what does Web 2.0 bring to the table as far as real business value?  It’s this question in particular we’re continuing to circle as we continue looking at Web 2.0 strategies in the enterprise. Read Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 of our exploration of Web 2.0 strategies in the enterprise. ^{link »}

I covered BPM strategies for Web 2.0 in my last post and pointed to a few companies that best exhibited the advantages that lightweight, Web-based, self-service BPM can provide. ^{link »}

You may recall that one of the key concepts of Web 2.0 ( diagram ) is The Long Tail, which describes the mass servicing of micromarkets, which is only possible (or at least, cost-effective) in a self-service world. ^{link »}

mashup-style BPM tools let users focus  on developing solutions that assist users in automating and managing either transactional or tacit interactions.  In this way, automating tedious and manual transactions can increase the time spent on tacit interactions.  Some experts claim this is approach can provide access to the last bastion of work productivity productivity. But spending that same time focusing on building solutions that support and enable tacit interactions might have even more return on investment. ^{link »}

Tacit interactions, however, are generally harder to automate because of their variability and open-endedness.  In general, they are largely guided by skilled workers, and it’s this part that Web 2.0 techniques might be able to help address most by getting excessive central control out of their way.  I find mashup tools fascinating for just this reason; because they point to a near-term future where most skilled end-users can find or build/tweak just the right solution, just when they need it. ^{link »}

Applying Web 2.0 Concepts to BPM Low-barrier, available anywhere, Web-based business process mashups (Ajax and RIAs with granular URL structures) Allow business users to structure business information and content (folksonomies over taxonomies) Continuous, bottom-up management and maintenance of business processes by the end-users that use them Business processes exposed as Web services, turning the business process into a reusable platform Easy inclusion of external Web-friendly data sources and services into business processes Based on portable, recognized standards as much as possible (OpenAjax, RSS, REST, SOAP, BPEL, etc.) Web 2.0-style collaboration (wiki-style editing, blog-style publishing, social networking, etc.) ^{link »}

tags: mar 09, blogs.zdnet.com

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