Enterprise Mashups are secure, visually rich web applications that expose actionable information from diverse internal and external information sources.

This seems to cover all the bases and should keep most people happy. I’d like it to include something about how the data is integrated to provide a single consolidated and consistent view of the information, as a traditional (but AJAX heavy) portal would probably fall into under the same definition. On the whole it still works for me though.

The most interesting thing, however, is the approach they used. Rather than gather yet another small group of smart people to write yet another manifesto, they took a more democratic route.

The team used a series of games and contests to engage the broader community, largely relegating themselves to a roll of guiding and coordinating the action. The end result were answers to three key questions:

• What is an Enterprise Mashup?, (the definition from above)
• How do you do create an Enterprise Mashup?, and
• Why should an organization care about mashups?’

The answer don’t have the obvious “designed by committee” smell that these things acquire. I particularly like the statement on why to use enterprise mash-ups,

Poor decisions are often made because decision-makers do not have the right information at the right time. Enterprise Mashups deliver new insights and enable better decisions through personalized access to the right, real-time information for the specific problem at hand.

as it nicely captures the shift to a more use centred approach–something badly needed in enterprise IT.

Often it seems to the be the enterprise IT community that is the most resistant to change in an organisation. Sure, we might like to use the shiny new toys, but don’t you dare change how we go about our business. We’ll tell you what you need and the best way of doing it.

It’s nice to see that an old dog can learn new tricks.

Posted via email from PEG