Windows? Which company will risk it?

Of course, I might be wrong and Microsoft isn't primarily interested in the enterprise with this release. Maybe they are just trying to own a bigger share of the consumer markets, and targeting mostly smartphones and tablets, hardware included. This might be an interesting strategy, since adoption of Macs has also grown with the success of the iPhone and iPad. I hope they have a solid plan behind it, because I would like to see Windows 8 succeed. Because Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7 actually did higher my perception of Microsoft, they made me believe Windows can be awesome. But to succeed, Windows 8 will have to be more than awesome, the way it's done, it will have to be so amazing my mother will be able to use it on her first try. Otherwise she won't.

The final destination, part 1: technologies and concepts enterprise IT will have to adopt

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 18:38:09 GMT

In the past years, we've witnessed a very important transformation: the consumerization of information technologies. Billions of connected users living their life online, overwhelmed by millions of information systems that have been tailored to suit their every need and desire. Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon came a long way with their products and infrastructure, but the enterprise isn't losing any time. Learning from the new paradigms and adopting new funky technologies, that have traditionally been developed in corporate laboratories. Can the Fab 4 also predict where enterprise IT is headed? And what will it become?

A few weeks ago I participated in a panel for PI-PL on Ljubljana's Faculty of Economics, where I was asked this exact question: where do I see corporate IT in 10 years. A very hard question indeed, but the more I thought about the it, the clearer it became. Enterprise data, software and technology will sooner or later integrate everything. Simple as that. But to fully understand how this will happen, we must first try to identify the most important trends that have shaped information technologies as we know them today. Yes, most of them don't have that much to do with the enterprise. But things are changing.

Cloud technologies

While cloud computing may have been present in the enterprise for quite some time, it's still pretty much dominated by web players like Google (mail, docs, etc.) and Amazon (hardware), who are also flirting with the enterprise. Who wouldn't? There are massive benefits for businesses to move their stuff to the cloud, from scalable physical Infrastructure to higher level Platform or Software as a service information systems.

Perhaps the most important thing the Cloud achieved was to render technology infrastructure irrelevant. It doesn't matter any more, what kind of environment you use. What type of security, infrastructure, servers and network you have installed. You can outsource these things to others, and it will be much easier and cheaper, while all your migrating-to-a-bigger-thing problems will be solved with a swipe of a credit card. I was fascinated that Microsoft now offers Linux based servers on their Azure cloud services, which can be changed to Windows with a click of a button. Architecture doesn't matter anymore, and this fact helps IT departments to focus on more important things than system administration.

APIs, mashups, platforms and ecosystems

Heavily connected with the whole Cloud concept, data and information never had it easier to travel from one place to another. System migrations (moving data from one information system to another) and system integrations (connecting multiple information systems into one) have always been one of the biggest challenges of IT. But the web didn't have as much resources as the enterprise, so it had to simplify things. By offering APIs (Application Programming Interface), web applications allowed others applications to work with their data in an easy way. Mashups, hybrid information systems built on top of others, were born.

Pretty much every noteworthy web service has its own API. This helped a lot of them to become a platform. You know, like Facebook and Twitter, who have created an ecosystem, where thousands of other applications live around them? Soon, similar concepts will dominate the enterprise too. There are already players like Salesforce, who not only offer business-oriented Software as a service solutions, but the also a Platform for other developers to build services on top of their services. And since everything is so open, all this data can easily be integrated with other information systems or transferred to a different environment. Modern information systems don't have problems with understanding each other, but IT departments have problems with understanding information systems, since different, more business oriented skills are needed to support these integrations.

Mobile devices and new distribution channels

More than ten years ago, when I was an Information Sciences student, there was still a debate going on about the benefits of web based enterprise information systems over traditional Client - Server architecture. In the end, the Web won, mostly because distribution was so easy, you make the update on the server, and every user gets it instantly. Employees need nothing but a browser. They are acquainted with the environment ever since they started using Hotmail, and took it for their own ever since they started using Facebook.

But today, it seems the Web is losing its ground as the leading infrastructure, since a new technology came into town. Capable mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, now enable access to information systems from anywhere, anytime in real-time. Besides, they arrived with their own app markets, which enabled a whole potential for software distribution, and perhaps more importantly, for software billing. You give a fair share to the store owner, who also promotes your solution, and you can freely focus on developing and marketing the product. It's true that mobile apps may not be as flexible as web applications, since the users need to install the updates (even though this can also be achieved by combining native mobile and hosted HTML 5), but the trend is clear. Apple already has its Mac store, Microsoft Windows will follow soon. Distribution of mobile and Software as a service information systems is becoming trivial.

Big data and The internet of things

Traditionally, banks, retailers and financial institutions have been the organizations that operated with the most data in the world. Well, things are changing, and we can only wonder who owns the most bytes today: is it Google, Facebook or someone else? Since there are less transactions than there are interactions, we can estimate consumer oriented information systems with billions of users are the biggest in existence. While this data is accessible to the enterprise to some extent, there are also hundreds of other systems the enterprise or its employees use, and they all create massive amounts of data and information, which needs to be integrated into a wider picture.

Not only that. Today, there are already are more connected devices that we have initially anticipated. These devices (cameras, sensors, tools, etc.) create even more data, which the enterprise needs to process. This trend of wired gadgets is called The internet of things, and together with the large amount of interconnectable information systems businesses use, points to one important trend: the typical enterprise was never faced with so much data and information, which somehow needs to be integrated and understood in an interdisciplinary way.

New ways of doing things, on a higher level

In the mean time, these consumer oriented (B2C) web corporation not only became a few of the biggest technology companies in existence, they've also invented new ways of how to get things done. From Google's 20%, to flat organizations without management, more and more companies (not only startups) set out to revolutionize how business is done. In the service oriented society, creativity is important, but so is productivity and the ability to ship fast. Done is better than perfect.

With new types of management concepts, such as lean and agile, modern organizations are becoming more and more flexible. Not only in doing things, but also in switching from one technology to another. These companies have developed their own way of thinking about which software to use. And it probably has a lot to do its price, how fast can you start using it, how scalable and connectable it is, and how fast can you dump if for another. IT requirements are moving to a higher level, and information systems have become just pieces of a puzzle that needs to be completed.

Design and user experience

Design and user experience probably still don't have that much to do with enterprise IT, but they are very much worth mentioning nevertheless. Face it, users are becoming more and more demanding, and software developers need to make better and better software. Even though the above mentioned facts are probably the dominating factor for the choice of which information systems the enterprise will use, design and user experience matter more and more.

