Regardless of what you think about cloud computing, one thing seems certain: while adoption is still very early, cloud computing is growing very fast. Before we begin to discuss this, let’s quickly define some terms.

Recently I was helping a client develop some processes for their EA program. Like many EA programs, the role of the architect there is somewhat undefined.

For several years now, I've been writing articles and reports for the Cutter Consortium about crowdsourcing in general, about the emergence of innovation intermediaries to support crowdsourcing, and about the various phenomena that demonstrate the power of crowds, such as open source software and user-generated content.

Outsourcing suppliers, not surprisingly -- given their close-up view and their numerous bidding and contract experiences -- can be very insightful about clients. What they would tell clients if they could is a mix of observation and frequently helpful advice that ranges from the objective to the self-interested.

Back in May, I discussed the development of industry-specific social media monitoring and analysis solutions, basically saying that such focused applications will make it easier and more p

Cutter Fellow Rob Austin and I are completing a book on innovation, The Soul of Design: The Surprising Power of Plot to Enhance Product and Service Experiences (forthcoming from Stanford University Press, 2012).

Just as giving a teenager a credit card without a limit is a guaranteed disaster, letting an organization rack up technical debt without restriction will inevitably lead to an unmaintainable state. The simple reason for this is that without clear cost tradeoffs, the business cannot make the hard decision to give up value today for increased agility tomorrow.

In last week's Advisor, I began a discussion of SAP's new HANA architecture (see "The Coming Tsunami: In-Memory Databases, Part I," 16 June 2011).

Business architecture is gaining recognition as a game-changing discipline that enables businesses to address major challenges in new and unique ways. Simply put, business architecture allows a business to establish a common vocabulary, shared vision, and a degree of transparency that facilitates initiatives ranging from M&As to the reversal of customer attrition.

Technology around Big Data management has become of interest to most organizations due to the huge leap in the volume of data currently available and the expected geometric growth in volumes in the near future. One reason for the massive growth in data volumes comes from the reduction in size and cost of monitoring equipment, such as location monitoring of cell phones and RFID tag technology. People and things are constantly giving out information about their location and status.

I've been saying for some time now that the advent of cloud-based predictive analytics offerings -- such as those from in2Clouds, Predixion Software, and Quiterian -- is an important development due to its potential to stir up the market for data mining and predictive analytics. A Cutter Consortium survey1 in February/March 2011 sheds some light on the use of these products.

It looks so easy: instead of going through all the pain of a Scrum adoption, you just take your current process, put it as columns on the wall, call it Kanban, and you’re agile!

"You can't manage a secret."

SAP may have dished up a fastball high and inside, just under the chin. The target: its database competitors.

After spending time looking at the architecture for HANA, the new Intel-based BI appliance SAP has been working on, it is clear to me that this technology just might be very, very disruptive.

From the simplest to the most complex decisions, we like to believe that we are making them with an objective perspective and a willingness to take all the parameters and factors into account. The tragedy, however, is that we often don’t give enough credit to our wealth of information in making those decisions.

Actually, the real question is "How can the CIO not lose?" To better understand the recoiling from adopting IT governance, let's try to portray two -- and for the benefit of our little exercise -- radical images of the CIO and why IT governance is as alien a concept as Star Trek to both types.

In other words, data is a collection of unorganized/uninterrupted facts. When we put those facts in the context of a schema or classification, then we have useful information. When we put that information into the context of experience, then we have knowledge. When we apply that knowledge to add value, then we have wisdom.

The requirements from business for protecting confidential information are constantly growing because the damage from disclosing such information may result in a loss of a company's competitive advantage and profits, sanctions by regulatory authorities, and even administrative and criminal liability. It is no secret that successful business performance depends on the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of corporate information.

Your mom said it best. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. When price gets confused with total cost, it's possible to pay more overall while still buying a lower-priced commodity. An industry insider we spoke with put it succinctly:

A lot of clients say they want savings, but they don't. They want low rates, to push the risk to someone else -- and they want to make sure that you (the outsourcer) don't make money.

This week, I spoke with the folks from Composite Software about the latest version of the company's data virtualization1 platform, Composite Enterprise Information Server 6.0. Composite Software's latest version adds new source data integration capabilities to the mix of sources it can access and integrate.

Let's begin with the most basic of questions that senior executives are asking: "Why do we need or want a mobility strategy and, specifically, mobile applications for our existing and new customers and/or clients?" As one IT executive said, his challenge was convincing senior management that smartphones provide real business applications -- not just A

In the early era of Web commerce, the strategic goal for all Web producers was to achieve and maintain "stickiness" -- the ability to attract repeat visitors to the producer's site. The site-centric Web, for all its disruptive impact on industry, still seemed an awful lot like the physical world of commerce.

In the past, teams could tell project stakeholders that software debt existed, but it was difficult to describe where and how much. Teams would increase their estimates for features that used to seem simple because it meant making changes to areas of the code they knew were infested with software debt. In the worst situations, teams would recommend a full rewrite of an application because the software debt was too difficult to work around anymore.

The success of an IS project often depends less on the technical skill of your project team and more on your ability to understand, manage, and gain the support of a bewildering array of stakeholders that impact the project.

If we create a suitably accurate and comprehensive set of tests at the outset of the project -- tests for both performance and business functionality, the two primary reasons for project failure -- and apply those tests continually throughout the project, then the project can never fail on either basis.