BI Mashup Maturity Model? Oxymoron? Au Contraire Mon Frère!

By James Kobielus

In one of my recent tweets, I commented that Forrester has developed a maturity model for enterprise adoption of mashup-style, self-service development of business intelligence (BI) applications. Indeed, we have, and it will appear in my forthcoming Forrester report, “Mighty Mashups: Do-It-Yourself Business Intelligence for the New Economy.”

Another tweeter--an astute, but sadly, non-Forrester BI analyst--scoffed that “BI mashup maturity model” is an oxymoron. Respectfully, I must disagree. Enterprises are adopting self-service BI approaches for many reasons--principally, to cut costs in a tight economy, to unclog the development backlog, and to speed delivery of actionable, targeted intelligence to decision makers. Also, companies are providing users with BI tools to do interactive, deeply dimensional exploration of information pulled from enterprise data warehouses (EDW), marts, cubes, transactional applications, and other systems. Furthermore, organizations everywhere have adopted browser-oriented BI environments that leverage the full Web 2.0 interactivity and collaboration.

Sitting at the convergence of those trends is BI mashup, which Forrester sees as the new paradigm for truly pervasive decision-support systems. What throws off some people is the term “mashup,” which sometimes gets pigeonholed as simply referring to using, say, Google Maps to display geocoded performance metrics and sundry Internet-sourced data in a browser-based dashboard. Yes, BI mashup encompasses that approach to presenting and integrating diverse data, but its application is much broader.

Just as important, BI mashup is not bleeding-edge. Rather, BI mashup leverages the in-memory BI clients, semantic virtualization layers, data federation middleware, automated data discovery, and other next-generation BI tools and platforms.

No one vendor or user has yet put together an end-to-end BI environment that is entirely focused on mashup-style self-service development. However, Forrester sees the BI industry converging toward as mashup-oriented architecture over the coming 2-3 years. With that in mind, we sketched out a BI maturity model that encompasses the following four levels (the first 3 of which are represented in case studies in the upcoming report):

• Level 1: Lightweight presentation mashup against transactional applications: This basic maturity level is for companies that have no prior BI or EDW; have little in-house BI expertise; and are comfortable with allowing casual users to use their browsers to customize parameterized reports from data from packaged business applications.                                                                
• Level 2: Deep presentation mashup against EDW: This level is for organization that do have prior BI and centralized EDWs, but have an understaffed BI development group and/or  power users and data modelers urgently require the ability to mashup and explore historical and current data within sophisticated BI workspaces.
• Level 3: Full BI mashup in federated environment: This level is for organizations that have decentralized, dynamic data management environments, and have the expertise to design reusable, composite data services to seamlessly mashup internal and external information.
• Level 4: Full collaborative mashup with IT governance: This level is for organizations that want to encourage subject  matter experts and operational users to collaborate on analytics created through mashup, but who are also concerned that all mashups be controlled, governed, and monitored in accordance with enterprise policies and best practices.

As I said, it will take a few years before we see a substantial number of enterprise case studies that implement the pinnacle of collaborative mashup with tight governance. Nevertheless, when you follow the evolution of next-generation solution portfolios from leading BI vendors such as SAP, IBM, Microsoft, and others, it’s clear that self-service user-centric mashup, to varying degrees, is a core theme.

BI mashup has such a strong business case that we’re confident it’s more than simply a “down economy” theme. It will almost certainly grow in importance for information and knowledge management professionals as the economy improves.

Self-Service Business Intelligence Depends on Automated Data Discovery

 By James Kobielus

If you tuned into my Forrester teleconference yesterday, you heard me discuss the end-to-end infrastructure necessary to fully support mashup-style self-service business intelligence (BI).

One of the key features for BI mashup is automated source-data discovery, which spares information workers from having to find new data sources or fresh updates from existing sources. Instead, the user simply relies on the BI and back-end data virtualization infrastructure to perform these critical activities as ongoing background tasks. Once new sources and feeds are discovered, transformed to a common semantic model, and published to a BI-mashup registry, all the user needs to do is drag and drop them visually into their mashed-up reports, dashboards, and other analytics.

