The Technology and Venture Capitalism Podcast on IT Conversations featured some interesting guests who brought a lot of good ideas to the table. Phil Windley, the moderator, got the guests to kick around the concept of patterns for applications that are good prospective candidates for funding in the VC world. The discussion started with the simple advertising-only model (a’la Google) and the group then moved onto the Apple iTunes / iPod model.

The premise of the Apple discussion was that the combination of offering digital media services (iTunes Store), a rich user management interface (iTunes), and a non-traditional computing device offered a model that might be increasingly followed in the future. The group referred to Tim O’Reilly’s O’Reilly Radar presentation, in which Tim cited hardware hacks as an important trend to watch in the future. They also chatted a bit about the Chumby, a much-hyped hardware hack that is available is being circulated in prototype mode to über-Alpha-geeks.

All of this talk got me thinking and putting together a mental model. It brought me back to a McKinsey interview I had in the late dot-com era where the interviewer asked me to draw out a value map for several emerging digital media technologies. Granted, there were no iPods or Chumbies back then but the value map visual seems to work just as well for these newer technologies too. I’ve included a simple map of some representative technologies (circa 2006-2007) below.

In the diagram, the dollar signs [$$$] represent where the primary value derivation occurs in the chain. If you buy into the Value == Services + Device equation, TiVo and Apple are set to come out on top since they control both services and devices. Brings to mind all types of questions around potential commoditization of the services and devices as well as to what strategic leverage (aside from high switching costs) these companies enjoy. Audible and MySpace own only the services, having to rely upon complimentary products (MP3 players and the browser, respectively) to deliver their services. The Chumby is in an interestingly unique position, controlling only the device but not the services. This makes me wonder what the long term value potential is for this product. It would seem that, without very strong branding and product loyalty, the Chumby would be exposed to all sorts of knock-offs. I guess time will tell.

All of this makes devices like the iPhone very interesting in the future. With the combination of very strong branding and the ability to integrate content from all of the major media channels, it would seem that the iPhone is a market killer in an increasingly mobile society. With all of that power in one place, you might want to keep an extra one or two handy, just in case…

Try this on for size – the EPAct2005 is the Y2K of Y2K’07.  No, this is not an anagram. No sooner is 2006 behind us and folks are already worried about “the next Y2K”, the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Between January 1^st and January 3^rd, I’ve received no fewer than 8 emails on this topic. These emails include everything from details about software and hardware that will require some form of remediation to EPAct2005-related business opportunities.

 

 

What is the Energy Policy Act of 2005 exactly, you ask. If you read the Wikipedia entry on EPA2005, you will get a face-full of legislative overload. What’s important to look at, at least if you’re in the IT industry, is the one section titled Change to daylight savings time:

 

“The bill amends the Uniform Time Act of 1966 by changing the start and end dates of daylight saving time starting in 2007. Clocks will be set ahead one hour on the second Sunday of March instead of the current first Sunday of April. Clocks will be set back one hour on the first Sunday in November, rather than the last Sunday of October. This will make electronic clocks that had pre-programmed dates for adjusting to daylight saving time obsolete and will require updates to computer operating systems. The date for the end of daylight saving time has the effect of increasing evening light on Halloween (October 31).”

 

“Will require updates to computer operating systems”. Ugh, that sounds both nebulous and uggy. The links below lead to the vendor specific remediation instructions.

 

• Microsoft - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/timezone/dst2007.mspx
• Sun - http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Intl/USDST/
• IBM - http://www.ibm.com/support/alerts/daylightsavingstimealert.html
• Red Hat - http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/FAQ_80_7909.shtm

From the links it doesn’t really look like things are so bad. What makes this a bit less containable than it appears at first glance is the pervasive nature of embedded devices, occasionally connected devices, and computing systems other than the ones with keyboards and monitors on them. Y2K turned out not to be so bad because it was a bit easier to quarantine the old iron running the offending code. With EPAct2005, getting to the desktops and big machines is only part of the battle. There are just so many other devices out there running on computers of some form that much is bound to slip through the cracks. Then again, your DVR and your kids’ robotic dog aren’t exactly air traffic control systems.

