Seven Rules of Web 2.0 for the Enterprise

Hey Information Technology Professionals and Web Developers, before you grab the first offering that comes your way and infuse your ERP system with a well-meaning but uncontrollable wiki, consider the following advice:

The Seven Rules of Web 2.0 for the Enterprise.

1. Build on an SOA framework. Whether you’re a service-oriented architecture shop or not, make sure your Web 2.0 applications can speak SOA fluently via Java Specification Request 168, Business Process Execution Language, SOAP and Web Services Description Language.

Most important, ensure that your solution can make use of or comes with a UDDI, or Universal Description, Discovery and Integration, registry, as this will serve as a single hub, enabling your users to quickly assemble mashups and allowing your developers to integrate those combined applications into broader business processes. It also will help keep them in line with corporate compliance mandates.

2. Prioritize access control. We’re not just talking about single sign-on here but actual role-based, source-agnostic content and data security. Ensure that your Web 2.0 framework can employ or integrate with a centralized identity and access management solution such as Sun’s Java System Identity Server.

At a minimum, it must allow security to bubble up from the source (a database, search index, ERP system, etc.). Otherwise, your first mashup may be your last if it exposes intellectual property or Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act-controlled customer records.

3. Don’t be afraid to rely on your messaging server. Some solutions are literally built upon e-mail and calendaring solutions like Lotus Sametime. This may sound costly in terms of long-term flexibility for example, vendor lock-in.

However, the synergies available through such a combination of messaging, calendaring, and Web 2.0 will be worthwhile, though it may forestall or interfere with any plans to migrate away from that messaging platform.

4. Trust your users, but verify. Make sure your Web 2.0 software can keep tabs on the composite applications (read mashups) created by your newly empowered users.

You must be able to control which assets they are allowed to mash and monitor the usage levels of all application sources for compliance with stated key performance indicators and service level agreements. See Rule #1 regarding UDDI server integration.

5. Put your business users to work. Pick software that will empower employees to mashup data sources via RSS feeds, embed instant messaging within their paper to cash workflow or annotate your applications wiki-style.

Sidestepping the typical software development cycle will pay immediate dividends. The trick is to make sure your Web 2.0 solution allows some sort of control over what comes out of those users. See Rule #4 regarding monitoring.

6. You won’t need a portal but they help a lot. Look for Web 2.0 solutions that are a part of or able to work with a portal from vendors like IBM, BEA Systems, Oracle, Sun and the like.

These already are able to speak Web 2.0 to some degree and can serve as a delivery platform for much user interface work, particularly wikis, blogs and folksonomies.

This will save a great deal of development effort and afford considerable flexibility, as you can export mashups as embeddable portlets, for instance.

7. Value your users, literally. Don’t just throw up a blog or a folksonomy and hope for the best. Pick software that employs some form of ranking based on usage, assigning value to content, services and the people interacting with those.

Every person has a value and every element can be tagged, creating webs of trust, authority and expertise - think Digg.com inside your firewall.

This information can then be fed back into the system to prioritize and clarify what will best serve the business process at hand.

Pick your Web 2.0 solution with these notions in mind, and you’ll stand a good chance of meeting overall IT governance and risk requirements.

You’ll be able to impress the average business user and perhaps you’ll truly infuse established business practices with the power of “we.” Listen until your heart’s content.

• Jobs Promises iPhone Will Bring Web 2.0 To Mobile | June 11, 2007
• Mac Security: Deal Or No Deal? | June 9, 2007
• Security Flaw Found In Trillian IM Client | March 26, 2005
• Google Web Toolkit Leaves Beta | August 29, 2007
• Yahoo Mail Adds Mobile Text, Microsoft To Its Mix | August 27, 2007