A while ago this site published a wish list of improvements that it felt could be made to Microsoft Outlook to equip it for identity management in the modern world. This particular article actually generated an email response from Microsoft suggesting the use of their Business Contact Manager add-on for Outlook. Since that time Microsoft has also released Outlook 2010. Yet neither of these solutions offered the support for extended identity information that should be necessary in managing our connections today.

Can we obtain identity information from social sites, like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. From some yes, others no – much actually depends on how the application is built. Facebook for example assumes we already know the person and have no need to retain an independent record of that person’s identity. Twitter holds some information, but does not provide access to their email address. LinkedIn enables us to download to Outlook (or any other software that can handle .VCF files) the person’s electronic business card. Plaxo, is actually a social capability that allows you to automatically backup you contact records.

Despite early attempts at electronic exchange of business cards the technology never really succeeded. So we give out, old fashioned, cards then go about transcribing them onto some form of electronic record. In actual fact a person’s identity is made up of a series of documents, tasks, emails, phone calls, etc. that form one part of the whole interaction we have with that individual. So If I sit down at my computer and search for “Paul Connolly” then I will find everything I have on file for him as well as any associated Internet based updates. Hmm, nice in theory but not always practical and thus we can see the card is merely the tip of the iceberg, and this does not even start to account to the heap of records the average corporation maintains about that individual.

Yet think about how many identity records you use on an average day and you will be surprised how many times you supply email addresses, usernames and passwords in order to access systems that we are entitled to use. Open IDs still have not gained as much ground as they ought to have. Is it because of a reluctance to make use of a single digital identity on the part of the user, or is it because of a lack of trust of the vendors? What is surprising is the number of Internet based applications that login using a Facebook account, perhaps this is the de-facto Open ID.

Facebook with nearly 500 million members is therefore reaching somewhere in the region 1 in 14 of the world is interesting because it is seen by many as trustworthy. Yet I cannot see LinkedIn allowing you to login using a Facebook ID. Yet there are now many marketing applications that leverage Facebook in order to perform marketing based activities. Perhaps the reason that you cannot download an email from Facebook actually works in its favour in putting marketer and customer together in a way that maintains separation and can be ignored by the user if they wish.

Privacy of contacts should be taken very seriously by corporations, yet social applications do allow marketers and prospects to mingle in the same space, albeit for a period of time, and that can be crucial, yet so is the need not to be making ‘advertising noise’ during that connection. This is one reason why the customer wishes to maintain a certain distance – and quite how much is of their choosing, not the marketing organisation.

For any business it is important to maintain as full a data set about customers and prospects as possible, even if you have no email address then skype ID, Facebook ID, LinkedIn ID etc may well be important facets which will need to be recorded. The earlier comments regarding the shortcomings of Microsoft Outlook remain valid even with the 2010 product. Social identities are as important (if not more-so then physical or email addresses) in order to keep an ongoing dialogue with that individual. The next generation of contact data that we store must be socially aware.

25% of the worlds population currently use the internet a massive 1.7 billion people.

The number of users has grown by 380% in the last ten years. The biggest growth areas being the Middle East, Africa, and South America, but growth is occurring everywhere.

0.001% of all information stored on the internet has any relevance to my current goals.

Unable to credit any specific person with this quote and as time goes on the number of zeros between the decimal point and the 1 continues to grow.

On-line advertising response rates are typically lower than 2%.

This is well known and advertisers often forget there are two types of web user the person who is focused on a goal and the casual surfer. The focused person is not interested in the advert irrespective of its relevance – to respond is an interruption. The casual surfer only responds if an advert is relevant.

Visitors make a decision in just eight seconds whether to remain on a web-site.

Marketing Sherpa have given us this gem in their Landing Page Handbook. I know from my own experience that there are some sites that I have visited where the stay is less than two seconds. So we had better make it interesting.

Looking for information, services or products, more than 80% of Internet users rely on search engines.