Over the holidays, I had the chance to catch up with some back reading and Podcasts and there was one, in particular, that caught my attention. The book / Podcast combo on transforming state governments by Deloitte & Touche provided some really interesting, innovative, no-holds-barred analysis of the problems that state governments are facing in the early 21^st century. Recorded the day after the 2006 elections, Deloitte’s Bob Campbell and Bill Eggers collaborate with Deloitte advisor, former governor of Pennsylvania and first secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge to produce an excellent Podcast. The Podcast serves as a solid introduction to the more extensive analysis in their book, States of Transition: Tackling government’s toughest policy and management challenges.

 

 

 

The Podcast is available via iTunes or as a download on Deloitte’s Web site. You can also download a decent sized book excerpt here. I have also mirrored the book excerpt as well for the sake of speed and continuity. I’ve highlighted some of the interesting points of the Podcast and book below. I encourage you to listen to the Podcast and pick up the book. My experience with state government leads me to believe that Deloitte’s analysis is spot on. Many of the truths analyzed in the book / Podcast are the veritable elephants in the room of state government. As important as these insights are for public policy and administrative specialists; they are equally important to technologists. As I have told several clients, the business architecture issues of state government such as workforce, political, and organizational constraints must be offset by tradeoffs that will ultimately affect the application and technical architecture solutions that we as technologists are asked to provide. If you are a technologist providing solutions to state governments, it behooves you to understand these business architecture constraints.

 

Before I go into the highlights of the book / Podcast, I’ll start with a bit of ethically obligatory disclosure. I am a Deloitte employee. That said, I am not writing this blog entry to tout or profit from my employer’s intellectual capital in any way. The materials I am blogging about are, obviously, all publicly available. Furthermore, I am writing about them because I feel that they would be of interest to the majority of this blog’s readers. Enough of the fine print; highlights as well as a matrix excerpted from the book can be found below:

 

• Bob Campbell hits the nail on the head but citing federal entitlement programs as the drivers of siloed state government operations. Makes you wonder if things like the Federal Funding Accounting and Transparency Act are eventually going to have trickle down effects on the states.
• Focus on states as the “laboratories of democracy” and drivers of innovation. This is especially important since states have the potential to be much more agile than the federal government in addressing policy issues and providing innovative solutions.
• Coverage of the tough choices needed to fix an ailing Medicaid system. Innovations such as the Vermont Medicaid waiver system are included in the discussion. One fact that I found both interesting and scary (though not surprising) is that, were state Medicaid budgets the basis of independent operating entities, nearly half of the states’ Medicaid programs would be Fortune 500 companies.
• Detailed analysis of state government workforce issues. There is a lot of information about unfunded liabilities on state retirement and healthcare plans. Governor Ridge went as far as to compare state government with the steel and automotive industries; a comparison I contemplated a lot on my recent trip to Detroit.
• Critical look at an infrastructure deficits and discussion of the need to increase focus on this area. There are some interesting examples of the public-private partnership model at work. One in particular that came up during the Podcast was the purchase and execution of warranties on roads by New Mexico. For those with further interest in this area, I’d encourage you to listen to the IT Conversations Podcast about transportation networks.

Trying to remain fair and unbiased, there are also several things for which I would have liked to have seen analysis and opinions. It’s understandable these issues didn’t make the cut for a text that is already tackling a lot of huge issues. However, I’d be interested to know where folks stand on these issues:

 