Automated discovery is not only key to BI mashup, but to trustworthy data as well, because it helps detect and remediate anomalies across disparate data sources. Only a few vendors on the market today provide strong features for automated source discovery. One of them is Composite Software, which recently released an appliance that performs these functions. Another is Exeros, which is the closest thing to an automated-data-discovery pure-play in the market today.

Or, rather, was the closest thing, until IBM announced this morning that it is acquiring Exeros. I’ve been following Exeros for several years and have long considered them a strong candidate for acquisition by a leading BI, data warehousing (DW), data integration (DI), or data quality (DQ) vendor. On IBM’s part, this acquisition makes great sense as a complement to its InfoSphere and Optim portfolios on the data management and governance side of the house.

It will also fit nicely with IBM’s Cognos portfolio as a key enabler, potentially, for BI self-service mashup. As I stated on my teleconference, some vendors are further ahead on putting together a completely mashup-enabling end-to-end BI solution, and Cognos is among them. You can download the teleconference slides from Forrester’s website, listen to my streaming audio, and/or wait for my forthcoming report for more in-depth thoughts on this topic.

Now the ball’s in IBM’s rivals’ courts regarding whether, when, and how they plan to add automated source discovery to their BI portfolios.

Free And Freer: Lotus Symphony Could Be Your Unsung Hero, But Only If You Hear About It

By Sheri McLeish

Everyone knows that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Or is it? With its free productivity tools suite Symphony, IBM/Lotus is looking to shake things up a bit, putting even greater pressure on Microsoft's Office margin and besting Google and Zoho as the lowest-cost alternative.
 
So far, enterprise customers have been reluctant to move away from Office due to concerns about supporting a new or multiple environments, document formats, user acceptance, and proof of savings after change management costs are figured in. But with the lure of free or much lower-cost alternatives available, CIOs are reexamining these investments in a suddenly interesting market given the economic climate. With its Open Office-based Symphony, Lotus provides a robust tool set that is enterprise-ready. To make the point, 40,000 of IBM's information workers recently made the jump off Office onto Symphony 1.2, and all of the conference materials for last week's Lotusphere09 event were produced using the tools. It all worked and looked great. But these workers were already on Notes, and what works for IBM doesn't necessarily work for the masses.
 
Lotus' biggest challenge now may be its image and marketing. Other than the loyal Lotus aficionados who turned out en force at the brand's premier customer event in Orlando -- the roughly 4,000 in attendance was up 2% from last year -- most IT folks are not up to speed with Lotus' latest offerings to ease internal and external collaboration like lotuslive.com, which was announced last week. Symphony fits into IBM ECM and the Lotus collaboration strategy nicely by providing the classic tools for creating, sharing, and storing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations along with some nifty innovations. But if you're not an IBM Notes shop -- and according to Forrester data, the overwhelming majority of enterprises are on Exchange -- you might not know about it.
 
The other tack, which has found traction for Google, is to work on the consumer market. IBM has never courted the consumer market well, or necessarily even tried. But when you have a product as good as Symphony is today, gaining mindshare in the consumer market creates awareness from the bottom up. Google Docs is a popular choice for many students not just because it's free, but because it meets their needs and has a great affinity with Google Mail and Calendar. When clients ask us about alternatives to Office, Google is the first one they mention. But in many cases, Google's limited functionality isn't viable enterprise wide. Until IBM puts some money into marketing Symphony -- to consumers as well as enterprises, it will struggle to break into non-Lotus shops. And that's too bad, because for those really looking to reduce Microsoft licensing costs without trading off functionality, Symphony sounds pretty good.

Enterprise Mashups Need Complexity To Create Value

By Gil Yehuda
Those who drink the Web 2.0 Kool-aid live in a idealistic world where we can mentally connect a great idea to a great implementation of that idea. We live on faith that the great implementation will come, since there are plenty of smart people out there who will eventually figure out how to make value out of technology building blocks. Sometimes our faith is tested when the killer-app does not show up for a long time. But evidence can restore our faith.

When I first saw mashups, I thought they were pretty cool. The canonical examples of this technology were all about the placement of data points onto a map. With mashups you can visualize where Fortune 100’s top companies to work for are located, and you can find a mailbox nearby. It’s certainly nice to use once in a while, and maybe worth bookmarking. But will this alone transform a business? Likely not.

