April 27, 2007

Truthiness and transparency

I have been a closet David Walker fan for years. Yes, the Comptroller General of the United States is my favorite fed.

I was surprised and delighted to see him on the Colbert Report. Let's hope this helps him get his message of fiscal truthiness and transparency into the national conversation.

Watch it here: If your agency/company blocks video in general or Comedy Central in particular, let us know. I sure hope the folks at GAO can see it.

Susan Miller
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March 27, 2007

Bringing SOA principles home

Here’s a headline I never thought I’d see: The Practice of “Feng Shui” for Service Oriented Architecture. The EDS Next Big Thing blog, written by the EDS fellows, often has some new ways of looking at old issues. Today they look at how interior design (feng shui) is like service-oriented architecture.

So whereas home-based feng shui addresses energy flow and feelings of comfort and security, in business, feng shui means “that the virtual enterprise portrays a friendly digital image, one that is warm and inviting to current and future members of the virtual community.” Long snip:

Based on the wisdom of the founding masters, the infrastructure supporting the digital community must exist in balance and harmony with nature in the virtual world. To that end, the enterprise must first establish their place on the virtual landscape and then build an infrastructure that will last throughout time. Establishing the location can be as simple as selecting a domain name (the virtual address), that easily identifies the enterprise.

Building the supporting infrastructure is much more challenging. The infrastructure must externalize a virtual presence that is always available and ready to do business. It must take into account digital elements and virtual forces of nature. It can not falter under the weight of success. It must grow (scale) at a pace faster than community growth. It must provide the right level of security to welcome new community members but also protect the virtual enterprise’s boundaries. “Great Feng Shui” in this context means that the infrastructure never lets the virtual community down.

Susan Miller
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March 23, 2007

Trendspotting for science

NIST plans to survey its summer interns to discover their “technological preferences for receiving and integrating content.” The Millennial Generation, as NIST calls the kids born between 1982 and 2000 (after Generation Y, if you're keeping track) are the digital natives that have grown up with information technology. NIST wants to find out how and where these kids get their information, what kind of commercial products and platforms are helpful, and, of course, what they like in collaboration tools. The findings, NIST says, “will impact how digital scientific content is harvested, identified using metadata, stored, accessed, and disseminated.”

Via Cryptome.

Susan Miller
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March 22, 2007

CIOs await the enterprise version of Web 2.0

Richard MacManus at Read/WriteWeb has started a good discussion on the likelihood of CIOs to deploy Web 2.0 technologies, based on the size and reputation of the vendor. He refers to a recent Forrester report, "CIOs Want Suites For Web 2.0," indicating that CIOs are interested in wikis, blogs, podcasts, RSS, etc., but would like to buy them in a suite from an incumbent software vendor such as Microsoft or IBM.

Pretty interesting, but not much of a surprise. The post itself touches on M&A and partnering activity between the more deep-pocketed IT companies and the small entrepreneurial startups that develop the Web 2.0 offerings. Most of the comments to the post, however, deal with the notion that CIOs are often risk adverse -- which we can all understand -- and unlikely to invest in what they consider immature technology from startups. But how much time and energy will companies and agencies waste if they have to wait for a secure Microsoft Web 2.0 enterprise suite?

Susan Miller
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March 15, 2007

Finally, an Onion for IT

I just stumbled on the Discover Hackistan Web site. It’s the site of the imaginary country of Hackistan, a nation that claims to have concocted most recently publicized security breaches and whose motto is “A proud nation that sneers at the global conventions of intellectual property.” Hackistan’s arch nemesis is Fortify Software — the security vendor that sponsors the site, of course. The concept and execution are a hoot.

The news stories read like the kind of crude propaganda you would have expected from the Soviets at the height of the Cold War. They take a general press article of a computer security breach and spin it to the glory of Hackistan. For example:

2/2/07 Microsoft Vista exceeds expectations

The first two weeks of sales of Cost-Effective Microsoft Vista in China have exceeded all expectations of the Trade Department’s Bureau of Phaux and its subcontractor, the Shady Distributors Network. "At the low, low everyday price of just 20 Yuan, my customers can't get enough copies of Vista" said a vendor selling outside the Golden Shield Apartments in Beijing.

As an added bonus to the first 100 million customers, Cost-Effective Vista comes pre-loaded with Hackistan’s most popular viruses and Trojans. Users will no longer need to respond to their "Pre-Approved Mortgage" email offers to qualify!

Susan Miller
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