Category Archives: Work

Writings on being an Enterprise Architect / I.T. Architect in academia.

SOA as IT Portfolio process

In the SOA Migration Strategy planning, we are transitioning from DISCOVERY to PROJECT process (see the I.T. Portfolio Book). We will begin a series of projects to implement SOA in the near futureThe book talks about three models for DISCOVERY phase analysis:

  • Technology Maturity Modeling (Gartner Hype Curve)

    • See the example here: http://nnlm.gov/pnr/eval/rogers.html

  • Scenario Modeling – two flavors

    • Business Scenario Modeling, Business Event/Process Modeling

  • Road-map modeling

In the Technology Maturity Model, several pieces of the Web Services stack are fairly mature at this time, others are still in early stages. Overall, there is a belief that the technology is sufficiently mature that we should begin to implement.

In the Road-Map model:

  • At some point in time in the future (say 5 years), we will implement Fusion based SIS, SFS and other software (probably)
  • This will instantly make us neck deep in in the WS-* stack, BPEL and MOM
  • Given this fairly sure hard milestone in the future, we should develop a roadmap that will make us mature in this technology on or before this event.

The Scenario model is under-developed at this time.

We have an opportunity to take SOA Migration through the I.T. Portfolio processes for each phase and to think about the analysis that should occur at each step of the phase.

GTD – Outside Context

Merlin Mann of 43 Folders just posted a podcast called “Putting Geeks In Context”. One issue with the Getting Things Done process is setting up contexts for your activities. I have found that defining meaningful and useful contexts is an on-going process.

Merlin suggests (very wisely I might add) that geeks need to use two super-contexts: Computer and Non-Computer. You then focus on doing Non-Computer things (like phone calls, reading, listening etc.) someplace else besides in your office in front of your computer.

I love the idea and I will focus on using the non-computer work as an opportunity for going outside. If I can find lectures or podcasts that I need to listen to for work, I’ll load them on my iPod and go for a long walk in the middle of day. I can take long documents to Union or Terrace to read.

Great idea Merlin.

U-Minn presentations: SOA, Folksonomy and IT Architecture

On Monday (April 3, 2006), I was at University of Minnesota presenting on four topics. Below are links to the slides as PDFs:

  1. UW-Madison’s SOA Migration Strategy – what is it and how do we get one
  2. Folksonomy and Web 2.0
  3. IT Architecture – What is it and why 3 isn’t enough
  4. Identity Management Nouns and Verbs

Note that the Folksonomy slides are from an Internet2 version of the talk and are more inclusive than the slides I used at U-Minn. Actually, I meant to grab these slides not the ones that I used. There are a list of links of the URLs that I used in the Folksonomy demo here:

Links I Use in My Folksonomy Demo

Kinkless Getting Things Done

I’ve been working with the Kinkless Getting Things Done (GTD) system. For more info about GTD, see my GTD Tag and/or read David Allen’s book, “Getting Things Done…”
Kinkless Getting Things Done (kGTD) is a system for organizing and trapping tasks using Applescripts and Omni Outliner Professional 3.6 (or better).  You create a project and add tasks for the project.  I’m using the term “project” very loosely.  In the sense of this article and kGTD, a project is a collection of tasks.  Tasks are activities that you can complete in one session.  For me, that means less than 20 minutes.   You assign a context for each task.  A context is a realm of completing work (like email, posting, errand, home, phone, etc).

The kGTD system then syncs the projects and gathers all of the tasks by context.  It also sorts tasks by due date and archives tasks.  This is the best task management / efficiency tool I’ve ever used and I have tried several (dozen) I would guess.

To really get a sense of the system, watch the Kinkless GTD Video.

I have knitted this together with Subversion to give me a more ubiquitous task management system.  I sync my file to a Subversion repository on my dreamhost account.  Subversion is a code management tool.  You check out files, edit then and check them back in.  I check out my kGTD file edit it and check it back in.  I can check it out at home or work.  This lets me keep a log of tasks that I can edit from any of my computers.

Check out the links below, watch the movie, read Merlin Mann’s 43 Folders entries and see if this will work for you.

Links that relate to this post…

Getting Things Done

I just listened to Mimi Yin and Merlin Mann’s talks on Getting Things Done at BayCHI.org Mimi Yin is working on interaction designs for the OSAF’s Chandler project. Merlin Mann is father of 43Folders.com and the Hipster PDA among other things.