Sharing location information via an online travels social network, like Brightkite, FireEagle, Bluenity, Dopplr, or TripIt, is also pretty cool. Using the integration hooks into Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, I can begin to share location information with those I trust. I can post where I am located now, and where I plan to be in the near future. I believe there could be value in this activity, but it’s not yet transforming the way I use information into business results.

But I am now beginning to see how these services combine to build a useful application. The “aha” moment for me was when I stopped looking for one mashup, or one sharing app, and saw how companies can combine multiple streams to create value out of data. What if you take a map mashup, a calendar mashup, a travel micro-share feed, an events feed, and dataset from a CRM system containing the names of locations of my customers? I trust that smart people can take these and create value. Why? Am I drinking the Kool-aid? No – I see signals that indicate this is happening.

Look at the new LinkedIn application widgets that mash-in LinkedIn data. My TripIt tool reminds me of a future trip to London, and tells me that I have a few LinkedIn contacts there. Based on information in my LinkedIn profile, LinkedIn tells me about relevant upcoming events. I found an interesting event in London. Will my contact attend that event? What if they’ll be traveling to Boston when I’m in London. Doh! So close.

But I see the outline of a new pattern. Whereas each data mashup is interesting, the right combination can transform my work behavior. There’s a who, what, when, and where, that all have to intersect onto a map and onto a calendar.

I recently met Sanjay Vakil of LuckyCal, who understands this pattern well. He is connecting the dots to create transformative value out of data streams. His product has some growing up to do before it is ready for enterprise rollout. But his product today combines a mapping mashup (telling me which of my contacts are where I am going to be), with a calendar mashup (matching when contacts of mine will be near me), and with an events stream (telling me what other events are taking place there at that time). Hey, that's the pattern: a set of data streams intersecting to create valuable information out of available information – but onto multiple mashup surfaces.

Suddenly the neurons start to fire. We need more than a single stream of data pins on a map to get our attention. As the LuckyCal product matures, it can become the paradigm for an enterprise mashup - triangulation. If it adds the data streams that matter most to me, (e.g. my CRM data), along with other streams and network information, it results in new information. The triangulation of these data sets means that I could predict whom I meet and what to do when I plan my trips. Moreover, my manager would be able see where the team’s travelers are now, and where they will be in the near future. My sales manager could see which of us will be traveling nearby other clients, and she may want take advantage of the proximity opportunities. Travel still happens, but we can get more value out of each trip. Enterprises like to hear that.

So, if you combine two mashups and couple of data feeds, you can create transformative value from readily available information. I had faith this could be created, but now that I see signals that others are implementing solutions like this. I have renewed faith in the relevance of mashups to enterprise computing. It's just more complex than splashing a data set onto a map. That's OK, enterprises are used to leveraging complexity to create value. And mashups can be the building blocks to enable their success.

Better Latte Than Never: Microsoft Office Web Apps Percolating

By Sheri McLeish

When Microsoft announced this week that its next version of Office will include web apps there was no real surprise. But it reminded me of Steven Wright on Dr. Katz when he acknowledged that he usually had four or five cups of coffee before his first cup of coffee. Knowledge workers have started drinking at the web apps cafe, but are just getting warmed up for the real thing. It’s when Microsoft’s brew is ready that it starts to count.

Microsoft has been sloth like to move its apps to the web, but it is coming at it from a position of strength. Zoho has a great buzz and feels like it adds an app a week while for Google it’s an all or nothing bid focused on alternatives to desktop productivity from Office. Microsoft’s taking on wikis and other collaborative needs, blending the experience in the tools. Want collaborative authoring? They have it (by the way, so will Adobe soon). Want a web-based editor? Got it. Want the web-based editor to work with your peers that have the full desktop while you collaborate on a contract or meeting notes? Got it. But bringing it all together without being overly complex or undercutting Microsoft’s Office suite margins takes time.

Microsoft is trying to evolve to keep its dominance in desktop productivity and maintain relevance. Today Microsoft continues to reign supreme in the desktop productivity tools space. The question is whether or not knowledge workers will be satisfied by lighter weight versions of their desktop tools, as Microsoft will be offering only scaled back web versions of its Office programs. Forrester’s data shows the uptake of web productivity apps in the enterprise to be miniscule even if interest is expressed. That’s because no one’s really satisfied with lighter weight versions. If they were a viable alternative to Office, we’d have seen much greater adoption of Google and others. And for enterprises believing they will be able to reduce licensing costs with web-based Office apps, they will likely be disappointed as availability will be through existing volume licensing agreements. Deployment costs should go down, however, and these are material.