Naturally without a direct link to the important information we have to search.

85% of these searchers don’t click on sponsored or paid links.

Interesting, maybe people are less inclined to support advertising feeling that un-sponsored links represent a fairer viewpoint. 63% of links appearing at the top of search results get the majority of clicks. This demonstrates the importance of good search engine optimisation.

59.8% of men and 67.2% of women go on-line while they’re watching TV.

We humans are multi-tasking creatures. Have laptop will multi-task. How much is this driven by television advertising is not known or are we all looking up the biographies of the stars of the latest hit show?

China has the largest number of Internet users at 384 million.

Not bad for a country where democratic freedoms are limited. Yet plenty of sales opportunities do exist for the astute corporation.

Each of these has an impact if how we should be focusing many of our business development efforts.

There are many ‘engines’ that can be used to build sites – for example with the Ning on-line service it is possible to have a site up and running in five minutes – although in reality customisation takes more effort. Do you want a web address like “x.ning.com” though? There are other options, that allow a large degree of customisation for the entrepreneur wanting to use their “x.com” web address. These options can take time to implement, but the result can be so much more elegant and  professional.

Other social media open source engines do exist: like ELGG and Community Engine. The process here is to have the software installed on your server. That said it is not essential to go out and buy a new server. The availability of public storage available today does mean that setup and support can all be remotely managed via services like Amazon Web Services.

Let us be clear – setting up a social media site is NOT for every business. If you are seeking to leverage social media as a marketing channel for your business then setting up your own service is not necessary – such a business is best advised to work with existing and upcoming social media channels. Where creating a specialist social media community may be appropriate:

◊ Trade Associations

◊ Professional groups

◊ Education groups & alumni

◊ Community groups

◊ Sports Associations

◊ Clubs

So in setting up a new social media site there are some decisions that have to be made. The major one being having a viable business plan, especially if it is being managed by a commercial concern.

On the business front you do have to have some idea of your prospective audience, which may affect scalability of your solution. If your audience is likely to grow to a significant then an engine based on Ruby-on-rails may not be appropriate appropriate solution. A PHP based solution may be more appropriate.

Foodbuzz.com has an interesting idea in aggregating posts from other food Blog sites.. So they have built partnerships with other sites. You will also need to consider advertising and sponsorship as a possible source of income. The skilled trades social media site Blueholler.com has negotiated sponsorship in its launch plans.

It is not so much a case of an enterprise remodelling itself around a technology, but leveraging a series of technological platforms in order to get closer to its customers and the marketplace at large. Through the aid of Social Media it is relatively easy to visualise how a corporation selling consumer based products can leverage tools like Twitter to build visibility, but it less obvious how this benefits a corporation whose customers are other businesses. There should however be little difference between the approached, it is simply the audience that changes, between the B2C and B2B models, and the amount of work needed in order to win new business.

How the corporation manages that relationship should remain the same. The key aspect is that doing business is being focused more and more on a trust based relationship. Business owners do not want to buy a product because they are told this by an advertisement (whether on TV or in a trade publication) that it is the best they need that statement to be affirmed or denied through their trust network. Building the collaborative corporation does not gain support by “rail[ing] against the old corporate order and proclaim that they’re working for its downfall” this is simply not the case, yet the new world must be understood to be implemented.

Business has always been founded on our ability to communicate, right from the first time we humans ever traded or bartered. According to Ramon Vela how we buy things has changed. People are less influenced by slick advertisements and more by what they know about the person they are buying from and whether they can trust them. Vella provides training for technology sales people entitles “Becoming the Trusted Advisor” – the basic concepts here though can apply to much more than technology sales that is Vela’s forte.

Enterprise 2.0, Collaborative Enterprises, etc and how business leverages Social Media is all the people in the equation not the technologies. It is about visibility and being seen as the expert in your field; contributing the the knowledge base in the marketplace; providing value even before building a commercial relationship; and problem solving. Obviously this article is only scratching the surface of the problem, please add your views.