• Detailed analysis of the real cost of a state worker (per hour). When you factor in the number of hours worked and the liberal pension and healthcare benefits, what is the actual cost of your hypothetical state worker? I’d be interested to know.
• Focus on the citizen-centric viewpoint of government. That is, with my cable company, whether I go online, call on the phone, or walk into one of their storefronts, they can ask me a question or two to establish my identity and then pull up all of the information they need to help me without asking me to provide it again. Government, on the other hand, comes across as having a serious case of amnesia when trying to pull off the same act. “Need to file taxes? Tell me your name, your address, your dependants…”, “Need Welfare? Your name, your address, your dependants…”, “Need a license...”
• Discussion about digital and energy infrastructure as well as physical infrastructure. Not to diminish the value of physical infrastructure, but last time I checked, we didn’t rank too well globally in terms of the pervasiveness of high-speed network connectivity. We also have a serious addiction to dead dinosaur juice. While energy policy tends to be largely a federal thing, states like California are well versed trend setters in this area. If states really are to be the drivers of innovation, what could they do in this area? Check out my post on the Destiny USA project. Seems like New York has mixed emotions about being too much of a trend setter.
• Realistic view of drawing the best and the brightest to state government work. I’d be interested to know how many states offer tuition reimbursement as part of their employment package. Anyone, anyone?? Also, with the private sector increasing chunking work into projects and matrixing staff across projects, I’d be interested to hear ideas about if and how a hierarchical organization such as state government can be contorted to follow this precedence.

What Tad Anderson said in a recent post about Microsoft as a “technology factory” really got me thinking. I particularly identified with his quote that “Microsoft has buried the average learner, and presented quite the challenge for the best workaholic out there.” With all of the things that he mentioned in his post plus the release of Vista, the coming release of Enterprise Library 3.0, software factory work from the Patterns and Practices group, not to mention C# 3.0, Lambda expressions, and… oh yeah, F#, it’s hard keeping your head above water as a Microsoft application development technology specialist these days.

Personally, my problems are compounded by trying to track both .NET and Java. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of great things going on in both of these camps and the opportunity to intelligently compare and contrast the technologies makes me a more valuable technologist, I think. However, it pains me to see my knowledge getting broader and shallower rather than targeted and deeper as I try to take a sip from the veritable technology fire hose.

In what little free time remains for me, I’ve been familiarizing myself with Ruby on Rails (RoR) over the past year. This language / framework is intuitive, well-designed, and has this uncanny ability to work the way you’d expect it to. What’s impressed me the most about the Ruby on Rails community is the strong benevolent dictatorship of their core development group, lead by David Heinemeier Hansson. They have repeatedly set clearly defined, realistic expectations for what RoR is, and more importantly, what it is not. It’s refreshing to hear technologists say “sorry, our stack was never intended to do this and will not be modified to do this” and then come out and defend this stance against a slew of criticism. If this is an hour less spent learning the “latest and greatest” and an hour more spent solving real business issues; I’m sure my employer, my clients, and my family will all appreciate it.

I’ve added a second state government pattlet to the portfolio. This one is for the case entity. Although a bit more simplistic than our previous pattlet, Case still has some very interesting nuances, such as the use of aspect-oriented techniques to account for associating the writing of case history records with various case-related transactions.

In addition, I have made some minor revisions to the Case Transfer pattlet, upped the version number, and reposted that as well. I’ve also started added these pattlets to two open source pattern repositories.

On PatternShare.org, these two pattlets were the first examples to be added under the business architecture category. I’ve found PatternShare to be very usable and friendly. In essence, it’s a Wiki for patterns. Unfortunately, after the initial loading of the well-known patterns (e.g. GoF, Fowler), there has been little activity in this community, which is a real shame. I was especially disappointed at the non existence of business patterns, since this is an area where I see so much potential.

On et.gov, the process of adding and mapping a pattern was very interesting. You are actually required to submit create and submit an XML mapping describing your asset(s) and then post this XML file out to your site. The XML file I submitted can be found here. The underlying assets seem to be mapped against the FEA. In many ways, this process is similar to the one I described in my reusable asset post. The only difference is that the discovery mechanism in et.gov is very rudimentary, not near that of some of the commercial tools out there.