So far, time seems to be on Microsoft’s side. Because even though web-based productivity tools exist, no one has done much more yet than mimic Microsoft’s capabilities. And no one has successfully figured out an efficient content collaboration strategy that engages knowledge workers the way they want to work – at the office, on the go, on the web, offline, authenticated or not, or some combination of these depending on a person’s role, location, personal preferences – or what day of the week it is. Choice will reign supreme as the knowledge worker demographic shifts and expectations increase on being able to transition seamlessly between devices and desktops, between wikis and Word. Microsoft recognizes this shift and can leverage its familiar apps to address this gap. But it’s still hurry up and wait for now.

Tactile user-built micro-analytics...OLAP and BI for the next generation...and for the aging Baby Boomer generation

By James Kobielus

This week at Microsoft’s annual BI conference in Seattle, they shared a lot of near futures from their business intelligence (BI) and data warehousing (DW) roadmaps.

In his latest post, Boris Evelson nicely described Microsoft’s splashiest near-futures demo, for 'Project Gemini." This set of features, due for 2010 availability under SQL Server "Project Kilimanjaro," will support (brace yourselves, this gets mildly run-on) self-service, interactive, ad-hoc, in-memory, column-oriented, Excel-integrated, Sharepoint-integrated, SQL Server Analysis Services-integrated, collaborative, desktop-based modeling, creation, sharing, publishing, and governance of multidimensional analytic applications among non-technical users within the enterprise.

Whew! As you can imagine, Microsoft is still groping for a pithy way to characterize the emerging new post-OLAP paradigm that their "Project Gemini" will enable. Fortunately, their "Project Gemini" demo is a lot more user-friendly than that description would lead you to believe. It hangs together smoothly, both from a usability standpoint and as a powerful approach for making dimensional modeling pervasive among Information Workers. At the very least, it was an impressive and entertaining presentation, delivered in the context of a storyboard-style value proposition from the conference's main stage.

The practical vision that Microsoft demonstrated corroborates Boris and my discussion of next-generation OLAP approaches in a forthcoming co-authored document. Though other BI vendors provide or are developing similar post-OLAP approaches on many levels, Microsoft has brought it all together into a powerful new synthesis that takes dimensional modeling away from the “rocket scientist” data modelers and puts it into the hands of any Excel power user. In the process, Microsoft’s approach has the potential to radically unclog IT departments’ OLAP development backlogs by providing users with do-it-yourself tooling integrated tightly into their BI deployments.

But, as I said, "Project Gemini" is still a near-futures work-in-progress, and, of course, depends on a full Microsoft BI stack. But seeing the demo several times--plus other futures that Microsoft demonstrated at this show, and then reading my other Forrester colleagues' most recent blog posts--triggered some other thoughts regarding next-generation analytics environments. Indulge me for a moment (this is all in addition to Boris' excellent sketch on next-generation BI).

Next generation? Shifting gears and speaking of human generations for a moment, I enjoyed Connie Moore's discussion of user-interface peripherals ergonomics for the many Baby Boomers (self included) who are moving inexorably into AARP territory. Coincidentally, Microsoft at the BI conference demonstrated their new "Surface" technology, which can best be described as a touchscreen physical table with an immersive spatially oriented navigation paradigm (and running Windows Vista under the "surface"). On Surface, Microsoft demonstrated a Virtual Earth application that delivered fresh BI metrics tied to points on a 3-D onscreen map (projected on a 2-D physical display) of downtown Seattle.

What occurred to me while manipulating the large visual onscreen objects on Surface was that this tactile interface is suited to those of us who have always have been ham-handed, and/or those of us who’ll lose fine motor control and visual acuity as we age. No, it probably will never become the standard UI technology for pervasive BI, but these "very large screen, very large input touch surface" devices may become the only usable BI clients for many of us as we age. At some point, the microscopic UI of mobile devices--such as the iPhone apps that Ted Schadler discusses--may become unreadable and unusable for senior citizens attempting to access BI applications.