Businesses have always had problems with implementing new software, educating the users, going through the whole status quo change. But beautiful and useful software penetrates faster. People perceive beautiful things to be more useful, and it's the whole intuitiveness and usability of software that helps them adopt something without too much resistance and problems. Some software vendors already found out user experience is the new competitive advantage, and in the end it may be the thing that tips the scale. But the whole point behind it is that I can see better, more clever and detailed, information systems force out older ones on an even faster pace. The whole world of information systems need reinvention, and user experience design will be the science behind these upgrades. Benefits are becoming more important than features.

Social, crowdsourcing and gamification

More than 3 years ago, I was very excited to present a concept we have been developing in Neolab on Days of Slovenian IT. I called it IT 2.0, since it meant integrating social services into enterprise software (at that time, Enterprise 2.0 was more widely used for stand-alone social software such as wikis or corporate blogs). The truth is, I didn't get the chance to sell it well, and in the mean time, disruptive social services managed to fully find their way into the enterprise. But business won't stop here; there are many other fascinating things the internet has invented that can fully be applied to corporate environments.

Gamification, the art of using gaming mechanics in non gaming environments, is getting more and more claim beyond the web. Both for motivating employees, as for motivating clients. We all like to play, so why should work be any different? And we all like to participate in something bigger, that is why crowdsourcing, where people coproduce something, can bring such exciting results. Can you see where I'm headed?

We are all human, and in the end, behaving on a very basic level. Sometimes we perform better, sometimes worse, and we all hold hidden potential even ourselves aren't aware of. That is what software in the workplace can sometimes help us discover, and it's something more and more businesses are aware of. Social, gamification and crowdsourcing are only a few approaches that can make us feel better and more motivated, and they are all concepts that enterprise IT will adopt sooner or later. Behind every company, there are only people.

The final destination of enterprise IT

These are the concepts and technologies that will shape enterprise IT of tomorrow. And with it, new challenges will emerge, together with new profiles of people, who will understand and use all of the above. These profiles, such as data scientists and business analysts, will help enterprise IT do what it was destined to do: Integrate life, the universe and everything.

But that's another story. Coming up soon.

Check out the complete The final destination series.

The future (of software) is in platforms

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 16:26:11 GMT

I don't know if you've had the chance to read What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis. You should, it's a very powerful book, even though it's been written a few years ago. Things have changed a bit since then, when Google was on top of it's game, but that doesn't mean the ideas presented in the book aren't more actual than ever. One of the chapters that made the biggest impact on me was the one about platforms and distributed systems. Google managed to conquer the world of Web 1.0 by being decentralized, allowing others to embed YouTube videos, Google Maps and Ads anywhere on the Web. This orientation provided the fuel for Google's further development and growth. Today, this way of thinking is not a competitive advantage anymore, it's becoming a necessity. As you will see, current online market leaders of various industries are not those who provide the service, they're the ones who provide the platform.

Platforms rule because mashups rule

Platforms, as opposed to products and services, allow others to build on top of them. Not thinking about control and centralization, they provide the basic building blocks other can use to develop even more products and services. In the world of Web 1.0, this meant using an embedded YouTube video instead of having your own video player, but Web 2.0 has been heavily defined by ecosystems of services built around other services. With APIs these platforms provide, developing high-level mashups has never been easier from the technical point of view, and this type of architecture benefits everybody. The platform vendor gets additional developers that extend and market it's service, while the satellite mashup gets the distribution channels, users and data they need to get somewhere faster. A modern synergy packed symbiosis.

Oren Michels, CEO of Mashery, which provides API as a service, talking for Silicon Gardens in Kiberpipa

The technology platforms

Today, pretty much all of the technology market leaders are platforms. Google allows various levels of use of it's services, from embedding things to using different APIs. Facebook's games and other apps ecosystem is huge, with providers such as Zynga already gone public. Twitter and it's massive amounts of tweets generated in real-time produced the Twitterverse - an array of fascinating high-level services. Foursquare, a geo-location network allowed other interesting concepts, such as augmented reality and games, on top of its service. Amazon offers you to build your own store, and Apple's and Android's mobile app stores are hosting hundreds of thousands of apps developers can build, deploy and distribute in short amounts of time. Salesforce offers a platform for enterprise IT, WordPress for writing and blogging tools. I could go on, but you get the picture. Platforms are the future, because they evolve collaboratively, with thousands, if not millions of people co-creating them.

A massive Salesforce conference in San Francisco, which I've visited on my Silicon Valley trip (thanks Davorin!)

The real-life platforms

Not only in software and technology, platforms in real-life are also becoming more widespread. The whole Apple iPad/iPhone gadgets ecosystem is one of the most obvious cases, where various providers offer sound systems, dongles, add-ons and other accessories that upgrade and make the original item even more appealing. Nespresso and Dolce Gusto are another interesting products. Nestlé provides the platform - the small coffee pads, which they are pushing to the market, while different manufacturers make coffee machines and other complementary products. The platform becomes more useful because of its satellites, which make the platform even more successful, turning this relationship into a virtuous circle.

Coffee machines by various vendors for Nestlé Dolce Gusto

So what should I do?

Firstly, you should embrace this way of thinking and understand what's happening. Platforms have been around since the beginning of software, even though you maybe haven't thought about them in such a way. Computer architectures, Operating systems, Programming languages and Development environments are all platforms, on a more basic level - but they provide the foundation which others can build on top of. Other platforms are build atop of these and others atop of those. Platforms are everywhere, and with every new level, they are less technically, and more conceptually oriented. Think about where you fit in.

Next, find a platform that suits what you are trying to do. Personally, against many odds, I believe more in Twitter than I do in Facebook, since Facebook is trying to keep as much as possible inside its service, while Twitter acts distributed. One of our projects is Twenity, a game we've developed around Twitter influence measuring.

If you're feeling lucky, you might want to become a platform on your own. While this may be almost impossible to do, it's something I wish I will have the chance to do someday. Neolab already has its own development framework, and if we do manage to make enough surplus or find an investor that will take us down this road, I'll be the first one in line. That is, if we don't decide to join an established platform and rather build on top of that.

Things have changed. The future (of software) is in platforms. Are you already a part of the show?

Cool Slovenian brands, part 1: Technology startups making it big

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 17:23:10 GMT

Slovenia has a surprisingly high level of technology companies that made a global impact. These startups are an inspiration to everybody, and we hope more of us will be joining them soon. Some made it with the support of different incubators, such as Seedcamp or Y Combinator, others made it on their own. They all share an innovative and outstanding product or service, proving that Slovenia is a place of very talented and ambitious people. While there are probably even more successful startups I haven't heard of or mentioned, I think these eight Slovenian technology organizations created the most hype in the recent few years.

