To ban or not to ban social networks at workplaces is an ongoing dilemma facing many CIOs, IT directors, and senior executives in numerous organizations. Despite the growing popularity and potential benefits that can be gained by embracing social networks for business applications, more companies are blocking access to social-networking sites.

The majority of organizations that have implemented or are planning to implement business performance management solutions rely on a data warehouse to support the data integration requirements of their performance management initiatives. This finding comes from a Cutter Consortium survey conducted in January 2008 of 101 end-user organizations based worldwide.

As more organizations face transitions to agile methods and those transitions involve larger segments of those organizations, the need for transition or transformation strategies increases.

I finally broke down last weekend and brought a new laptop, powered by Microsoft's Vista operating system. I had reached the end of the line with my old Sony laptop. Some of you are familiar with my old machine, which played a part in a series of Trends Advisors about working around problems.

Diversity management is a double mistake. Instead, the art to master is difference and leadership. Difference leadership is based in an ethic that recognizes the other as other and accepts (if not welcomes/embraces) her or his otherness as fully valid and equal. Apart from being based in the ethics of difference, it is also a leadership guided by a politics of curiosity before the capability of people.

I recall a conference presentation titled "Software engineering? An Oxymoron?" that I attended about five years ago. The speaker was pushing the idea that the software development practice had to borrow concepts from the engineering domain, where the formal approach in design and build was a common practice consolidated over 2,000 years.

Arguing that one piece of the process guidance in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is more important than another is like arguing the same about one piece in a jigsaw puzzle. The complementary nature of ITIL and jigsaw puzzles tells us that each piece contributes equally to the whole and each part must be treated with equal care. So, in the name of equality, we'll dispense with "important" and go with the more awkward "symbolically transformational" to argue the following.

In the October 2007 Cutter IT Journal, I contributed an article to the special issue on "Fostering Innovation: What Role Does Agile Software Development Play?" That article, titled "Agile and UCD: Can This Marriage Be Saved?," presented a case study of a company that went from waterfall to agile, with the loss of usability testing as an unexpected outcome. In its place, the product manager stood in for the customer/user.

Artificial intelligence (my definition): AI is technology based on the study of human cognition and problem-solving capabilities. Examples of such human cognitive skills include speech recognition, decision making, visual recognition, problem solving, deductive and inductive reasoning, and signal processing.

Despite several alternatives, most end-user organizations currently choose to develop their business performance management applications themselves. This trend is subject to change, however, because many organizations that are planning to implement performance management applications are still undecided as to how they will do so. Market conditions are changing as well.

As agile development becomes more popular and established, it runs the risk of maturing into a rigid, codified system that, of course, would be just the opposite of the agility we cherish. In my experience, management gravitates toward established, predictable, repeatable processes for good reason: they make management's job easier. To an extent, agilists encourage this increasing codification of agile development by writing an endless stream of books describing just how agile "should" be done.

"There was not a culture of excessive risk-taking," or so said Christian Noyer, the current governor of the Bank of France when asked about the problems of the "rogue" trading activities of Jérôme Kerviel at the French bank Société Générale SA (SocGen).

But is Noyer correct?

The big change from the last century to the one we find ourselves in today is the locus of computing and communications technology and the way we're destined to use this technology.

Practically all companies have some form of priorities for IT investments. Often this is an informal process involving the CIO and other CxO executives. Sometimes the process is much more formal, involving a steering committee and a structured project assessment process. Sometimes ROI computations are at the core of the process; more often, some kind of project scoring process that includes strategy and risk as well as financial return is used.

Modeling is stock in trade for architects. We use modeling for a variety of different purposes: to help analyze problems, to conceptualize solutions, to formalize specifications, and to communicate concepts and solutions, just to name a few. So how do we know if the model is successful, correct, or complete? Here are a few basic rules about models and modeling to guide you.

Outsourcing continues to occupy the thoughts of IT managers, according to those surveyed for the January 2008 issue of the Cutter Benchmark Review . Last year, we found that 48% of respondents had or were planning to outsource work. That number has jumped to 55% this year. Outsourcing seems to be the way companies are going to manage not only short-term labor costs, but also longer-term costs associated with retirement and healthcare.

In last week's Advisor (see "Resolving the Challenges of Building a Collaborative Enterprise, Part 2," 20 February 2008), I described some of the common challenges companies encounter in their pursuits of collaboration.

Watching flight attendants doing service on a short-distance flight, you can learn a good lesson about global process optimization. There is just enough space in the aisle for a single trolley; overtaking is impossible. In most cases, the first attendant starts his service in row one and then services the rows consecutively.

Organizations should now view business performance management as a strategic initiative that is essential for monitoring, measuring, and optimizing corporate performance. Organizations that fail to take this view risk being outperformed by more nimble competitors that do.

As more organizations face transitions to agile methods and those transitions involve larger segments of those organizations, the need for transition or transformation strategies increases.

In 1943, a very important building was built on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, that became something of a celebrity in its own right. For one thing, like many WWII-era buildings, Building 20 was a "temporary" structure. And like many temporary structures, it outlived its original planning horizon.

collaboration = innovation

I've been a big proponent of business process intelligence (which some call "process performance intelligence" or "process performance management") -- the ability to monitor the efficiency of distributed business processes in near real time -- ever since I was first shown the technology back in 2005.

In this Advisor, I pick up on our conversation on the "Experience Analysis and Design" (EAD) methodology (see "EAD: The Architecture of the Customer Experience, Part 1," 2 January 2008, and "EAD: The Architecture of the Customer Experience, Part 2," 2

For many years, companies of all sizes have been directing their efforts to building collaborative enterprises to reduce the cost of operations, improve customer satisfaction, and enhance competitive edge or to comply with industry standards, policies, and regulations.