As before, the pattlet is licensed under the Creative Commons “Attribution Share-Alike” license. As a next step, I’m looking to move outside of case management for a while and potentially deal with participants. I’m especially interested in working on a Participant Relationship pattlet, since I’ve been having a lot of discussions in that area as of late. I’d also like to fully open source all of this work, including the source code, and post it out to a Subversion repository for people to download. There just don’t seem to be enough hours in the day to get this all done. Any help or assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Case.pdf (165.74 KB)

In my efforts to understand what drives software reuse or the lack thereof, I’ve been looking for formal reuse standards, processes, and practices. I’ve been examining technology agnostic materials as well as researching the approaches taken by each of the respective major camps – software factories for Microsoft and Model Driven Development (MDD) from the Java community. This post, in particular, is more concerned with technology agnostic materials.

 

Being a long time believer in Scott Ambler’s Enterprise Unified Process (EUP), the strategic reuse discipline contained in the EUP was the first place I turned for process guidance. The reuse discipline, like the rest of the EUP disciplines, is structured in the same fashion as any other RUP discipline, which makes learning pretty intuitive if you’re familiar with the RUP. The workflow of the strategic reuse discipline is illustrated in the image below. The workflow is pretty straightforward and the harvest, buy, build, evolve approach to the preparation of assets agrees with what I’ve observed in practice. If you’re interested in this process, you can check out a brief synopsis of the strategic reuse discipline or purchases Scott’s book on the EUP.

 

EUPStrategicReuseWorkflow.jpg (37.51 KB)

The Reusable Asset Specification (RAS) is an OMG standard that I have been recommending to colleagues for some while now. In terms of readability, the document is rather dry and academic in nature. In terms of real world applicability, I am aware of several systems that claim to offer RAS compliance. This includes the tool that we use, Logidex, which offers a RAS compliant plugin for Rational XDE. Where the document shines is not in readability or direct applicability but in the way it holistically addresses the capture of metadata about reusable assets. I’ve been recommending that folks read this document with a focus on the UML and XSD diagrams. There is a lot that can be learned about structuring asset metadata that will prove valuable to anyone attempting to classify their software development assets.

 

As a footnote, the IBM article on reusable assets, recipes and patterns provides a good introduction to the MDD approach, as espouse by one of the major Java vendors. Jack Greenfield’s article on software factories is not all that far removed from the techniques espoused by IBM but, as always, the tooling is quite different.

My initial experiences with Oracle’s TopLink object-relational mapping tool have been less than pleasant. TopLink is the default Java Persistence API provider when creating persistence units for EJB3 style beans in NetBeans. When using TopLink out of the box with NetBeans, the tool’s default behavior is to behave in a case-sensitive fashion with respect to table and column names. This results in awful “Table XXXXX does not exist” errors, where XXXXX is, of course, the capitalized table name.

This posture represents the absolute antithesis to the recent, Ruby on Rails-driven trend towards “Convention over Configuration”; instead reverting to the longstanding software engineering tradition of confusion over configuration. Why wouldn’t you just set the default behavior to respect case insensitivity? I’m assuming that this can be set in a config file but I’m too mad to go thumbing through the documentation to find out where that is. The TopLink API has a setShouldForceFieldsToUpperCase() method. I don’t want to call that either. Why should I have to?

Hmm… if I remember correctly, were I to open a SQL*Plus command prompt and execute the statement CREATE TABLE foo, Oracle would create for me a table named FOO. Sounds like Oracle convention over ease of configuration. As far as I can see, EJB-QL is case insensitive and the database I’m using, Derby, is also case insensitive. My primitive troubleshooting points to TopLink as the culprit here. I’m going to swap in Hibernate and see if I’m right or wrong. Is anyone else experiencing similar problems?

The Governor’s office announced an exciting new partnership between Google Earth, Carnegie Mellon University, NASA, the Pennsylvania Tourism Office, and the National Civil War museum that will allow virtual tourists from all over the world to experience Pennsylvania’s Civil War trails first hand. The partnership will be creating Gigapixel Panoramas (Gigapans), enabling users to visualize these destinations with a great degree of detail.

It’s hard to tell what this consortium is going to bring together exactly, but it sounds very promising. There has been talk of even introducing a time-based element into the visualization, which would be very cool, given the nature of the subject. For a quick look at other Gigapan type work, I’d recommend xRez. I find it hard to make much out of the landscapes but their panorama of downtown Boston is simply awesome.