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Platforming

Quarterly BriefingLondon, UK

24 Sep 2009

Innovating Information Systems in the Google AgeScott Conley, CSO

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Context

RecessionIndifferent CEOShrinking demandPrice pressureControl expectationsPerfect knowledge?

12 month goals

✤ allocate tiny

budget

✤ deliver ‘agility’

✤ seize

something!

“Will it work?”

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Thinking out loudBusiness-as-usualTechnology-centricMonolith Oriented Architecture?

“Which enterprise software provider should we work with? How much should we spend?”

"Facingthesedemands,

manyexecu3vesasking

themselveswhichacronym

(e.g.,BI,CRM,ERP)isright

forus?”

http://blogs.ft.com/donsullblog/2009/07/02/getting-it-right-for-execution/

Don Sull on FT.com

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The core challenge

http://blogs.ft.com/donsullblog/2009/07/02/getting-it-right-for-execution/

Whatorganiza(onal,

behavioral,and

culturalchangeswill

weneedtocapturethe

benefitsofimproved

informa3on?"

“Whattypeofsuppor3ngdatadoweneedtomakesenseofarapidlychanging

market?

wrongques(ons..amorefundamentalset..

To pragmatically innovate on information:

You need an information advantage.You need an operational advantage.

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Additional Thinking

Enterprise 2.0Behavioral EconomicsConstraint-driven Innovation“Free”Lean

Long term, organisms that deliver intent and emergent

design will survive.

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Additional Thinking

Jeff Jarvis, pattern seeker“Link economy”Abundance

“Trust the people”

Amazon, others “would do it,” too..Build a platform that leverages these forces

Build a platform?

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Platforms

a “distributed model of enabling countless companies to start atop what it provides.”

http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/04/06/the-fall-of-the-firm/

products?ini3a3ves?ideas?

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3 Platforms

SOCIAL

MOBILE

CLOUD

.. or harness one?

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3 Platforms

SOCIALCLOUD

Let’s focus on just these

two.

MOBILE

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Crushing onCloud

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Cloud Marketing

How are cloud vendors positioning themselves?

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Cloud Marketing

How are cloud vendors positioning themselves?

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Cloud Marketing

How are cloud vendors positioning themselves?

Thevalueincloudlies

wellbeyond

costopportuni3es

inthedatacenter.

CHEAPER

PRICE

SAVE

©ThoughtWorks2009

Defining Cloud

Thevalueincloudlies

wellbeyond

costopportuni3es

inthedatacenter.

Internet accessibleStandardized capabilityUtility pricingSelf-provisioning APIsElasticity

http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,45073,00.html

Flickr

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Cloud Market

Office Live

Google Apps

Provisioning business-level functional applications or services.

Innovation cycle:Late Majority Salesforce.com

Software-as-a-Service 1000’sby2020

Google Checkout

RackspaceMosso

Akamai

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Cloud Market

Amazon AWSEC2, S3

Innovation cycle:Early Majority

Provisioning (virtual) hardware or other fine-grained embedded behavior/services.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service 100’sby2020

Salesforceforce.com

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Cloud Market

Google AppEngine

EngineYardFlex

MicrosoftAzure

Innovation cycle:Early adopters

Provisioning virtual application stacks or similar environment sandboxes

Platform-as-a-Service 10by2020

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Operationaladvantage

Viably ‘drive

down’ the

innovation

expectation

Automobile wholesaler“Last Mile” problems

Performance testing

Environment rigor

“First Mile” opptysProduct experiments

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Another Long Tail

Capture otherwise inaccessible market opportunities

http://blog.animoto.com/2008/04/21/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-on-animoto/

15hoursof

Internet

fame

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Another Long Tail

In 4 days:From 50 to 5000 servers5000 daily users to 750,000

http://blog.seattlepi.com/amazon/archives/142569.asp

mone3zetheviralspike

operational advantage

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Takeaways

Cloud is critical leverage for true information-driven agility.

Major step towards ‘closing the production cycle loop’

What 'comes out of the wall' is not entirely described by the fact that it's coming out of the wall!

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FriendingSocial

bebo

Ravelry

Get Satisfaction

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Social Market

Facebook

Twitter

Development of consumer graphs is paramount. Enterprise penetration is very thin and inconsistent.

c2c networks

Innovation cycle:Early Majority

Blogs

ProductForums

Reputation Systems

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Social Market

RecommendationEnginesDeliberately cultivated

communities around a brand or experience

b2c networks

Innovation cycle:Late Majority

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Social Market

force.com

eBay, Amazon

Debated! Do social patterns have relevance to the b2b space?

b2b networks

Innovation cycle:Early Adopters

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on corporate strategy..

"Corporate strategy is all about collecting information from many different sources, evaluating the probabilities of potential outcomes, and making decisions in the face of an uncertain future."

James SurowieckiThe Wisdom of Crowds

B2C is bottoms up!

Dell’sIdeaStorm

Glam zipcar

Obamacampaign

Sony VIAOLenovo

Comcast

TencentQQ

B2C is bottoms up!

Dell’sIdeaStorm

Glam zipcar

Obamacampaign

Sony VIAOLenovo

Comcast

TencentQQ

Allareopenlytryingto

inverttheirproduct/

service/branddesign

approaches

Spanish apparel retailerDominant supply chainStrong sales

How to take the next step?

Forecasting?

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Zara

Realagilityinthesupplychain?For

anapparelcompany,that’sopera(onal

advantage.

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Zara

HQ

design

store mgrs

clothes

forecasts,trends

targets of opportunity

#1worldwide

25%ofavgITspend

informationadvantage

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Takeaways

Get your humans involved, use social tech to move specific knowledge

Employees, customers, all of them! Don't build a community; penetrate one. Social is relevant to b2b

Abandonthetechno‐hubrishegemony!

©ThoughtWorks2009

Current Favorite Short Case

SOCIAL

MOBILE

CLOUD

“We only have so much CapEx”

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ThoughtWorks Conference Connection

“Howdowegetmovementinthis

market?”

“Buy everyone

Blackberrys”

“Build an iPhone app”

Conferencesareoneofourcoresocial

ecosystemplaygrounds.

Can we better penetrate this social graph?

Can we harness a cloud platform?

“Send people to mobile events”

©ThoughtWorks2009

ThoughtWorks Conference Connection

Can we better penetrate this social graph?

Can we harness a cloud platform?

Anchored on AppEngine

marketing / brandservice offeringsnew investmentsinformation

low investment

happy users

operational

For Conferences

and Attendees

©ThoughtWorks2009

SummaryHarness the platforms (then develop one!)Push your innovation past the technologies

Use the low cost clouds to position your knowledge systems for agility/operational advantage

There are humans in your (eco)systemUnderstand themAccount for themUse them!

©ThoughtWorks2009

Thank you!