Celtra

With the recent domination of smartphones and tablets, mobile advertising is sky-rocketing. And we are not talking only about ads inside apps, we are talking about multi-platform mobile rich-media ads. These ads go beyond the direct effect of clicking, they enable mobile branding, attracting top-level multinational companies. Celtra has developed a platform for publishing and tracking such ads, and it is so hot they've received 5 millions in investor funding.
http://celtra.com

DoubleRecall

DoubleRecall is a company that might as well save the printing industry. The internet made information more accessible, and people are willing to pay less and less for it. Banner ads don't generate enough revenue for online editions, so newspapers are trying other options, specially content paywalls and tablet editions. In the mean time, DoubleRecall "invented" a new type of ad, where you have to type-in in a few words to access the article. High recollection of something you read and type make this type of ad very effective, and advertisers are willing to pay a lot for it. DoubleRecall got picked by YCombinator.
http://doublerecall.com

Flowr

Even though Enterprise 2.0 has been around for a while, we haven't seen it penetrating business on a large scale. Flowr addresses this issue, offering a simple and effective service for online collaboration between coworkers and teams. Call it Facebook for the enterprise if you like, these types of applications surely are the future of work. The Flowr managed to become a finalist in the Enterprise 2.0 conference.
http://theflowr.com

Oust.me

The latest Slovenian Seedcamp winner, Oust.me, combines two fascinating and trendy technologies: location based networking and gamification. The game supports Foursquare and other geo platforms, and its main objective is to conquer as much territory as possible by checking-in to places, becoming an ouster. Recently, they've also introduced a risk-type game that you play in teams. Your life should be a game? Can't agree more.
http://oust.me

Outfit7

Thanks to a series of talking friends available on most smartphone platforms, Outfit7 has become one of the most successful mobile development companies, and its founder one of the wealthiest Slovenians. At this point, more than 200 million downloads of Talking Tom, Talking Santa and other characters have been made. One of the most fascinating facts about Outfit 7 is that they have identified a totally new target group - children on (parents') smartphones and tablets, which is shown by their vision: we compete against Mattel and Disney. Ingenious.
http://outfit7.com

Toshl

Toshl is a fun app that helps you track expenses on your smartphone. With more than $250.000.000 expenses tracked on different mobile platforms, Toshl managed to became a finalist on SeedCamp New York in 2011. The competition there was fierce, so they didn't receive any funding, but that didn't stop them from moving to Silicon Valley, where the real magic happens. We are standing by to hear about the results.
http://toshl.com

Vox.io

Vox.io is one of the hottest Slovenian startups at this point. After winning Seedcamp London in 2011, this company is on it's way up, being covered by influential magazines / blogs Wired and TechCrunch in the past weeks. What is it about? It's VoIP (Skype) in your browser, without installation. Besides being cool, Vox.io also introduced a few interesting new concepts, such as using an URL instead of a phone number.
http://vox.io

Zemanta

Zemanta is the original Slovenian startup success story, the winner of Seedcamp in 2007. It offers a service that allows bloggers to enrich their writing by adding pictures, links and related content to their posts. Zemanta is very important because it showed other companies they can think big, and since then, they have been paving the way for other Slovenian and East European startups. A few days ago they've announced a strategic partnership with Federated Media Publishing.
http://www.zemanta.com

The impact

These companies are not only successful, they are also very important for other Slovenian startups trying to make a difference. They've become the foundation and mentors of a new mentality that's coming to this part of Europe, and they deserve all the respect. We are trying too, with Neolab and Twenity, and hopefully someday we will become members of similar lists. Until then, it's only fair we support them, by using their services, helping them, or just spreading the word about their awesomeness. We should be proud some of us have actually made it this far.

Trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners. Martin Strel image courtesy of Martin Strel Swimming Adventure.

Check out the complete Cool Slovenian brands series.

I feel sLOVEnia. I really do.

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:25:27 GMT

Not that it's the best slogan ever. I always preferred "Slovenia, on the sunny side of the Alps", which was somehow forgotten / lost / stolen in the mean time, but "I feel" it's still much better than the previous "Slovenia invigorates" we've been seeing. Each slogan tells a story, but together they tell another, wider story, a story of a nation looking for its identity in these confusing times of globalization and recession. But we may not be as confused as it seems, these past weeks have shown there is much determination around. Much love, displayed in the huge amount of support and sincere wishes I received after we've launched Twenity. I felt sLOVEnia, finally!

Even in the making of Twenity, people were helping us, commenting, blogging about it and lending us their Twitter accounts for testing. The launch went great, the whole wwwh community and others took Twenity for its own. We've made contact with successful Slovenian startups (more on them some other time) and exceptional individuals, all prepared to help and support us in any way they can. Everybody's curious about what's happening and where we are going. And quite a few think Twenity could be it.

But why the surprise? Well, even though Slovenians are very capable, they are traditionally also a bit protective and envious, not really wishing their neighbor would succeed with something or have a bigger car. We often lack the ability to find unity (as displayed by the current political crisis in the worst time possible), but at the same time wish we could stand united the way some other cultures can. But it seems new values have finally come around, backed up by ideas that Slovenia could truly be the next Silicon Valley. Ideas brought by a new generation of technology entrepreneurs, experiencing them on their own skin in San Francisco.

Tomaž Štolfa from vox.io said that the entire IT sector in Slovenia couldn't form a corporation as big as Apple or Google, and he is more than right. We shouldn't compete between ourselves, 5 mobile operators are more than enough for 2 million people. We should think big, and technology is where I FEEL we can make it, it's where i recognized LOVE and wider thoughts. I see capable people everywhere, and it's overwhelming. Together, we could do something special, bypassing the current political and economical fuckup. And I know you feel it to. Thank you for that.

Trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners.

The great technology wars and the transition of software from B2B to B2C

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 11:25:14 GMT

The epic article by Fast Company about the technology wars of 2012 provides great insight into what's happening in Silicon Valley and software in general these days. Four players, or the Fabulous Four, are mentioned to be the real market and innovation leaders: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google. Each of these companies found its place where it dominates and invents new business models, and each one is a role model for new generations of technology startups and leaders. And if you didn't notice, all of them sell software to consumers, not other companies (in case of Google and Facebook, you are the real customer, but advertisers pay for it). Software is becoming more and more consumer-oriented, and the clash of these titans will determine the outcome, the software of the future.

The Fab Four

Who are these fantastic companies? Amazon is the leader in e-commerce. Apple reinvented mobile devices and content distribution. Facebook is the largest social network in the world, a big brother in the making. Google is the biggest web and search company.

I almost won't argue with the choice of the Fab Four. To me, these are truly the technology companies that are moving things forward. To be honest, the list is bit of an understatement for Microsoft, even though that doesn't change the fact I'm trying to put out here. These four corporations (their software at least) are more B2C (Business To Consumer) than B2B (Business To Business) oriented. Even Microsoft, with its XBox, Bing, Windows (Phone and Tablet) programs is shifting focus to consumer markets.