Micro-interfaces? Speaking of micro-everything, Gil Yehuda’s discussion of microblogging reminded me of an important point about "Project Gemini." Fundamentally, that Microsoft technology supports what one might call user-centric "micro-modeling" within Excel of fine-grained analytics applications (which Microsoft referred to alternately as "assets" and "artifacts"). One such analytic micro-app might simply define a report-style view of of a particular range of rows and columns in an Excel spreadsheet model. Another might create a reusable dashboard component that, after having been published to Sharepoint’s shared library, be repurposed by other users in their "Gemini" applications. In this way, micro-analytics might be composed by users into larger models (call them "cubes" if you wish). As a persistent module of corporate institutional memory, a "Gemini" micro-app posting (to Sharepoint/SQL Server Analysis Services) is akin to a micro-blog posting to Twitter. Just as you link from your blog to other people’s micro- and/or macro-posts, you’ll do the same with respect to their "Gemini" micro- and macro-models.

What do you think? Is Microsoft atomizing the OLAP cube to smithereens? Are the days of traditional MOLAP and ROLAP approaches, with their high priesthoods of expert data modelers and cube builders, truly numbered? And when will Microsoft roll out a tactile, Wii-style, immersive post-OLAP environment for bouncing analytics objects back and forth, game-style, along an n-dimensional topological hypercube surface?

OK, OK, I’m not waiting for the latter. I can’t even visualize it, not even with my thickest eyeglasses. I assume that a Ph.D. mathematician can, or maybe Stephen Hawking.

But it is fun to dream.

Why the big fuss over microblogs?

By Gil Yehuda

I microblog.

Why? The truth is, I learn by doing and by speaking with others who do. So I dabble with Twitter, Plurk, Pownce, Spoink, Rakawa, Tumblr, Utterli, Yammer, FriendFeed, 12seconds, and probably a few others that I signed up for and forgot to use. I have found a nice collection of people that I like to follow, and some people follow me too. So microblogging appeals to the extrovert in me, and I'm strangely fascinated reading what other people are doing (or what they say they are doing). Narcissism and voyeurism are at play.

The current pattern of Web 2.0 innovation starts with the incubation and socialization of a concept in the consumer space. For many vendors, this is just baiting the hook. Once these behaviors are socialized, maybe the most devoted users will want to take those behaviors to work too. And then someone with budget to burn might be willing to pay to support the habit. All the devotees have to do is convince the person with the purse that there is a real business need to satisfy. Addiction and justification are at play.

Microblogging now appears on stage. Smart people spend many coffee-infused hours thinking of reasons that real employees might need to microblog. Some of the use cases may even make sense. If people (and automated systems, sensors, and applications) are willing to emit bits of insight, these info-bit streams eventually compile into some form of valuable information. The idea of short message communication is chic and appealing. But microblogging requires patience on the part of the reader to learn the patterns emitted from the stream. Elegance and tediousness are at play.

But why the appeal? Why the fuss? I believe two factors are at play:

1. Mobility makes us omnipresent, but short on time. Microblogging appeals to those who use mobile devices. It provides a channel that honors our thumbs and encourages us to say just a few words. And we can connect to the intranet from anywhere. For some, this is true power.
2. The list of people I “follow” may be interesting to you. Although Web 2.0 tools present information, their use becomes increasingly more interesting when we look at the network of people who generate and care about the information. In the case of the microblog: my “follow –list” may be more interesting to you than my micro-posts.

As enterprises become more mobile, when we break out of the cube farms and conduct our primary work from our mobile devices, then we’ll see more miniaturization of communications. I expect enterprise microblogging to serve as a place where mobile workers check in. Maybe a few conversations take off, but then employees will revert to email the moment the conversation becomes something not sharable with everyone. And we’ll need some good filtering tools to help us organize and manage microblog streams. Right now, there’s just too much out there to be useful to the already-overworked information worker. We barely handle the volume of corporate emails now. So microblogs will have to provide evidence they are an improvement, or they will not thrive in the enterprise.

The more interesting behavior emerges when network-graphing tools surf through the people whom you follow and identify the influential people they follow. This is where human context makes information more valuable. Social connection farming is a bit creepy, especially in the enterprise. But if it catches on, then we’ll see a wave of new tools that harvest “follow-lists.” So if you think I’m interesting to follow, then you might be more interested in the people I follow. Maybe you follow me because you found someone else who does. All this will be followed by tools that protect the "follow lists" from prying eyes too.  So these little blogs are creating a big fuss.

