The article “In 2014 Every Business will be Disrupted by Open Technology” raised some very key points on some key disruptive patterns. One key pattern being not necessarily the invention of open technology. Instead, the adoption of it. As the article notes: “The automobile was important not because it ended travel by horse, but because it created suburbs, gas stations and shopping malls.”
For a different perspective, the Forbes article also discusses the iPhone and the App Store. These were revolutionary inventions in their field. Especially consider the invention of the App Store. It was not a revolutionary invention because of its features, it was revolutionary because it created a new business ecosystem. An ecosystem that required your product to be connectable and “open” to the public to compete. So, the key theme taken from the article was moving from “bleeding and leading edge”. Then, going to the more popular adoption of “Open Data” and “Open platforms”.
A Look Back On The Article
The true impact begins not with invention but with adoption. This is where the second and third-order effects kick in. After all, the automobile was important not because it ended travel by horse. It created suburbs, gas stations and shopping malls. A few more tangible themes we picked up on in the article are:
- Stand-alone brands are shifting to open platforms for co-creation
- Open platforms built on a brand`s intellectual property enhance the value, not threaten it
- Open platforms also provide enterprise-level capabilities to the smallest players, leveling the playing field, accelerating innovation, and amplifying competition
- Finally, open platforms for co-creation shifts the focus away from driving out inefficiencies. Then, toward the power of networking and collaboration to create value.
Where its happening already: Federal, State, City, Commercial entities.
A Look At FedFocus
In FedFocus 2014, they emphasized open and big data will remain big disruptive areas. This came to be due to budget appropriations for 2014 and 2015. Also, consider the May 2013 release of the WhiteHouse Open Data memorandum for going into effect in November 2013. This will impact open data by:
- Making it open and machine-readable as the new default for government information. This memorandum establishes a framework that institutionalizes principles of effective information management at each stage of the information`s life cycle. This helps promote interoperability and openness. Agencies can apply this framework to all information resources, regardless if they can publicize information or not. This promotes efficiency and produce value.
How We Feel About It All
We are seeing states get into the mix as well with Open Data movements. This includes http://gocode.colorado.gov/.GoCodeColorado, an event created to help Colorado companies grow, by giving them better and more usable access to public data. Teams compete to build business apps, creating tools that Colorado businesses need, making our economy stronger.
Also, at the city level with the city of Raleigh, North Carolina, recognized for its award-winning Open Data Portal.
We had previously tweeted on how IBM opened up their Watson cognitive computing API for developers…. publicly. This is a big deal. They know that open data platforms as a system not only receive more use, meaning more comfort and apps. Also, with every legally-allowed transaction that happens on it, they improve interpretative signals that make Watson so smart. This article points this key example out as well.
And finally, we see National Data Assets moving ahead, making their data more distributable over the cloud. We also see data moving closer to cloud applications. This offers data via web services where they are too large or updated too often to sync, download, or sneakernet.
Xentity And Its Partners Have Been At The Forefront Of All These Movements
We have enjoyed being the leaders in this movement since its early phases. Our architectures focus less on commodity IT. That way, we do not undersell the importance of affordable, fast, robust, scalable, IT services and data center models. Our architectures have been more focused on putting the I back in IT.
We have been moving National Geospatial Data Assets into these delivery models as data products and services (Xentity is awarded USGS IDIQ for Enterprise and Solution Architecture), to support the architecture of data.gov (Xentity chosen to help re-arch data.gov), and recently to support the data wrangling on Colorado`s State OpenData efforts. We are examining the question of: can a predictable supply chain for geospatial data be done and actively participating in the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) EarthCube which looks to “Imagine a world…where you can easily plot data from any source and visualize it any way you want.”
Our architecture methods (Developing a Transformation Approach) are designed to examine mission oriented performance gains, process efficiencies, data lifecycle management orientation, integrating service models, and balancing technology footprints while innovating. For instance, we are heavily involved in the new ACT-IAC Smart Lean Government efforts to look at the alignment services across government and organizational boundaries around community life events much like other nations are beginning to move to.
Xentity is very excited about the current open data movements. Also, we have supported platforms and the traction it is getting in industry. This may help us progress from information services into the the popular area of knowledge services (Why we focus on spatial data science)