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I bet we look back on May 21, 2009 as an historic day; a day when everything changed…On this day, the Obama Administration, specifically its CIO, Vivek Kundra, announced the launch of Data.gov which “will open up the workings of government by making economic, healthcare, environmental, and other government information available on a single website, allowing the public to access raw data and transform it in innovative ways.”
Obviously, the mere thought of a government opening up its proverbial kimono is amazing enough, the real, grand moment, however, will be when the first applications of this data materialize. Just as Apple’s AppStore for the iPhone displays the brilliance (and not a little stupidity) of the crowd, Data.gov will bring forth today’s innovative developers and enterprises. I can’t wait to see what they do!
One day earlier, Google announced it will open up its servers to geographic data from anyone. This goes beyond its 2005 open API announcement for its map services enabling mashups to “viewing, storing and updating geodata on the web.” And even with some initial service limitations, this is a win-win for all developers — as they no longer have to manage their own geo-data store — as well as Google itself, who can add this new geo-data to their search results and possibly generate revenue from it.
One week earlier, the Wolfram|Alpha had its soft launch “to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone.” This is a “quest to make knowledge computable.” It also “contains 10+ trillion of pieces of data, 50,000+ types of algorithms and models, and linguistic capabilities for 1000+ domains.” It is truly amazing to have come so far and daunting to still have so far to go in its endeavors.
What these events all have in common is the super consolidation and subsequent dissemination of the world’s data in the hope of it becoming knowledge and wisdom. The results could be life-altering, good or bad, but definitely different.
What I hope to also see from these events in my clients and other enterprises is their wake-up from the deep sleep so many of them are in when it comes to dealing with corporate data. If the above events are the future trend, huge changes need to begin in corporations.
Most of them are so caught up with securing a perimeter that no longer exists, complying with useless but required SOX audits, and working around Legal’s latest inane guidelines, they see all “their data” as confidential and therefore secret. This often occurs within the silos of the corporation itself, so sharing of data doesn’t even cross lines of business or departments. It is my hypothesis, as seen in a few leading edge organizations, that there is only a very small percentage (~10%) of all corporate data which is truly confidential or proprietary, and enterprises are losing out on significant opportunities to increase sales, innovate new products/services, or improve operations by not widely disseminating the other 90%.
So, how do we get them to see it? How do they “consolidate and disseminate” in a way which is secure and appropriate, yet leverages and empowers the employees, partners, vendors, suppliers, stakeholders, peers, and others connected to these companies? How should companies democratize data?
“Greening IT” is becoming a mantra to many these days. To some it is merely marketing, to others it is a way to reduce costs and reinvest those savings into more valuable IT pursuits. Prior to the recent economic woes, there were even those who simply wanted to do right by the environment. Although they have most likely switched their business cases to be more cost focused by now.
Of late, it has been top of mind for me…
Since early this year, I have been working on a large, multi-customer research project called Redefining Employee Computing. We have been delving into how Web 2.0, cloud computing, social networking, Gen Ys entering the workforce, the economy, globalization and other converging forces are redefining the way in which IT enables its users. Our scope is broad in that it includes desktops, mobile devices, security, data management, access, identity, collaboration, etc. Our research is not focused on “green”, but because of the broadness of scope and the complexity of many of our members’ environments, our hypotheses and results are not only describing cost, flexibility and innovation benefits, but “green benefits” as well. For example, the new EC models will include more telecommuting, less travel and fewer, big, energy inefficient facilities.
I recently commented on a great post by Esteban Herrera of NovaSphere Group on how IT outsourcing providers need to step up to this particular plate to ensure they are able to survive in the long term. Additionally, those who do so quickly should be able to undercut the prices of their competitors who haven’t in the short term.
And just yesterday, I was reading Treehugger and came across its summarization of a recent Capgemini study, the Green IT Report 2008, which is “a study of the IT industry’s green credentials and an assessment of how industry leaders, EMC, HP, IBM, Google and Sun Microsystems are dealing with the topics of environmental responsibility, sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility.” The study suggests that some leading IT companies are serious about their green initiatives and are making measurable progress. Given the few included and limited participation by some in the study, however, we still have a ways to go.
I’m hopeful that we’re beginning to move from insulting marketing ploys into the real world of making it happen.
Ok, I confess…when I first heard Google was creating its own browser, I cringed…flashbacks from the Microsoft/Netscape browser wars kept appearing before my eyes. As an avid Firefox user and fan (the concept of tabs and add-ons is sheer brilliance!), I simply could not understand why Google decided to do it.
After reading this article, however, I think I now see Chrome’s shine — simply faster-and-more-secure wouldn’t do it, but true browser-as-platform capability just might. @ITSInsider recently polled her Twitter followers as to how many brower tabs they had open and what they were doing in them, lending some insight into how people work with the new social media capabilities prior to Chrome.
Hopefully, with the addition of Chrome to Google’s stable it will also lead to a greater focus for Google on its Google Docs service so that we can all free ourselves from our MS Office shackles without sacrificing functionality.