Will the I&KM professional see microblogs as narcissistic, voyeuristic, and addictive toys that have no place at work? Or will mobile workforces find real use for a technology that keeps messages short and visible? What do you think?

Agenda Politics -- Information Shifts The Balance Of Policy And Influence In Any Organization

By James Kobielus

Yes, like anyone who got a liberal arts degree (me: B.A., Economics), I had to take Political Science 101. And like anyone who sat and thought about what exactly politics is, I soon realized that it's anything but a science. Some call it the "art of the possible," and that strikes me as exactly right.

Or, more to the point, it's the art of engineering consensus and coalition around issues, leading (hopefully) to effective action. Which brings me to the one useful kernel of wisdom that I took away from Poli Sci 101: that the most effective coalition builders are those who engineer a clear, compelling agenda for shaping collective action over the long run. Ironically, Al Gore may have had a greater, lasting impact on the world by losing the 2000 election than if the U.S. Electoral College, Supreme Court, and Floridian perforations had all swung his way. He spearheaded a powerful agenda-based coalition of considerable momentum, focusing the human race on our collective responsibility for global warming. And his chief tool was information: an "inconvenient" but totally science-based truth, reflecting the overwhelming consensus of those who study climate change for a living.

Clearly, no political agenda can succeed in the long run without a potent information agenda -- or, at least, people who are adept at using all available channels to build consensus and spur action. Honestly, when IBM started to use the term "Information Agenda" in their go-to-market messaging, I wasn't sure if I agreed with what they were doing. I understood the notion of, say, a "business optimization," "agility," or "green" agenda, because those terms point (albeit vaguely) to desired results. But information is a tool for building and maintaining an agenda -- it's not an end in its own right.

But then I realized that's not entirely true. Information technology is a precious corporate resource, as are the business intelligence and performance management applications that flow through those channels. So, in that very important sense, an "Information Agenda" makes great sense. Every organization -- public or private sector -- must build and sustain a strong IT, BI, analytics, and performance management capability. Sometimes those assets are wielded for corporate transformation or optimization (by Al Gores of the corporate world). And sometimes -- usually -- they're in the hands of grassroots personnel, who are simply trying to keep their organizations humming smoothly and on an even keel (hopefully, the next U.S.president can keep this big bruised ship of ours from capsizing).

Of course, we all recognize that actionable intelligence is fundamental. Every organization's Information Agenda must revolve around the need to keep that intelligence trustworthy, current, and relevant. So that all decisions -- no matter how humdrum and mundane -- may be grounded solidly in unimpeachable truth.

No matter how inconvenient.

Attracting And Retaining Talent: Thought From Day One Of Forrester's Business & Technology Leadership Forum

By Ted Schadler

"Embrace chaos; deliver results." Really? Unleash social networks, employee-generated video, and wikis loose in my company? That sounds hard for any normal company. Yet that's the theme of our event here in Orlando.

At the end of day one, after listening to a varied and experienced line-up of presenters, I came away with the feeling that not only is it possible to embrace chaos and deliver results, it's also an imperative.

Here are some loosely worded and paraphrased quotes from speakers that anchor my feeling:

When Ken Washington, chief privacy officer of Lockheed Martin, was asked how he convinced the CEO to allow blogs and social networks at Lockheed Martin, he said that in the war for talent these tools will help us "attract and retain talent."

It makes a ton of sense if you think about it. We know from our Technographics studies that the Internet-native Gen Y generation behaves completely differently than their Gen X siblings. They use IM, social networks, and blogs to communicate and get their work done. And the Millenials that follow them are even more estranged from old-school tools like email. These new employees expect the power that a Facebook brings.

How does Ken get these tools rolled out sensibly and safely? By assembling a working group that meets weekly (or bi-weekly, I forget) to plan and implement. The working group includes a person from each business unit that has the trust and ear of its vice president and HR head. He also has the corporate council and HR leader on the team. You'd expect that from a chief privacy officer. (Ken says that 43% of large companies have a chief privacy officer.)

