SOA Needs To Be “Burried”

Forrester analyst Randy Heffner, has published a report titled “SOA Is Far From Dead—But It Should Be Buried.”

Sparked by a tinderbox of economic jitters and technology backlash, a recent thread of industry discussion cries out, ‘SOA is dead!’ Although many have had fun with the discussion, it is in fact quite misguided. No prior industry initiative for IT architecture has had an impact as positive and broad-reaching as service-oriented architecture (SOA). But SOA’s impact is only part of the story: You have many more technology initiatives besides SOA. You need a bigger architectural vision that encompasses SOA, business process management, event processing, Web 2.0, and much more besides. Although SOA is far from dead, it should be buried inside a larger vision.

What’s In Your Wallet?

What’s the prevailing business management strategy of the day (i.e. governance, decision-making, planning, change management, leadership, visioning, etc.), not just for Higher Education or IT?

The More Things Change (Bb Buys Another LMS), The More They Stay The Same (Reaction Filled With FUD)

As most know by now, Blackboard has announced that they will purchase Angel. Of course this has sparked all sorts of responses from folks, covering everything you might expect – unfortunately most still misrepresent open source.

Rather than offer any thoughts on the buy-out and what it might mean to Blackboard users, Angel users or even the entire LMS industry, I’d like to focus on how the discussions align with current ideas, perpetuate/counter misconceptions, or, have evolved from traditional views on the viability of open source.

With things moving so fast, or at least the comments through blogs and twitter (#auc09, #bbplusangel), etc. (the announcement was made on May 6th and the Angel Users Conference was just this week), I am sure most folks are reacting rather than assessing, but I am struck over and over by the comments being made by those on the ground working with an LMS and those reporting on the acquisition: everything from misconceptions to downright ignorance regarding open source projects and adoption.

Government Promotes Open Source for Public Sector

I just saw an article in The Register on the creation of an Action Plan for the adoption of Open Source by the UK Government. While this action alone is impressive and inspiring (I have been trying with limited success to move the State of New York and SUNY in this direction), what is even more significant is the process through which they are developing their policy.

Included in the Action Plan is :

To help bring together the online debate around this Action Plan, we’ve set up a public page which contains links to blog posts, news stories and tweets about UK government, open source and open standards. If you write about this online, please use the tag #ukgovOSS to help us find your comment.

The approach used by the Council is completely in line with the the open source methodology of collaboration, many eye-balls, iteration, etc.

In addition to promoting the use of open source software, the new policy also emphasizes open standards and encourages the re-use of IT solutions in the public sector.

Among the 10 points of the government’s action plan are the following:

• The CIO Council and the Office of Government Commerce will develop guidance to ensure open source will be given the same consideration as proprietary products.
• The two bodies will also set up a program of education and capability building in the field.
• The CIO Council will regularly assess open source products for their maturity and recommend those that meet agreed criteria.
• It will also work with systems integrators and software suppliers to open up their solutions to meet open standards, to include open source and facilitate re-use.
• The government will specify requirements by reference to open standards and require compliance with open standards in solutions where feasible.
• Government purchasers will use a standard OGC approved OJEU clause to make clear that solutions are purchased on the basis that they may be re-used elsewhere in the public sector.

Something to shoot for…

Trying to Keep Up.

I just keep ignoring this blog as I have been spending more time on the SUNY Delhi blog. The whole department is contributing so the conversations just seem to flow. So few hours..

The Question Shouldn’t Be; “Why IT Projects Get Killed…”

It should be, “Why IT projects get started.”

CIO Insight just published the top five reasons why IT projects are killed. According to the a survey of 167 IT executives, conducted by The Information Systems Audit and Control Association, the reasons were:

1. The Businesses needs changed (30%)
2. The project does not deliver what was promised (23%)
3. The project is no longer a priority (14%)
4. The budget was exceeded (13%)
5. Does not support the business strategy (7%)

Conference Invitation

Agile at PSU

I was recently invited down to Penn State World Campus to discuss Delhi’s move toward Agile for the enterprise. Here is the audio and the slides to click through (sorry no bell included to tell you when to turn the page).

This was the first run for a upcoming NERCOMP presentation, so it’s a bit rough…

“No Five Year Plan, No Advisory Board: How do I still Have a Job”
[Slides] | [Part 1 Audio] | [Part 2]

“…First Year Shock and Awe” (Not my title)

I was recently involved with a Campus Technology Magazine article looking at the first year on the job for a new CIO. Considering my original idea behind this blog, “…learning from the seasoned CIO, discovering their issues and sharing ideas: perhaps the experiences related here will help some future first-time CIO,” I realize how delinquent I have been in posting the various issues encountered through my first year.

Therefore in upcoming posts I will look back at the last year–my first year–highlighting the issues I faced coming into the organization, my responses (good and bad), and some of the outcomes. Hopefully to, as I mentioned when first starting up this forum, learn from the seasoned CIO, discover their issues and share ideas: with the hope that the experiences related here will help some future first-time CIO.

lol l8r

I was recently asked by our Provost for a “universal term” that included everything: cell phones, ipods, gameboys, pagers, etc. The plan was to include a statement in the universal course syllabus prohibiting the use of [insert universal term here] in class.

I responded with a question: “Would laptop computers be allowed in the class?”

I can not think of any functionality available in a personal-electronic-mobile-hand-held-device that is also not available on a laptop.

• music: iPod/mp3 player/iPhone = iTunes, Helix, Windows Media Player, Real Player, web pages, Quicktime, etc.
• phone calls: cell phone/Blackberry = Skype, Yahoo voice, Viatalk, etc.
• texting: PDA/cell phones/iPhone/Blackberries = e-mail, IM, chat, discussion forms, blogs, etc.
• movies: DVD players/iPods/iPhones = Windows Media Player, Quicktime, RealMedia, YouTube, BlipTV, etc.
• games: DS/Gameboy/PSP = online games (MMORPG), computer games (CD/DVD), etc.

So what is it that our polices are tying to manage: devices or disruptions?

I believe we are actually trying to eliminate disruptions; that cell phone call in the middle of class, a student talking on the phone, music playing so loud we can just hear the base pumping from the earphones, etc. Yet these are all disruptions independent of technology. We wouldn’t tolerate someone outside the class to yell to a friend inside the class “Pat, hey Pat, are you in there, Pat come here” (analogous to a a ringing phone – in fact that is my ring tone), we would probably also stop two students from talking during class (analogous to a phone conversation), we would also probably stop a student from singing, tapping their feet or humming if it became disruptive as well.

And what about legitimate uses of technology in the classroom (beyond ADA issues):

• A student with a laptop could be IMing a friend or typing, diligently taking notes.
• A student could be shopping online or researching a topic under discussion (anyone hear of Google Jockey’s?).

At the same time I was asked to come up with a catch-all term, the campus was implementing an Emergency Notification System, NY-Alert. With NY-Alert, in the event of an emergency, the campus can send out a message that is transmitted to phones as voice and/or as text. So while we were ready to deploy a notification system that relied on communication with the students through their personal-electronic-mobile-hand-held-device we were also telling them that these devices would not be allowed in class. Let’s just hope nothing ever happened during classes!?!? Does this make us liable for any damage or injuries?

Considering that the issue is really disruptions, not the devices, and that policies are already in place for disruptions perhaps a policy like: “All personal-electronic-mobile-hand-held-devices must be turned off during class” could be changed to, “No disruptive behavior will be tolerated within the class.”

Based on this, students can leave their phones on, we keep open our channel of communication, we avoid the issues of liability, and faculty have options should a student’s phone go off in class.