For Business Intelligence which type of solution is best will ultimately depend on individual business circumstances. The solution type assessment that has been discussed in this series of articles will aid that decision.

We are in the age of careful spending. So companies need to know that each dollar spent is going to provide business value. It is important to develop a consolidated global view irrespective of operational software used. Consolidating data into a common platform is not always easy. The Data Warehouse must always be the single source of the truth for corporate information. This must be based on an open and flexible architecture that is extendible. To be clear, whether the data warehouse database is a bespoke design or implements a packaged solution there is still a large amount of work to be completed. There will always be the need to build a project team and acquire data for the data warehouse.

When ready made solutions provide best results

Generally ready-made solutions provide best results when they offer a high degree of integration for existing operational applications. If using a corporate-wide ERP or CRM solution that provides the backbone tying all corporate applications together then it is possible to utilise the associated data warehouse as the corporate Business Intelligence backbone. The preference for a pre-built database can be strengthened if all of the applications identified can be provided by the same vendor.

Ready-made solutions are becoming increasingly complex as the solution providers learn and adapt their data models based on real business scenarios, these will continue to evolve into the future.

What custom solutions can provide

Custom-made data warehouses are capable of supporting any application that is required to run against it. The primary concern will always be the amount of time necessary to develop any solution. Even where packaged Analytic applications are to be used is it generally necessary to tweak the metadata to enable them to function smoothly against the database. Often these Analytic applications can best be supported through a custom data mart, fed by the data warehouse – the single source of truth.

When custom solutions provide best results

Custom solutions provide the best results when there is a high degree of complexity in the corporate legacy architecture, even if there is an intention trim and simplify the architecture. Custom solutions are also best when the solution itself is likely to be unique in nature, e.g. when your corporation is genuinely the only corporation in the world doing this – however this situation is increasingly rare in today’s business climate.

Five years ago the combination of complex business processes and a complex architecture guaranteed that customised solutions were necessary. Today this is less clear cut. look at some industry models and see whether it is possible to adapt them before making the final decision.

Leveraging the Solution Type Assessment

In the earlier articles the author talked about a Solution Type Assessment. Through this process it is possible to build a score based on firstly mission criticality, and secondly the complexity rating for your organisation. These will act as a weighting factor for the importance of each item covered in the decision process.the weighting factor should be agreed before starting the assessment. In weighting there is a tendency for business to show a low weighting factor for IT issues, this MUST be avoided as the technical obstacles do need to be considered.

The Complexity to Provide column relates to the ability of the current data processing facilities to provide such data in a succinct and meaningful way. It becomes complex if data is stored in many different systems across the world, and in different languages. It is also complex if many types of data storage system are used (e.g. non-relational data stores and relational data bases can provide parts of the data).

Overall taking a solution type assessment will ensure the necessary due diligence considerations are covered. Of course capability has to assessed alongside the overall project costs. Customised solutions can be implemented over a longer period of time whereas ready-made solutions will generally be implemented altogether, even if some data comes on-line at a later date.

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This series will be taking a break for a few weeks, but when it returns the next article will focus on: “Staffing your BI Solution”

Previous:

Part 1: Financing the Business Intelligence Project (Buy or Build?)

Part 2: BI Project Decisions: Ready Made Database Options

Part 3: The Corporate Architecture and Complexity of Data Links

Part 4: Financing the BI Project: Uniqueness Factors (or USP)

Part 5: Starting your BI Project: Suitable Analytical Applications

This article is the third in the series on Financing the BI Solution and follows from “BI Project Decisions: Ready Made Database Options” and “Financing the Business Intelligence Project“.

The decisions we make about the solutions we buy, which must all be made at the start of any new implementation do require analysis of a wide range of factors. In the case of the BI solution these must consider the existing infrastructure and any proposed imminent changes to it. This does complicate the decision making, but it is an essential part of BI project success.