The stock market comparison

The B2B software market is still huge, but electronic commerce, online advertising and the economy of scale of billions of users spending a few dollars is slowly outperforming more expensive business solutions sold fewer times, even if they are deployed millions of times as operating systems, products or services. If you check out the following charts, you can see information about market capitalization, revenue and historical price change of these companies (Facebook is not public yet, but it's IPO could be around $100 billion) compared to traditional technology companies such as Oracle, Microsoft and IBM. The numbers are pretty interesting (source: ycharts).

Market capitalization of Amazon, Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle in the last 10 years (as available)

Change in market capitalization of Amazon, Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle in the last 7 years (as available)

Revenue of Amazon, Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle in the last 10 years (as available)

Change in revenue of Amazon, Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle in the last 8 years (as available)

Change in stock price of Amazon, Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle in the last 7 years (as available)

Why does it matter

As a software architect, I see major shifts in user-centered software compared to business-oriented software. Even if you check Gartner's strategic technologies of 2012, it becomes more and more obvious what's happening:

software is made for and "sold" to users, not management anymore
product cycles and new releases are reaching Warp Speed
the focus is shifting from features to benefits
user experience is becoming more and more important
technology used is getting less and less important
system and data integration is becoming trivial with web services and APIs
there's a new generation of devices that run software (smartphones and tablets, the internet of things)
scaling and performance is not measured in Whateverbytes, but in number of users
new distribution channels (marketplaces) are going beyond the Web
platforms and mashups have emerged, where ecosystems of software are being build around the core service
online software is more disruptive and innovative, business software follows (from Web 2.0 to Enterprise 2.0, adoption of gamification in the enterprise, etc.)

Adaptation

Some business software companies, such as Salesforce.com have managed to adapt to this situation, offering a platform others can upgrade and develop on. We're adapting too, on a smaller scale. Neolab is still mostly focused on B2B software, since that's where we've built our market. Sure, we did a few web portals and are working on deploying our own user-targeted service Twitfluence, but it's business-oriented software that we generally work on. But that doesn't change the fact we are fully aware that the concept of software is changing, and we are on top of it, trying to embrace these trends and include new paradigms in corporate infromation systems. Social, user-oriented, user-friendly. Knowing that people are behind every company.

Software is maturing; consumers are getting more and more demanding, brands behind the software are getting more and more important. And as the Web expands even further, this fact will become yet more obvious. It's you and me who are the ones who are "buying" software. Which is great, since in the end the ordinary people, not corporations, will be those who will decide how software and technology of the future will look like. Interactive, useful and fun. Here we are now, entertain us.

Web 2.5: Looking for the missing link between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 17:39:56 GMT

The great revolution of Web 2.0 is still here and well – it looks like it's not going anywhere. Actually, its name did change, making "social media" more widely used today, but I'm still sticking to the original Tim O'Reilly's term. It's been more than five years since that happened, and a few years ago Web 3.0 was also starting to get mentioned. Web 3.0 mainly stands for the semantic web, using mathematical algorithms and meta data for trying to understand the meaning of content. But the whole thing is getting kinda old, because we still didn't see any real great results or services online – or perhaps they just did not make it to the mainstream. So while we wait for that to unveil, we could discuss something in between.

Client: Smartphone

In my opinion, there are a few quite significant changes in the Web we're used to using today, compared to the widely spread classic social Web 2.0 that already became fully mainstream. And the thing that's mostly responsible for this transition, surely has to be the smartphone. The wide spread of smartphones brought us new kinds of services, solutions, interactions and user experience, all powered by a powerful hand-held device supporting web connectivity. And as I will try to explain below, these services go way beyond Web 2.0, which is traditionally still powered by a personal computer. If you ask me, the mobile web is not just a new way to access the World Wide Web, it might as well be the new generation of it.

New capabilities

Modern smartphones come equipped with a wide arrange of additional hardware capabilities, such as high-resolution cameras, various sensors, compasses, gyroscopes and probably the most important – GPS. This fact created an array of new online services, where the ones worth mentioning would definitely be location (geo) based networking and augmented reality. Most of us can probably still remember when first phones with their 300x200 pixel cameras came out, and look at what happened now. Not to mention the giant tablet army that's heading our way.

Real-time web

Real-time web is the driving force behind Twitter, a thing so cool Google adopted it too, while Facebook is having problems to get its information out of privacy. It represents giving information when it happens, not hours (days) later, like the traditional (online) media does. While real-time web might be one of the biggest favorites for the next generation of Web beyond Web 2.0, it's still pretty useless if real time is only on the publisher's side. Mobile devices bring real-time to consumer's side too, enabling real time interactions between millions of users, which creates even more publishers and information – more than a group of professional journalists is ever capable of creating, making this world truly global.

Location-based networking

Location-based networking enables socializing based on where you and your friends physically are. Original players, such as Gowalla and Foursquare (who aleady has more than 3 million users) are already being copied by the mainstream, such as Facebook, Twitter and Google (all three naming them Places). While these services are rapidly spreading, they also introduced another interesting thing into networking, the gaming component, which uses badges and achievements to create real-life role playing games.

Augmented reality

Combining a compass and a GPS allowed another new type of software, called augmented reality, mostly in the form of solutions that use the camera image and draw things on top of it. There are already a few interesting applications of it available, and the marketing potential of this concept is probably huge. Augmented reality also managed to turn the smartphone into a deadly gadget, and where governments probably spent billions researching similar weapons, a soldier equipped with a €500 smartphone and a proper piece of software could lead a team of warriors who can see each other through walls.

Mobile apps

The previous shift in IT was for corporate software solutions to go from desktop to the web (and beyond to the cloud). Funny the trend, as today software is going back from web to mobile "desktop" applications, called apps. This happened because mobile apps enable a much better user experience (they can access the above mentioned capabilities) and at the same time provide less data consumption (making them cheaper and faster). Besides being a billion dollar industry, apps might also create the next step in the evolution of (business oriented) software and IT.

Is the mobile web actually Web 2.5?

These are a few examples of features we haven't seen before, and I think they should be considered when thinking about significant generations of the World Wide Web. The transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 was from static to dynamic, from publishing to sharing and interaction, and the next big step worth mentioning could really be the one presented.

I admit the title of this post is a bit misleading, since this new concept has almost nothing to do with semantic Web 3.0. But I hope my thoughts are not that way off, since I haven't noticed any real authority write about the mobile web as a next big step in the Web's evolution. Right or wrong, from my point of view as a software architect and developer, the mobile era brought us much more than just online access everywhere, it brought a new generation of software and the Web. Besides, we have to be aware that this trend of mobile domination will surely evolve even further and continue to grow in the future. And since the name Web 3.0 is already taken, it might as well be called Web 2.5. What do you think?