Another thought from Ken brought a smile to my face. One of Ken's inevitable forces was "hyper-connectivity." We feel the same way, that the Internet connects every person to every other person (duh) and also every thing to every other thing. We called it the X Internet in 2001, and it's now really coming true for Lockheed Martin.

One final thought from Ken: Lockheed Martin allows employees to upload employee-generated video to a shared workspace. I'm very excited to hear that. I believe that YouTube is revolutionary in changing how consumers present ideas to each other, and now businesses can do the same in the safety of their own firewalls.

From Karla Gill of Marriott Corporation, we learned about OnePlace, Marriott's information workplace. (We're staying in the very nice JW Marriott hotel.) Back on message here: Karla has engineered chaos right out of a massive overhaul and upgrade of their messaging and collaboration tools. When you have 19 hotel brands and operations around the world, collaboration is a killer application.

One example of the benefits? Instead of every hotel submitting their operational results in gigantic spreadsheets by email; they are uploaded to a shared workspace and automatically tabulated. The benefit? Massive savings in email storage costs.

For Karla, the chaos is in orchestrating the resources of the firm so that the information workspace delivers the benefits immediately and that Marriott "associates" (employees) make the transition with grace and ease. (Change management is an important focus for Karla in making sure that the chaos turns into results. Hmmm, sounds like a key takeaway. Making sure information workers love the new tools.)

But Karla also reinforced the main thought that younger employees expect great collaboration tools. As a guiding spirit, Marriott CEO, Bill Marriott, now blogs. With an information workplace and a culture of collaboration, Marriott's also pushing the "attract and retain" agenda.

From Sandy Carter, IBM Vice President of SOA & WebSphere Strategy and Channels and Marketing and writer of a new book on SOA, described IBM's role in flattening the world to make firms more agile, we heard about 190 billion email messages and how to use serious gaming techniques to train people on enterprise architecture. The feedback from younger employees that grew up playing video games is very positive, and IBM is ramping up its investment in that tool.

Retention, once again.

IBM turns out to also be a big partner helping Implenia, the Swiss construction giant, build virtual worlds in a concept project called EOLUS ONE. Oliver Goh, business development executive at Implenia and his partner-in-crime, Tish, talked us through a very interesting application of virtual worlds: to serve as a control room that provides real-time access to the systems found in every commercial building: heating, cooling, security, fire alarm, lighting, and the like. The problem to be solved? Giving factilities management -- and the sub-contractors that support each system -- real-time visibility into the state of the building and real-time links to set the temperature, turn out lights, reset a false security alarm, or launch a trouble ticket.

The benefit? Let's start with a 34% decrease in energy costs at one pilot. To learn more, check out this report on the future of Web3D. Who's providing the energy to help Oliver get this done? It's customers, the owners of large commercial buildings. They get the benefits.

There's clearly a lot of work to do here to link virtual worlds to the real world. But here's one scenario where it makes sense. What's next? Keeping control over our leaky energy grid, perhaps? And there are sure to be payoffs for employees that have virtual world experience -- they bring those skills with them.

All in all, it was a great day in Orlando, and if our guests learned how Web 2.0 and technology chaos can help them attract and retain the next generation of leaders, then a powerful business result indeed.

Meet One-On-One With Forrester Analysts At Our Business & Technology Leadership Forum 2008

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William Band
Research coverage for Business Process & Applications professionals
Customer relationship management applications, customer experience management, stakeholder alignment, enterprise CRM
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Matthew Brown
Research coverage for Information & Knowledge Management professionals
Marketing and advertising, enterprise portals, intranets and extranets, information and knowledge management
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Research coverage for Technology Product Management & Marketing professionals
Enterprise marketing platforms, marketing automation, high-tech, application development
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Bobby Cameron
Research coverage for CIOs
IT governance, risk, and compliance; the marketing of IT; serving the business; security and risk
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Marc Cecere
Research coverage for CIOs
Designing IT organizations, changing the culture of an IT organization, IT strategic planning
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Patrick M. Connaughton
Research coverage for Business Process & Applications professionals
Supply chain management services, supply chain management applications, enterprise mobility, RFID
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Alex Cullen
Research coverage for CIOs
IT organization; IT strategy, planning, and governance; organizational design and change management, IT management
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Boris Evelson
Research coverage for Information & Knowledge Management professionals
Information and knowledge management, business intelligence, OLAP, data warehousing
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G