Within any Business Intelligence implementation it is necessary to understand the impact of the corporate IT architecture. The complexity of the architecture can be a key factor in identifying any plausible ready-made solution. Many organisations have a veritable spiders-web of systems and inter-relationships some of which will defy logic, yet exist they do. Whilst it is primarily the operational applications that will be providing data to the Data Warehouse that must be considered to support the solution must take a more holistic view. Any system may hold key pieces of information and is thus capable of providing data to the Warehouse.

If we examine any two companies we will become immediately aware of architectural differences between them (and these are based on real solutions provided in the past).

In one organisation there may be an evolutionary mix of systems of varying ages and types; with few systems integrated together; there are many overnight batch jobs that transfer data between systems, but no integrated approach. How the organisation was formed may have an impact on the solution needed: here acquisition has meant there are separate systems in each of 17 different countries, some are packaged solutions, but most are bespoke. For the global corporate headquarters to gather worldwide information it has to contend with a complex mix of old and new systems using different data storage standards; all potentially making this a complex solution.

Conversely a second corporations is more integrated: all applications use pre-built solutions, based on relational databases; bringing an integrated architecture, that is well documented, and has been at the foundation of its IT platforms. It should be clear to the reader that this company’s architecture is unlikely to be very complex.

It is essential as a part of the financial decision making process to grade both the business and technical complexity of the solution.

Integration of existing systems is always an essential step especially assessing the corporate legacy application architecture. Integration of systems is almost always ranked as one of the most important architectural factor when deciding whether a pre-built Data Warehouse can be implemented. Highly integrated systems can be an enabler for a ready-made database. They are not the sole reason to implement a pre-built solution.

It is necessary to add a word of warning before diving headlong into such an implementation. When companies introduce new ERP, or CRM systems there is immense pressure to introduce analytics at the same time. This can also be true for SaaS, or Cloud Computing solutions. Often this is the integrated ‘Business Warehouse’. When the new ERP or CRM is introduced it is unproven (from the business viewpoint) and there is an assumption that results taken from the out-of-the-can Analytical Application are valid and correct. This is not always the case. An assessment of data quality is as essential to the ready-made solution as it is to the custom built Warehouse. Generally a new system cannot have its data quality assessed until it is in production and has had the wrinkles ironed out of it.

Next article in this series “What Makes Our Business Unique?”

You can imagine what my Sunday morning had in store for me. Yes, you have guess correctly it was the day to poke around what Wave had to offer. It also occurred to me that some of my loyal readers may wish to have me un-peel some of the features for them.

One of the first things to understand is the nature of Google Wave, just what is this beast that is currently competing with Windows 7 as the most exciting new product of 2009. Wave is a collaboration tool IS NOT a social media tool. As a collaboration tool it is therefore useful important to have people to collaborate with. I did find two people on my contacts list, both called Tom, and both CEO’s of their respective firms that I had been communicating with over the last six months or so, but not really candidates for a test message. Fortunately I did have another professional networking connection, Sheryl, who had a Wave account already and had given me her wave address previously.

By way of a quick note: If you use FireFox then you do need to be using version 3.5 and you will need to download the Google Wave Add-in to ensure that the features work correctly.

The first thing you will notice about Wave is the fact that it does look very similar to familiar email type interface. It even has in ‘Inbox’ which is strange because your ‘outbound’ waves are also located in you inbox. My preferred name would be ‘Activity Centre’ instead of Inbox, but I did not name it.

When you sign-up for any system you get the obligatory welcome message, the same with Wave, one of these is about the ‘Extensions Gallery’. These are a series of useful add-ons that can add to the functions.

Have a look at the extensions available, you are likely to find something of interest. Here is the multi-user Sudoku information. Personally I am not sure I want to add this extension and compete with others on this game, but each to their own. I did however download the Ribbit conference call extension and Google’s maps tool. Eventually there will be hundreds of gadgets and probably the majority will need to be consigned to the waste bin, but some good ones will be provided as well.

