A Technical Manager's Perspective

Social Web Going Open

Last night listened to the The Social Web Tv - Episode 14, which was about Mashups and API's. What really stuck in my mind was a comment by John McCrea from Plaxo about the social web. John said ......

    "the web going social and the social web going open"

and I find this to be true and wanted to give some examples to back this up.

Years ago, social networks like facebook, friendster, myspace and linkedin were destinations, where they would restrict your data to their site and they would try and keep you on their site. However, we have really changed from this model to a more open model where you can push and pull data to and from each network. This gives us the benefit of flexibility and allows us to control of our data.

Now there are many ways to add social interaction on your blog or web site. Facebook Connect, Google's Friend Connect, and Friendfeed are all great examples of how you can share and integrate your data on the web. These sites are no longer just destinations but are becoming the fabric of the web along with many others that are adopting this open model.

Technorati Tags: Social Web,Open Web

Oracle Fusion Middleware Forum - Boston

I attended the Oracle Fusion Middleware Forum today in Woburn Ma and found it useful. I was really looking to identify the support and longevity of Oracle Application Server (OAS) and Oracle Portal Server and both questions were answered.

Oracle Application Server

I actually heard 2 different people say that Oracle Application Server will be around forever, but I know that they were taking figuratively and not literally. When pressed, I was told that we can always purchase support for OAS even after end of life but they did identified that OAS would have 2 more releases (10.1.3.4 and 10.1.3.5) which should bring us thru mid 2009.

The consistent message that I heard was that Oracle Weblogic Server is the basis for Oracle's future Application Servers and Oracle Weblogic Server v10.2 is the current version which is really the BEA Weblogic Application Server. Oracle is looking at taking the best features from both the current OAS and Oracle Weblogic Server and integrate them into the next version of Oracle Weblogic Server which they refer to as version 11g. They were pretty tight lipped about when this new version will be available, but I did hear that Oracle Weblogic Server 11g could be available in June or July of 2009.  

Oracle Portal

From an Oracle Portal perspective the news was very similar to that of OAS. The long term focus for Portal is to migrate to Oracle Web Center, but again, overall support for Oracle Portal will be around for a long time.

It looks like Oracle is trying to pull in more Web 2.0 features into Web Center, and to do this they are trying to explain Enterprise 2.0 and why it is good for folks. I like the feature set and the collaboration capabilities of Oracle Web Center, however I want to see a stable mature product before we move our Oracle Portal environment to Oracle Web Center.

Other Oracle Points

The opening talk on "Driving Business Efficiency and Expansion: Patterns for Success"  was full of buzzwords. SOA was so overused in this talk, but we also heard Identity, Content Mgmt, BPM Enterprise 2.0 and again SOA, SOA, SOA. This was the 10,000 foot view of Oracle Middleware talking about what we could do but not how to get there.

The second talk was very good. This talk was labeled "Delivering Efficiency and Expansion from the Ground Up: The Application Grid" and really touched on where Oracle is going and how they are trying to pull all of their IT silo's into some sort of integrated framework. It was a little futuristic, but with good examples surrounding current technologies and how they will fit into Oracles visions of the Applications Grid.

After lunch I hit three breakout sessions ...

• "Maintaining Hero Status in Tough Times: Beating the Odds with Oracle WebLogic Server"
• "Getting on the Application Grid: How to Start Right Now"
• "Oracle's Strategy & Platform for Enterprise 2.0: Bridging People, Processes and Information"

All three were worthwhile and really helped to answer my questions. We are primarily an Oracle Application Server shop, so with Oracle focusing on Oracle Weblogic Server, then we need to start looking at Oracle Weblogic Server or some other open source JVM stack.

Looks like a new project coming my way ......

Technorati Tags: Oracle,Weblogic,OAS,JAVA

Changing Reading and Listening Habits

I have written many times about listening to podcasts and how I feel that podcasts can help you to grow and become more effective. I still believe in that premise, however in this new world of Social Media and Open everything, there are many other great ways to get content that can help make you more effective.

Along with Podcasts, audiobooks (audible.com) and Video have really grown on the web, and RSS and Atom continue to be great aggregators for blogs, wikis, podcasts and videocasts. I have also found Twitter, Identi.ca and FriendFeed as great resources for the discovery of new people, events and posts on the web.

My focus is still Technology and Management, but I find that I am doing more reading than listening. After looking at a post that I wrote in September of 2007 about my podcast listening habits, I realize that my listening, and reading habits have shifted away from a Microsoft based support environment to a Open Linux and Web based support focus. This is partially due to the fact that I am in a new role at MIT where their focus is Openness and Open Source, however also because I have witnessed the shift toward Openness on the Web, and feel that this shift has influenced me to investigate these new open models, especially in the area of identity and data portability.

Here is a list of the Podcasts, Video, Webcast and Blogs that I follow each week:

Podcasts

I have 52 different Podcasts in my iTunes aggregator, and here are my top 10 podcasts:

• Business Week Cover Stories - Stay current with everything from Business to Technology
• Buzz Out Load - This is the best daily news show. - Molly Wood, Tom Merritt, Jason Howell
• Cranky Geeks and Tech5 - John C Dvorak
• Fireside Chats about Management and Leadership - Lisa Haneburg
• Push to Follow - Social Media and Other things
• Redmonk's IT Management Podcast -  Michael Cote and John M Willis
• The Gilmore Gang - Steve Gilmore and many others
• The M Show -  John Wall and Karyn
• This Week in Tech Twit - Leo Laporte
• Windows Weekly Paul Thurrott and Leo Laporte

Video and WebCasts

• All Things Digital - From the Wall Street Journal - Walt Mossberg, John Paczkowski,  and Kara Swisher
• Bwana TV - Bwana
• Cnet Buzz Report - With Molly Wood
• IT Idiots - Great Instructional videos, mostly Microsoft related
• thesocialweb.tv - Joseph Smarr, David Recordon, John McCrea

Blogs

I use NewGator FeedDemon v2.7 as my RSS Aggregator. I have 293 feeds in my opml file, but here is my top 25 blogs ......

• /Message - Stowe Boyd
• Andrew McAfee
• BriefingsDirect - Dana Gardner's
• Chisbrogan.com - Chris Brogan
• ColeJolley
• Control Yourself - Evan Prodromou
• Content Management Connection
• Enterprise 2.0 Blog
• FastForward Blog
• John M Willis
• Joseph Smarr
• Johannes Ernst Blog
• jonobacon@home - Jono Bacon
• ITSinsider - Susan Scrupski           
• Portals and KM - Bill Ives
• Identity in Practice - George Fletcher
• Identity Woman - Kaliya Hamlin
• Management Craft - Lisa Haneburg
• OAuth Blog
• People Over Process - Michael Cote
• Planet Openid - Martin Atkins
• Scripting News - Dave Winer
• The Practice of Leadership - George Ambler
• The Serverside.com
• Ubuntu Geek

Technorati Tags: Blogs,Podcasts,Webcast