Twitfluence prototype calculation for measuring Twitter influence

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 11:54:40 GMT

The prototype calculation of Twitfluence uses the data available form Twitter API to measure your Twitter influence and coolness. The basic technical specifications of the application is available, but I will also be supplying the basic information about how the algorithm works. The actual calculation is already online for beta users, and generally speaking, there are three major components that add up to the score: your followers, your mentions and retweets, and your lists, all accounted as ratios between you and others.

Followers

The strongest component of the calculation is the number of followers you have. In my opinion, your presence on Twitter and getting followers can be influenced by at least the following three major factors concerning you and your Twitter account:

Persona – how known you are. Measured by the number of followers you have, compared to your time on Twitter.
Engagement – how engaged you are. Measured by the number of followers you have, compared the number of people you follow; Measured by the number of followers you have, compared to the number of mentions and retweets you’ve made.
Wits – how smart and creative your tweets are. Measured by the number of followers you have compared to the total number of tweets you've made.

For this part, I gave the followers/following ratio the weight of 3, the followers/tweets a weight of 2 and the followers/time a weight of 1. The followers/(mentions + retweets) has a weight of 0.5 and works in the negative way, so people who bother other people get a bit of a minus to their followers result. Besides, those who are able to get the same number of followers without mentioning people, must have a small advantage.

(Needs to be upgraded with taking into account only your mentions and retweets of people who don’t follow you.)

Interaction (mentions, replies, retweets)

The second most important part of the calculation is the ratio between mentions and being mentioned, together with the number of retweets you get with the absolute "reach" of those retweets (measured in the number of people who follow people that retweeted you). A similar reach is also accounted in the mentions and replies. This component of the calculation uses only the data from the last month, also to make Twitfluence a bit dynamic for multiple calculations for a single user over time. To finalize this part, the total number of tweets in the last month also contributes a small score.

(Needs to be upgraded with unique reaches of your retweets and mentions. For now, it just adds them together.)

Lists

Twitter lists are getting used more and more, so they are also considered in the calculation. The number of lists you appear on, the number of people who follow those lists and the number of people, who follow lists you've created are the basic parameters for the calculation. This component adds only a small bit to the final score.

(Needs to be upgraded with unique reaches)

The basic ratio calculation

All ratios in the calculation are based on the same elementary formula, which looks like this:

Generic result = Sqrt(others / you) * Log10(modifier + 10)
Followers = Sqrt(followers / following) * Log10(followers + 10)
Mentioned = Sqrt(mentioned / mentions) * Log10(mentioned + 10)

I've decided to go for this architecture because of a number of reasons. F.i., the followers / following and other ratios are used to get an objective value for all Twitter users. This ratio gets square rooted so the differences between people are not so huge. The multiplication is there for adjustment, so people who have the same ratio and the absolute number are bigger, get more points. The logarithm is used to make this modifier of absolute number smaller, while + 10 is used so this number is always bigger than 1 (and the logarithmic function becomes more stable after the result 1: Log10(10) = 1). This means that the modifier for those who follow 10 people is around 1, 100 people around 2, 1000 around 3 etc.

Putting it together

The three major components currently have the following weight in the final score:

Followers: around 60%
Mentions and retweets: around 30%
Lists: around 10%

That's about it for now. I've tested the behavior with some real accounts (thanks for help @TejaSmeja and @jakasibicekaka), together with some projections, and it seems to be working quite OK. But the real test will happen after it analyzes results of actual people, which will allow real insight into the performance and objectivity. The Twitfluence will be online soon, and I will be asking you to help with testing the prototype. You also more than welcome to leave any kind of feedback about the calculation as I've described it.

Let's play.

Twitfluence application basic technical specifications

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 11:53:43 GMT

Twitfluence is a registered Twitter application for calculating the "weight" and influence of your Twitter account, and is already accessible for beta users. It uses read and write permissions on your Twitter account. ~~Perhaps it will be upgraded with write permissions one day too, so it will be able to post the results to your timeline on request, but for now, read permission is all it needs~~. The original idea was to have it done without Twitter authentication (by simply entering a user name), but then you're not able to access mentions and retweets, which are obviously a big thing in measuring someone's Twitter influence.

The data

At this stage, the Twitfluence calculation uses and stores the following information for it's calculation. None of your personal data, your authentication info and your tweets are stored, so you need to approve it each time you do the calculation. Here is the full list of the parameters captured:

You
- How many people you follow
- How many people follow you
- How many days you are on Twitter
- How many Tweets you've made
One month of tweets
- How many Tweets you've made
- How many mentions and replies you’ve made
- How many retweets you’ve made
- How many times you were mentioned and replied to
- How many times you were retweeted
- What was the reach of you being mentions and replied to
- What was the reach of your tweets retweeted
Lists
- How many list you appear on
- How many people these list follow
- How many people follow these lists
- How many people follow the people on whose lists you appear
- How many lists you own
- How many people follow your lists
Other
- Your screen name
- Your profile picture
- Your description
- Your timezone for comparison to nearby users

API calls

Twitfluence calculation makes 6 API calls to capture the data mentioned. Here is the full list of the requests:

http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.xml: your tweets
http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/retweeted_by_me.xml: you retweets
http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/mentions.xml: you being mentioned
http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/retweets_of_me.xml: you being retweeted
http://api.twitter.com/1/screenname/lists.xml: list you own
http://api.twitter.com/1/screenname/lists/memberships.xml: list you appear on

Retweets

Twitter allows different clients (web, mobile clients,…), and some of them make retweets in a technically different way that the core Twitter web client. Therefore retweets are scattered inside retweets and mentions, but the Twitfluence application is smart enough to recognize them. The following tweets are consider retweets, and the calculation uses retweets in a different way than mentions and replies:

actual retweets
mentions that contain the syntax "RT @"
mentions that contain the syntax "via @"

Reach

There are a few parameters inside the calculation that use the "reach" of tweets (retweets, mentions, lists). You should know that this is not the actual real reach (potential unique users) of your tweets without duplicates, but a simple addition of the followers for the specific case. Therefore the score from reach may not be perfectly correct, but at this point it will have to do.

Links

Clicking on links published on Twitter is currently not a part of the calculation. Measuring clicks can be a bit difficult, specially if the links point directly to the website (compared to using URL shorteners, which offer analysis of clicks). Hopefully I will be able to use links in Twitfluence as well someday, in a way that's proper and objective for most users, but for now they'll be ignored.