They key aspect of any of these gadgets is that they can be added into a Wave as can be seen with the map that has been embedded into my wave below. Now I hear you ask surely this is no different than adding a map into an email. True. You can add a map to an email, and many people do, but I have normally found it best to do it via cut and paste. Within the Wave this is a live map and the others in the wave can zoom in or out. Wave allows videos to be embedded right into the message and played in situ. Other extensions will be added in time and these extensions can add powerful facilities that will have serious business use in the future. So here is my “Hello World” test message with embedded maps.

So as I said earlier the key aspect of Wave is its capability as a collaboration tool, and this is where Google must be hurting themselves right now. How can you have a collaboration tool, yet not have people to collaborate with? Most frustrated users that I have heard from seem to have this question on their mind. I think they have a valid point. My first invitations will be sent out to those that I intend to be collaborating with on live projects (right now) or those that I feel I will be working closely with in the near future.

I said earlier that when I started with a fresh Wave account I had two contacts already. I wondered where these came from so explored the ‘Manage Contacts’ hyperlink. This takes you to Google Contacts, which I have found to be very flaky and please excuse me if I do not show you any pictures from it as it is more likely to crash every instance of Firefox running (including this one). Being a pre-existing Gmail user I had several hundred contacts on Google Contacts already (this list must have been built from my recent email traffic) because I use Outlook as my contacts master and do not store contact on Gmail. I imported my outlook contacts list into Google Contacts (1700+ people) and found another half a dozen Wave users in my contacts list.

This is the one aspect that Google needs to work on. I also wonder how you communicate with an email only person, because despite the best intentions of Google many will not move over into the new world in an instant, so a Wave will need to be communicated to both Wave and Email users at the same time. I know that I shall be writing more as I explore more of Wave, and right now I am off to send out some invitations to my close collaborators.

Business Intelligence is traditionally capable of measuring business performance via a number of indicators. Traditionally the majority of these are financial indicators relate to the corporate balance sheet and are an indication of corporate performance. However many global corporations measure activities that have no immediate link to the balance sheet, such as production cycles. In the same way it is possible to measure the contribution made by Social Media to the business.

There are however several aspects that we do need to consider in looking at the value proposition made by Social Media to the business:

♦ The value of enhanced communications and collaboration.

♦ The ability to listen and understand what is being said about us.

♦ Responding appropriately to customers/prospects.

♦ Engaging the marketplace.

I have spoken much about the value to be gained from improving collaboration within the workplace. We have to consider that for every employee there is a sphere of influence radiating out from themselves through their team into the company at large an even influencing those outside the organisation. This collaborative sphere should be seen as one that adds value. However through the use of Social Media the company is investing in relationships. We must remember that collaboration is much more than communications it is about experts speaking up when appropriate. Experts can be found across the business in all roles, it may be as little as the truck driver who knows that customer deliveries must be delayed by half a day because the customer is closed due to a function, or it may be the analyst who discovers that two drivers have overlapping routes and that the delivery schedule can be rationalised and made more efficient.

Listening and understanding what is being said about our business is an important factor of Social Media. For example the music industry has always employed talent spotters on the street who are listening out to the youth to see who the latest upcoming artists are, yet this reach can only go so far. Social Media can add an extra dimension to this capability. Being in-tune with what is being discussed can allow a prospective talent to be identified without being in the locality.

Listening and understanding applies to all types of businesses, but how? Googling your brand or company should show your web-site to the top of the search results, but it is unlikely to show what someone just said about you on Twitter. Using traditional search engines (like Google and Bing) takes time and a lot of effort to discover what was said yesterday, let alone an hour ago. The social media landscape is busy and plenty of noise so monitoring searches on Twitter can also waste time, a resource that is precious in any business. The challenge is to identify and hear the conversations happening on blogs, social networks, forums, news sites, and more. You will need a tool that allows you listen to millions of conversations in real-time without having to waste time. It is important to respond appropriately and the majority of the time a simple thank you goes a long way. Yet a person who starts a hate campaign against your product or company needs to be placated, or managed well before the press come knocking on the door.