Both of the talks are wonderful and well worth listening too. Mimi’s talk aligns with (no surprise, I’ve heard her talk before and I swallowed the cool-aid) my writings on Collaboration Channels – I don’t want to think about protocols Merlin’s talk got me thinking about a framework for getting stuff done.

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Corporate Site Visits – How to do it right

I’m on my second Corporate Site Visit (CVS) in recent months. Corporate Site Visits (or from the companies viewpoint Customer Site Visits) are when a bunch of people from a customer’s shop come to visit the company usually to talk deeper technical talk than they can get from the sales reps.

These visits cost us something on the order $20K to 25K (for 7 people to miss 3 days of work, fly, hotel etc). Corporations: You need to work to make sure that our visit is worth $20K.

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Collaboration Channels – I don’t want to think about protocols

Burton Group talks about the distinction between Channels and Workspaces in Collaboration. Channels are routes where information flows. Workspaces are areas where collaborators gather. Examples of Workspaces are Wikis, shared document repositories, group calendar software.

Channels are things like email, chat, VoIP, video conferencing and telephony. The problem with Channels is that we have to be protocol centric. We have to think – I want to communicate with Keith. Let see if the Chat protocol will work (e.g. is he on-line in chat?) if not I’ll send an email but maybe I’ll call too. I want to be person centric: I want to communicate with Keith.

In my ideal scenario, I would select Keith as a contact and I would then see communication options TEXT, VOICE, VIDEO. I could then select that I want to do VOICE. I would pick up my headset and my computer would establish a connection. On Keith’s end, he would choose to have VOICE channeled to Skype or iChatAV or to his cell phone or home phone number. He might even have a priority list (if Skype is running, use Skype otherwise send to Cell Phone). He might send VOICE directly to an MP3 (to voicemail) that he can listen to later.

On the TEXT side, I would select TEXT and either be connected to IM or asked to form an email depending on KEITH’s availability setting in IM.

The IM logs should flow into a repository that is similar to my (if not the same as my) email repository.

There are times when I would like to pick the protocol, when I would send and email even though Keith is on IM.

On the receiver end, I would need better presence management. I would need a unified presence control – a central place where I could manage the flow of information into my channels. I would have to swap managing protocols for managing presence.

Google School Rankings

A graduate student at Stanford – Mike Tung – put together a suite of scripts and tools to generate College rankings based on Google searches. He didn’t want to pay for the USNews’ Annual America’s Best Colleges report. Though his work is quite technical, I imagine that it will be simplified into a web app that any student can use at any point in time. “What are the College rankings now?” click…

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Making a living in a virtual world

Wire News has a story about Making a Living in Second Life.  Second Life is a virtual world were you can live out the life of your avitar. 

Within a month, Grinnell was making more in Second Life than in her real-world job as a dispatcher. And after three months she realized she could quit her day job altogether.

Now Second Life is her primary source of income, and Grinnell, whose avatar answers to the name Janie Marlowe, claims she earns more than four times her previous salary.

One person makes $150,000 a year (in real $US money) renting virtual land to other people. I must say that I’m not really sure what to make of it. Who would spend this kind of money to own and maintain a virtual island?

Islands are priced at US$1,250 for 16 acres. Monthly land fees for maintenance are US$195.

What if the server crashes? Is it obsession? Is “real life” too boring? Do they have too much money?

Yet more calendar requirements

Ben Teitelbaum of Internet2 pushes his availability to his web site from his calendar application. He “takes Apple iCal’s iCalendar file and strips out the subject, location and agenda for each item, leaving only an availability mask” which he feeds to PHP iCalendar. This makes scheduling time for a phone call with Ben very easy.

Calendar applications should provide a configurable feed for this data that could easily be picked up by another person or by a blog plugin to do what Ben has done with slick scripts.

Oracle Calendar allows for searching of resources and people but you have to anchor the search with the correct starting characters. Example: I can search for the DoIT ARCH LCD PROJECTOR with DoIT ARCH and find the item but not with ARCH LCD PROJECTOR.

Name aliases: Oracle Calendar doesn’t understand (in LDAP lookups as we have it configured at least) that Jim might equal James.