Chip Gliedman
Research coverage for Business Process & Applications professionals
Customer relationship management, help desk/service desk, customer service and support, packaged applications
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H

Paul D. Hamerman
Research coverage for Business Process & Applications professionals
ERP, human capital management, financial management, business performance solutions
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Brian W. Hill
Research coverage for Information & Knowledge Management professionals
eDiscovery, archiving, records and retention management, enterprise content management (ECM)
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Bradford J. Holmes
Research coverage for Vendor Strategy professionals
Tech marketing tools and best practices; government, high-tech, tech marketing strategies
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K

Rob Karel
Research coverage for Information & Knowledge Management professionals
Information and knowledge management, integration technologies, metadata management, extract
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Rob Koplowitz
Research coverage for Information & Knowledge Management professionals
Information Workplace, collaboration strategy, collaborative platforms, SharePoint
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L

George Lawrie
Research coverage for Business Process & Applications professionals
Retail information technology; consumer goods supply chain; pricing, promotions, and revenue optimization; collaborative processes such as trade promotions management and sales; and operations planning
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Sharyn Leaver
Research coverage for Business Process & Applications professionals
Packaged applications, business process management, ERP, application strategy and selection
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Craig Le Clair
Research coverage for Information & Knowledge Management professionals
ECM, BPM, output management, document processing services
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M

Pete Marston
Research coverage for Business Process & Applications professionals
Customer relationship management, sales force management, software-as-a-service, outsourcing
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Kyle McNabb
Research coverage for Information & Knowledge Management professionals
Information and knowledge management, document imaging, eForms and information capture, enterprise content management
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Thomas Mendel, Ph.D.
Research coverage for Vendor Strategy professionals
Product portfolio strategies, mobile services, business service management, data center management
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Connie Moore
Research coverage for Information & Knowledge Management professionals
Information and knowledge management, business process optimization, IT organization, enterprise content management
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O

Leslie Owens
Research coverage for Information & Knowledge Management professionals
Information and knowledge management, taxonomy and classification, enterprise search platforms, text mining and analytics
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P

Natalie L. Petouhoff, Ph.D.
Research coverage for Business Process & Applications professionals
Customer service and support, customer experience, customer experience management, business strategy for customer experience
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Lisa Pierce
Research coverage for IT Infrastructure & Operations professionals
Voice services, telecommunications services by region, remote access infrastructure, networking
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Tom Pohlmann
Research coverage for CIOs
Business models, high-tech, corporate strategy, tech sector economics, product and solutions strategies
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Stephen Powers
Research coverage for Information & Knowledge Management professionals
Information and knowledge management, digital asset management, enterprise content management, Web content management
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R

Stefan Ried, Ph.D.
Research coverage for Vendor Strategy professionals
Enterprise architecture, Service-oriented architecture, application platforms and programming strategy; application development
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S

Ted Schadler
Research coverage for Information & Knowledge Management professionals
Real-time collaboration tools (instant messaging, presence, document sharing, etc.), cloud-based collaboration and email, mobile collaboration tools and applications, virtual worlds for the enterprise
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Claire Schooley
Research coverage for Information & Knowledge Management professionals
eLearning, information and knowledge management, videoconferencing, Web conferencing, enterprise collaboration, new workforce, retiring workforce
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T

Scott Tiazkun
Research coverage for Business Process & Applications professionals
Financial management; governance, risk, and compliance; financial management applications; security and risk
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Zach Thomas
Research coverage for Business Process & Applications professionals
Human resources management applications, compensation, recruitment strategies, packaged applications
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W

Tim Walters, Ph.D.
Research coverage for Information & Knowledge Management professionals
Web content management, enterprise content management, digital asset management, information and knowledge management
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R "Ray" Wang
Research coverage for Business Process & Applications professionals
Enterprise apps and ERP, software contract negotiations, software partnerships and ecosystems, customer data integration
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Doug Washburn
Research coverage for IT Infrastructure & Operations professionals
Green IT, IT organization, IT infrastructure and operations, IT management
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Y

Gil Yehuda
Research coverage for Information & Knowledge Management professionals
Enterprise Web 2.0 and Social Computing; collaboration strategy, tools, and culture; virtual communities of practice; virtual team collaboration
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