As an aside it should be noted that Social Media is a two way street. Part of listening is being seen to be paying attention. If someone follows you then you should consider following them back – it is seen as being attentive to your audience. CNN has over 150,000 followers on Twitter yet the service only follows a handful of people. Following back is an essential part of being responsive. I am not saying you follow everyone blindly, again business guidelines are required here, but you should consider following competitors, customers, prospects and market experts at a minimum.

Responding appropriately is a vital component. Giving away a free flight because a passenger praised your airline’s check-in procedure may not be a proportionate response. These elements should be decided upon within the marketing department, yet be executed across the company.

Engaging the marketplace is perhaps the most important aspect that can win new business. In researching a talk I gave earlier this year on Social Media I saw how a Customer Services representative at Dell Computer answered a question on Twitter about when Windows 7 was planned to be released. This release date is now only days away, but at the time few people knew. Because Dell customer service answered the question they gained a friend in the overall PC user community, even if the person asking the question was not a Dell user they may consider Dell to be on the short-list for their next purchase. The expertise is not about answering questions on your product, or brand, but giving fair advice on your competitor’s products, and also responding to general discussions in the marketplace.

We should also remember that monitoring competitor information in Social Media is as simple as investigating your own performance. Here everything is open an visible to all. Social Media is full of opinions and counter-opinions, these change almost by the hour and can be influenced by a wealth of factors. If you are not monitoring your competitors they will be monitoring and measuring you.

Engaging the marketplace is about being seen as the expert, the ‘person’ everyone wants to listen too. This is about building trust, being the market expert. That is adding value to the business.

Business Intelligence is though about the ability to measure the value in the things that we do for the business. Normally BI measures $ value, $ costs. Social Media Intelligence is more a process of discovery of the things being talked about. Yet measurement is still important. It should be a valid business goal in real-time to track and measure campaigns, brands, products and sentiment (positive, negative or neutral), and provide additional context by analysing results over time, as well as comparisons with competitors.

In becoming active on any social media site it is your Profile that says most about you and will assist you in making connections. It is therefore important that you pay attention to having a clear and well understood profile. I am connected to every type of person, including:

◊ Minimalist profiles – giving the barest information, their job and company.

◊ Maximalist profiles that use every character of space that can be used in each section.

Ironically both approaches are wrong. A profile should allow a visitor to decide whether you are a person they may wish to connect to.

Let us be clear before we go a step further. Sites like LinkedIn are NOT purely for job hunters, they are sites that professionals use to build professional connections. Yes a percentage of the population are currently seeking a job. Other members of the community are also building business connections. Whatever your current aim social media sites like LinkedIn and Facebook are here to stay and will be a part of a professional’s portfolio well into the future. The job-hunter of today will become the sales manager of tomorrow and will leverage their Social Media network as a business tool.

The profile should most of all be professional, and it should headline your capabilities and achievements in a way that invites people to want to connect with you. Remember you on-line social media profile is NOT your on-line resume, if you wish to do that then please make use if Visual CV or Emurse and leave it at that. You need to use your social media profiles consistently with what you are looking to get out of the medium, thus only if your are job-hunting should it look like a resume.

You should be able to have a consistent profile across a range of social networks, yet focus on the specific needs of the media used.

Where you can link your profile to both your personal blog and workplace website this will allow a connection to have as complete a picture of you as possible. Please also update this information on your profile when you move jobs.

So what is your name? I know you know what your name is, but consistency is key. Some connections of mine like to use pseudonyms and in some circumstances it guarantees anonymity. I am connected on Twitter and Facebook to a CEO, who shares day-to-day insights in the daily working life of a CEO (see onthefringe). I understand his need for secrecy as it allows him to make forthright remarks but also whilst I know his identity I am sworn to secrecy, but know we will be working together on future projects.