This is the basic technical specification of the Twitfluence application. In case your curious about the mathematical algorithm behind it and how the calculation works, you can visit the following post, but otherwise, feel free to leave a comment or suggestion. I want to make the calculation as correct as possible, so any feedback of yours would really be appreciated.

Why Web 2.0 is so important

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 20:10:53 GMT

The influence the Internet is having on our every day lives is reaching almost unimaginable levels. The extent of the information revolution can only be compared to inventions of speaking, writing and printing in the past, which are all major achievements that allowed new ways of sharing thoughts and ideas between people. Web 2.0 is the next step of this information (r)evolution, and to understand why it's so important, we have to observe all the significant applications it represents (according to Wikipedia). This will hopefully give us a better insight into the potential they bring to our personal and professional lives, besides their impact on the whole humanity which we still perhaps don't fully comprehend.

Social networking

Social networking sites enabled probably the greatest migration of people to the virtual world. People have a new opportunity to interact not only in real life, but also in cyberspace, where geographical and other physical barriers don't exists. I'm not saying this is a promising thing overall, some people are obviously overdoing it, but it's still useful for keeping in touch with people. Together with the implementation of feeds and streams which enable dynamic information, social networking could represent the biggest and most important component of Web 2.0, reshaping business, marketing, politics and just being plain amazing.

Video sharing

Yesterday we read the newspaper, listened to the radio and watched television. Today, we have a super-medium that supports all of it at once. Video, as the most complex form of multimedia, is something that you can record with your telephone and publish online in minutes, from where it can go anywhere. If distributing a video is easy, anything else surely has to be a piece of cake. This fact obviously holds massive potential for science and arts in general.

Wikis and folksonomies

Wikis and folksonomies are tools which harness the amazing effect of participation and collaboration of millions of people to create information and knowledge. Wikipedia is the biggest encyclopedia in the world, holding knowledge whole mankind can benefit from. Folksonomies, such as tools for collaborative tagging and social indexing enable structured knowledge, while recommendation engines help us get information from massive quantity of data available online. Today, if something important is discovered, everybody knows it in minutes.

Blogs

Most people have the need to express themselves, and blogs (and microblogs) are the perfect tool for that. Plain and simple: anybody can be a journalist and if you have something smart to say, people will listen. Those who are influential enough can even break out of anonymity and become opinion leaders.

Web services and mashups

Web services and mashups enable and use open flows of data from one online service to another, from one online platform to another. System integration used to be one of the most complex things in IT, but thanks to new standards, protocols and technology, data can freely travel from and to different sources. This provides a perfect ground for exchanging information and enables evolution from software services to software platforms.

Perhaps we should also mention cloud computing, which makes hardware requirements irrelevant – the processing power and memory is around in plenty – but computer grids with shared resources have already been around for decades. All the better to understand that Web 2.0 is more about concept than it is about technology.

Web 2.0 is important and revolutionary, both in a good and a bad way. It brings a new perspective and new opportunities to different arts and sciences, such as business, education, sociology, psychology, literature, politics and many other. My professional and academic work focuses mainly on it's influence on information science and technologies, but it's clear that this new paradigm has a huge global effect, whose scale we still can't fully estimate. Now we just have to hope younger generations don't get too overwhelmed because of it and will be able to adjust to this new reality without abusing it too much.

The influence of new generation information systems on modern organizations

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 15:08:48 GMT

The traditional role of Information Science and corresponding Information Technologies is providing organizations with information. This makes it a tool supporting decision process, which can be counted as an organizational process. But today, this role is becoming more widely spread, making Information Sciences and Information Technologies also an important part of the operational process itself. Concepts such as Business Process Reengineering (BPR) make information solutions a vital part of any modern organization process, present in all components in the business cycle of planning, realization and controlling.

The World Wide Web as a platform

If Information Science and Information Technologies revolutionized modern organizations, there is a heavily related technology that revolutionized our every day lives. The Internet and its main service, the World Wide Web hold unimagined potential both for personal and professional goals. This technology enables unlimited knowledge sharing between people and organizations, while at the same providing the platform on which different information systems can be created. Intranets (designed to support internal people and processes) and Extranets (designed for connecting with external entities, such as clients, suppliers, partners and competition) enable effective, flexible, scalable and accessible web-based information systems that can support most of organizational needs of a modern organizations.

To understand the implications of World Wide Web we can also take a look at the companies behind it, as they have become some of the largest IT companies in the world, and their services the most widely used information systems, leaving aside operation systems. There is an important point hidden in that statement – most information systems of today are not used to support organizations any more, they are designed for personal activities. Software solutions are shifting from B2B to B2C, and where management was the key buyer of software yesterday, ordinary everyday user is the main "buyer" of software today.

The Internet with its possibilities to share knowledge is a revolution probably comparable to the inventions of speaking, writing and printing in the past. Those organizations and individuals who are able to recognize this fact have a great opportunity for progress. That potential goes both for getting useful information and knowledge from other sources as for getting useful information about organization to those or any other sources. There is no doubt that today we live in the information era, and those who will not adapt that fact, probably have no future.

Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 and IT 2.0

In the past years, a new generation of World Wide Web solutions has emerged, which we understand as Web 2.0. These services are focused on collaboration, cooperation, communication and connectivity, enabling sharing between millions of users and utilizing the effect of mass participation. The potential marketing revenue, which is the driving force behind the World Wide Web, and the large competition between millions of software companies around the world allow these services to evolve with light speed, making them both technologically and functionally more advanced than classical information systems. It didn’t take long for managers and entrepreneurs to realize the effect of these now approaches and services can also be beneficial on organization, marketing, decision support and other fields of organization and management.

The concept of Enterprise 2.0 adapts Web 2.0 for business-oriented use and represents using these new technologies, approaches, concepts and services in business-oriented environments. With a focus both on internal optimization (wikis, idea banks, social networking tools) and external optimization (blogs and microblogs, RSS, social bookmarking and tagging), it enables companies and their employees new ways to connect and interact between themselves and with other organizations. The focus of information systems is shifting from technical elements to social elements of organizations, and traditional information systems, such as ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems are getting upgraded with modern systems, such as custom developed intranets and extranets.

But Enterprise 2.0 solutions are still mostly partial (separate) software solutions modern organizations can use to optimize their performance and strategies. In my opinion, future information systems will have those concepts and approaches incorporated into the core of the system, enriching traditional business-oriented solutions with social components that will support connections both with other individuals within organizations and with individuals from other organizations. Real-time interactions and communication will be one of the foundations of new business models that are emerging on the market, and IT 2.0 will be the platform that supports those concepts and activities.

