Thoughts on RIA

First thought which comes to mind is whether its a another buzzword and is it going to survive. My view is its going to survive and reason for this not that its cool or hot or bleeding edge technology. But the only driver behind its success would be "Customers are going to Love it". Its the way web is moving towards - a friendly, fast and fantastic user interface.

I don't understand the intricacies of RIA and I am not expert in it. But I understand fundamentally that Magic lies in Asynchronous XML messaging. It provides perception of site with hyper intelligence. There many flavours of RIA available in the market. Few famous one's are Adobe Flex, Microsoft SilverLight and JavaFX.

Now the challenge for an Enterprise, it is still emerging technology and not based on standards. Is it ready to be introduced in mission critical production environment? Benefits comes with calculated risk. Enterprises need to adopt these AJAX based technologies in less critical applications. Few examples of such selected applications may be for survey, selection of product, search screen, choice based on criteria and wizards. And above all, try to keep the number of AJAX toolkits as low as possible in Enterprise.

Stand up in Universe and find your value

Stand in big ground, raise your head and look at sky. Think how you can add value in this big ground? Move one level up, how much value you add in the area where the ground is located. Move up again, do you matter in context of city. At next level, do you matter in context of state level. Now think of country, how country is impacted by your actions. Is this the end? Not yet, think of continent, think of Mother Earth, how you add value to it. That still not over, how my existence matter in universe - May be Inconsequential.

Let try the same analogy in big enterprise. A developer working in a module of project. Module is kind of world to him. How his work impact the the whole project. This project is part of some program. Program is run by some business unit. Business unit belongs to some vertical. This vertical is part of regional unit. This regional unit again reports to headquarters in country. Country is just one of countries where MNC operates.

Is it possible one person, one team, one group, one unit creates ripple effect to make the Enterprise better? In the last I remember a quote, if you don't make a difference, you don't matter !!

Attempt to understand meaning of "Strategy"

My first attempt to understand the meaning of famous word "STRATEGY". I am using this word for quite sometime during my conversation with teams. Whenever I want to focus on some long term plan with expensive investment. To me, Strategy means to have plan and road map to execute plan with existing resources. With fast changing markets scenarios, one need strategic direction and tactical steps to move in right direction.

Furthermore, Strategy could devised at different level in organization for different purposes. It shows the path to reach the identified goals. Mostly organization devise corporate, business and system strategies.

Lets try to understand business strategy - It frequently contains simple and common objectives like generate revenue, increase profit margins, reduce total cost of ownership, improve stability, increase agility, create brand value, focus on people and processes, deliver results, innovate, become leader in flat world, motivate people to drive organization and lot many similar things.

On similar lines, IT drives the Technology strategy from Business strategy. It plans the future road map from current roadmap, create plans/steps to reach the long term objectives, better align with the business directions, increase reliability and availability, improve service levels and create governance mechanism.

Strategy looks quite common sense and most of companies have strategy in place on similar lines. But not all companies are excellent and growing at tremendous pace. What else is needed for business to succeed? May be a excellent implementation of strategy, people who believe in strategy, leaders who keep the whole team moving together in right direction and selection of right strategy at right time.