LinkedIn does not like the use of pseudonyms, but most other systems are OK with them.

Where ever possible be consistent in your username, use vanity ones where they are available. Facebook has recently implemented named user accounts, which allows me to find connections more easily. For example where possible I use ‘pgiblett’ for all of my Social Media accounts, but will never use this name for anything where security is required like Internet banking. Personally if make changes to my on-line profile then I will make all the changes to LinkedIn before permeating it out to my other profiles. One of the problems here is that certain profiles can become out-of-date and forgotten very easily. I am sure I have inconsistencies, although I now work through a documented list of profiles once I have completed profile changes.

Pictures are an important part of a Social Media profile. Fair to say that this topic alone could fill a large article, so I will make a brief statement. You should always have a picture or avatar and the one you select should be reasonably professional. LinkedIn insists that the picture should be of you and not your dog or your grandchildren. I think that such a rule is over the top, but I do think your profile picture should be professional.

This is a complex issue. The part that no-one wants to hear when a person complains about application performance is the comparison between what they have now and how it used to be before computerisation. During the course of many BI projects I have moved departments from 95% gathering or organising data to 95% analytical or leveraging data, with the computer doing all the grunt work while the staff are warmly tucked up in their beds.

However we do have to understand the background to every complaint about application performance. Typically whenever we look at a complaint about performance we seek to monitor and improve performance in the areas of:

◊ Load Balancing

◊ Prioritization

◊ Network Optimization

◊ Database Tuning

◊ Compression

Planning Services and Growth

In terms of planning our application, database, hardware, and network architecture we do need to reconsider the requirements for each system as time moves on. When we implement a new system we do look at growth requirements in la large amount of detail, but we rarely track how usage proceeds against the original plan. This is probably the origins of virtualization as someone looked at the number of oversized servers and sought to use the resources better.

Today we are virtualizing in order to make better use of resources, but in the future we will need to check whether we have the right strategy in-place. Software as a Service (SaaS) also offers up its challenges in relation to speed, especially given that services are remotely managed and are no longer maintained my the corporation.

According to Paul Mah “Application performance [is] set to be next virtualization headache” we may have reduced excess capacity in a pure physical environment the factors were easier to measure. Managing the virtual environment is generally more complex than its pure physical counterpart, this is also true when it comes to managing performance.

Understanding the Business Community

The workplace is changing with an increased need to provide services outside the walls of the office complex. We have been imaginative with corporate applications being used in even the remotest parts of the globe. In the current economic climate we know that more of the business community is changing its work patterns. Can we predict every scenario? Unlikely, and at some time we will receive data from a trucker driving across an ice-road in the deepest Alaskan winter.

When users are connecting to a corporate system whether by a VPN or other remote protocols then security becomes another performance impact.

Can we move the applications closer to the user? Certainly mobile applications are better able to work on Blackberrys or iPhones, but they do still have to communicate with corporate servers. For a sales person dependent on data about stock availability and delivery dates performance is critical before he can take a product order from a customer.

Performance Goals and Measurement

In making any commitment for improvement it is important to be able to measure where we are right now, the baseline. We have to set realistic goals for improvement based on the corporate infrastructure, budget, and other factors. Measuring the environment is important, and so is retaining a history.

One of the issues of performance is of-course human perception. We can be perceived as spending money for zero improvement, therefore we have to prove the improvements over time, and always be able to identify changes to the environment over time. Yes we do have to be speed cops.

Improvement goals need to be measurable and attainable. Part of the problem here is that performance requirements are rarely documented well when defining systems. Poor performance can often be perception, but I always think that when there is a perceived problem then we must understand and resolve it.

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Related articles:

Application performance set to be next virtualization headache

Data Centers: Growth or Stagnation

Cisco Launches into the Server Market