It's time for IT to go social

Modern organizations are mostly service-oriented, so traditional ERP systems are becoming used mostly for low value-added activities. These new organizations are founded on innovative business models, knowledge and human capital. High value-add information systems for those organizations are systems for Project Management, Customer Relationship Management, Knowledge Management etc., which are not oriented on technical components of organizations, but on social ones, such as people, relationships, connections, interactions, knowledge, cooperation and other.

New services that Web 2.0 "invented" fit into this picture of new generation IT 2.0 software solutions perfectly. Social networking tools can enable higher connectivity, new forms of interactions, team building and cooperation between all the people in the process. Social bookmarking and tagging produce structured knowledge and can harness the effect of crowdsourcing. Visualizations of data and information can bring more information used for decision making and clearer view on organization process. Feeds and streams enable faster data flow and clearer connections between most individuals inside the organization.

Organization is a system of dynamic relationships, and people are no longer considered only as a part of the machinery, but as complex entities, building even more complex social units. The greatest corporations that exist today were produced by capable individuals, forming even more capable teams. Therefore we must not ignore the science behind it – human capital is the probably the most valuable thing any modern organization can have and most software solutions of the future will be focused on these social components. The interesting symbiosis between new generation information systems and modern organization approaches is more obvious than ever, providing all the elements needed for business-oriented IT to go 2.0.

How mini-feed and other streams revolutionized IT

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 16:59:20 GMT

Web 2.0 brought us a lot of interesting things, approaches and solutions, so it's hard to imagine how we ever managed without it. Most of us are half addicted to floating around in cyberspace, looking at what people are doing and talking to everybody at once. It is a little social revolution that we are witnessing, and it doesn't seem it will end soon. Web 2.0 changed our everyday lives, but for an IT expert such as myself, these new concepts also have a big influence on other sciences and in our case, they will change management, organization and corporate IT forever.

Besides the whole social networking concept, one feature of Web 2.0 stands our as one of the main building blocks of this new paradigm. Call it the news stream, mini feed, activity log or whatever, it is the little information report that makes you come back every hour to see what other people are doing and if something new happened. Without it, Web 2.0 portals and services would be boring and useless, and they definitely wouldn't be as attractive interactive as they are.

Besides being cool and addictive, the mini feed is also a major shift in the presentation of data and information. Until it came around, data was static, but now, we can notice that data has the ability to become dynamic. In Web 2.0, this feature was "invented" to amuse users, but this approach is also fully applicable to business oriented software. Imagine a corporate solution that is intended for project management, where projects are consisted of tasks that have people working on them. The simplified dashboard for a project would probably look something like the table below.

Two weeks ago	Today
Write the documentation (John - Completed)	Write the documentation (John – Completed)
Delegate tasks (John – Active)	Delegate tasks (Mary – Complete)
Design wireframes (Mary – Active)	Design wireframes (Mary – Active)
Enter data (Unassigned)	Enter data (Simon – Active)
Make HTML (Simon – Active)	Make HTML (Simon – Complete)

The two dashboards, even though they represent the same project two weeks apart, look quite similar, and they actually don't give those, who are not directly connected with the project and people working on it a lot of information about the flow of activities, data and work. This data represented is static. But if we add another layer of mini feed / activity report on the same case, things start looking more interesting and give a lot more information about the project. The data becomes dynamic. When we look at the dashboard above, we don't really know that this is what actually happened with our project.

12 days ago – John changed the status of the task Write the documentation to Active.
10 days ago – John added a new note to the task Write the documentation.
10 days ago – John changes the status of the task Write the documentation to Completed.
8 days ago – John made Mary responsible for the task Delegate tasks.
8 days ago – Mary made Simon responsible for the task Enter data.
6 days ago – Mary added a new task Contact client.
5 days ago – Simon changed the status of the task Make HTML to complete.
3 days ago – Mary deleted the task Contact client.
2 days ago – John added a new file to the task Make HTML.
2 days ago – Mary changed the status of the task Make HTML to Incomplete.
1 day ago – Simon added a new note to the task Make HTML.
Today – Simon changed the status of the task Make HTML to Complete.

This dynamic component wasn’t available in business oriented software until now, except in the most sophisticated analytical systems, where data mining and other high level approaches provided dynamic information. Using Web 2.0 approaches such as the mini feed, operational and transactional information systems finally got the dynamic component too. Not to amuse, but to inform.

These are the approaches we use and things we think about when developing our software solutions. There are actually more useful applications of the mini feed we already noticed, but some mystery must remain. If you are interested, say hi to Neolab, one of the first companies in the world to offer fully integrated Web 2.0 features in business oriented software, all part of the IT 2.0 concept we are developing, for which already got an award for. Made in Slovenia, shipping worldwide.

Neolab in 2009

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:38:32 GMT

2009 was a hard year for everybody, specially for start-ups such as Neolab. Greed and wrong decisions of global financial institutions and their leaders turned the world upside down. Luckily we were able to survive, to stand tall against all the challenges that await for us next year. Projects have been confirmed, so the biggest issue that we face now is consolidating our inner organization and finishing our software framework that we put so much time and energy into.

A few weeks ago, Neolab celebrated it’s second birthday. The first two years are supposedly decisive for the survival of start-ups, so if this unfriendly situation won’t last too long, looks like we’ll make it. To sum it up: for us, 2008 was the year of checking out the scene, where we were observing if it’s possible to make it on our own. The second year, 2009, was the year of marketing, where we presented ourselves to broader audience.

Our presentation was quite successful. After a few years of building and optimizing our design and marketing concept with IlovarStritar, we finally launched our web page, a thing we are very proud of. Until this post we (they) have already received two awards for Neolab’s broader corporate identity, Brumen award and Taiwan international award. This confirmed we made the right decision by doing something special with our image.

The whole story of our design identity is built around a fictional ecosystem of pixelized mutant animals, representing connectivity of people, organizations and processes using information technology. Different animals are used for different documents and people so the whole concept is scalable, artistic, interesting and fun. If you like, you can check out the whole showcase on the IlovarStritar website.

We are becoming one of the biggest slovenian experts in IT. In april we received an award on the Slovenian IT conference for best paper on the subject of IT 2.0. If that wasn’t enough, we were also named the Emerging web agency of 2009 on Slovenia's biggest web authority, Netko. The barriers between organization, marketing, IT and web are obviously getting thinner and thinner, and Neolab stands strong right in the middle of it.

We may look good on the outside, but we are also healthy on the inside. At this point we employ six people, which actually brought a bit of organizational confusion. By adopting stronger approaches in project management, things are turning for the better. Besides, our big investment into our framework, which now stands stable, scalable and promising, will soon be complete, so we are more than ready for all the projects that are coming upon us.

Hopefully this year will be more welcoming. As we and our services mature, new challenges for our clients, suppliers, partners, supporters and ourselves are on the horizon, so you better be ready for all the things we have in store. To a successful 2010!

An approach to statistics and data analysis

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:32:06 GMT

When information systems evolve, they become greedier for both operational and advanced strategic statistics and data analysis. This need is a part of a natural evolution. The more data you have, the higher potential for extracting information you have. Looking at business environments using IT platforms, that's what analytics are actually all about - getting useful information from usually bad data. It turns out the task of analytical reporting is not so complex as it seems, but you definitely need a set of different skills / people to make it work.

There are tons of different statistical approaches, methods and theories, but it turns out that for average business needs you only need basic mathematics, where the most complex operations are sometimes logarithms. So, if it's so simple, where does the problem lay? Why do information systems often lack analytical support, which can be used for decision making?

In my opinion there are three main steps to consider when trying to make useful statistics and data analysis, and ignoring or underestimating any one of them will make your reports suck.

Data

Data is the king. If you don't have the data, you might as well give it up. If your data is bad or weak, you might consider rebuilding it. But you should know one thing - the better the structure of your data is, the better your analysis will be. Using a flat database such as a text file or an Excel spreadsheet gives you few analytical opportunities. Relational databases, such as Access, MySQL or SQL offer cross-data querying and advanced reporting, but huge and complex calculations can take a lot of time. For those, a multidimensional OLAP database designed strictly for analysis becomes the only option.

Challenges in this step: Technical

Information

The data discussed above defines the scope of potential information you can deliver. In this step, the main goal is simple - you need to know what you want to know. Business needs, process flow, strategic goals or just plain simple amusement are the main factors that need to be addressed. Having someone who is able to recognize these opportunities is crucial, because data is just numbers, but aggregated data - information - is knowledge. It's quite clear you won't be able to get something if you don't know what you want to get.

Challenges in this step: Analytical

Visualization

A picture can tell a thousand words and this goes a long way for data visualization. Even if you can't use charts, you can color information and use measures such as font size to represent another dimension of information or trends. Besides, always keep in mind that less is more, so you should put irrelevant information in the background and punchlines in the spotlight. Check out different chart types, they're useful for different representations and experimenting with them can display things that don't seem there at first sight. Observe patterns. Try to imagine a playground, where information can satisfy your curiosity and while doing it, it also brings useful and valuable results.

Challenges in this step: Creative

If you have the will, you can do all sorts of crazy stuff with statistics and data analysis, but you should know they sometimes take a lot of time. I'm proud my chronolog already has two nice looking children of these activities. The first one is a simple recommendation engine used for content ranking and the other one a set of reports which offer insight into activity and interactions of the chronolog. What can I say, I like to play around, and it may as well be any information system I can get my hands on. Give me the data and I'll give you information.

Hot on the chronolog - and how it works

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:49:41 GMT

When I first published my chronolog, a few people were making remarks about how it resembles FriendFeed, Twitter or Tumblr. I can't deny that. The influences of Web 2.0 are huge both on my personal and business life, so why should the chronolog be any different? It is a mashup of different web services and it displays information from different sources, so it's a kind of a Web 2.0 stream. But besides that, it's also my own personal playground for testing and developing high level services and functionalities, which will hopefully be cool and fun and make the chronolog interesting for all of us. Demonstration of concept and technology, if you like.

I already have a few of those smart features planned, and I can give you a little teaser already. I really look forward to developing the custom view of the chronolog, where advanced users will be able to do a bit of configuration. The prototype is already half developed, but sadly far from production. A different thing I'm working on is a complex set of statistics and analytics, which should give us deeper insight into the chronolog, it's data and our interactions with it. This one will probably go out next and it actually inspired the one already complete. From this day forward, the chronolog supports Hot on the chronolog, accessible from the views menu top right, which shows the most interesting posts in the desired time period.

A few Web 2.0 portals (specially those oriented in social news or social bookmarking) have recommendation engines, which give users access to information based on their interaction with the system. I would like to try that one out too once, but because I don't have registered users, the chronolog probably won't be the environment. What I can give you now, is the Hot view, which displays the most important posts based on the interaction (views, likes, comments) of all users of the chronolog. A global recommendation engine of some sort. I'm quite pleased with the algorithm I've developed, it looks like it's working, so you can give it a try.

Some of you will be interested in how it works. The core is a really super mega awesomely complex algorithm that gives ponders to different interactions in the selected time span. Well, it's not that complex from the mathematical point of view, but it still pretty smart. Combining these ponders and number of interactions, using a few square roots and logarithms, plus a small modifier for insert date (if two posts are tied, the older one appears "stronger"), it calculates which posts are more interesting and relevant and gives them a score accordingly. Simple as that. Besides, is also able to make that calculation for any time period. You can even hack it by changing the ?d=# in the url to any number of days you like.

When viewing longer periods (months, years), blog posts will probably take most of the top spots, because they are supported with social networking sites and have the most interactions. In the shorter periods (days, weeks), other types of posts will also take higher ranks. We will see if the algorithm works in the longer term too, when more users will be clicking around, but if needed, the calculation will be changed or modified. Oh, I almost forgot about the design touch I added - the importance of a post is portrayed using transparency, which looks quite cool and is a great exaple of using design for function.

The chronolog becomes smart. Hope you like it.

IT + Web 2.0 = IT 2.0

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:43:32 GMT

Web 2.0 is one of the hottest things around. Everybody is talking about it, and it is revolutionizing the way we work, communicate and enjoy our free time. It is obvious even now that such services will be the main tools of marketing and political movements of the future. Now we have to wait and see how far it goes and where it ends.

It did not take long for executives and technology officers to see that Web 2.0 could also have interesting applications on business oriented environment. Therefore, Enterprise 2.0 was "invented". It represents using new discovered approaches such as tagging, wikis and blogs for corporate goals. It works and I think companies shoud embrace it, because it's modern and effective.

We have taken it to another level, partially because we have become quite obsessed with developing not partial, but wholistict software systems. Web 2.0 is not just a collection of tools for better communication, it is a new concept of interaction, data visualization and user participation which was originaly discovered for one purpose - to amuse users and to earn more money from advertising. Usefulness came with it, and in this case the market economy worked.

Neolab is one of the first companies in the world that is offering business oriented software, fully integrated with Web 2.0 services, such as internal social networking, mini-feed reports, content tagging, cloud visualizations and more. As it is an integrated concept, we have dubbed it IT 2.0. We think that this approach helps both the users and the management with easier use, stronger belonging to the company and richer information than classic information systems.

Hopefully there will be more professional articles available on that topic in the future. It's hard to find the correct equilibrium between academic research and real life development. At this stage It has more and more scientific background each day, and the implementations prove it works. IT 2.0 is born.