For those who need to understand how the Web is changing the way businesses work.

 
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Vol/Issue: v97 #4 (December 20, 1997, 1997)   Author/Editor: David Weinberger   Central Meme: Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy   Favorite Beatle: John. Duh.   Current Personal Crisis: Deep down, I don't care about Chris Farley. Choices: A. I'm callous. B. I'm old. C. Both.  Home page: http://www.hyperorg.com   Contact information: Click here.

One Question Interview:
David Yockelson of Meta: Webby Commerce

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) has been around for quite a while, well before the Web, and solves some important problems for businesses. Primarily, it allows routine transactions to occur without paper changing hands. For example, Company A can order the widgets it needs from Company B just by sending an EDI message, receiving an EDI acceptance of the order in return. There's much less fuss and much less turn around time than the old way which involved paper, faxes, and vast warehouses full of the most boring documents on the face of the planet.

But EDI is about efficiency, not transformation. Businesses that adopt EDI work faster, but in the same way as before. This isn't a criticism of EDI. In fact, it's one reason EDI caught on.

Nevertheless, EDI systems are very expensive to install, in part for the same reasons that made all pre-Web networks hard and expensive.

So, along comes the Web with very low cost connectivity. Inevitably, electronic commerce will move to the new medium. But -- unlike the case of EDI -- this medium is transformational. For one thing, it enables transactions to have a much, much richer context than EDI ever could. In fact, this is the core of the difference: EDI is always concerned with single transactions while Webs and extranets enable companies to form new partnerships.

David Yockelson is a senior analyst at the Meta Group, one of the top industry consultancies (as you undoubtedly know), and has been thinking about these issues for a long time. So, JOHO asked him ...

JOHO: How will the Internet change the way businesses conduct business with other businesses?

David Yockelson: Despite the hype around internet-based electronic commerce, EDI is still how most Global 2000 companies do electronic commerce. This is for a variety of reasons: They don't trust the Internet as a secure and reliable transaction medium. There's a lack of mature internet commerce standards. And it's not clear to many of these companies what they would gain by switching from the direct connection provided by EDI systems to the indirect connection the Internet provides.

But, many of these misgivings are dissipating as the Internet makes it easier and easier to create inter- and intra-company links. The Internet and Internet technology provides a type of standards-based "connective tissue" that's begun to offer companies new opportunities to link with both large and small trading partners. And acquisitions -- like Harbinger's acquisition of Premenos and Aspect's of Cadis -- are adding security and performance muscle to the "vanilla" Internet piece parts. By 2001 or 2002, more than 90% of the Global 2000 will have added significant Internet-based supply chain components to their trading partner infrastructures.

But this will do more than increase the efficiency of electronic trading. It will result in a much tighter coupling of supplier and customer processes -- a real hyperlinking of companies.

This will happen for several reasons:

• Just in time. With companies keeping less inventory and ordering supplies at the last possible moment before they're needed, it becomes critical to enable tight, real time links between partners. Traditional batch-oriented EDI systems can't keep pace, and even though there's been a real time EDI movement afoot (particularly in retail), inventory replenishment is still based mostly on a request and a reply for information, not continuous knowledge or management of a customer's supplies.

   

• Process efficiency. Companies have become more concerned with the efficiency of internal processes -- for example, purchasing/procurement, provisioning (e.g., for telecommunications, either by telco or non-telco companies), or simply travel/expense processing. Tighter management of these processes often involves an internal re-engineering effort as well as the ability to link to suppliers, finance organizations, or other trading partners that would otherwise execute their tasks in a detached, event-driven fashion. Now, these transactions can have more history, more context, and can be managed electronically on the basis of intelligent business rules.

   

• Self-service. As companies demand to have supplier inventories managed by suppliers themselves, there's an additional requirement for the supplier to provide ancillary information about products -- related to safety, product improvements/futures, etc. -- seamlessly and increasingly without an explicit request by the consumer. This situation is true not only in business-to-business but also in business-to-consumer commerce. Already, auction systems record information about prior transactions and can suggest new products on which to bid (based on information about prior purchases/bids) via e-mail. Improved service in business-to-business situations will include a richer set of information regarding products purchased, history of purchases (and associated financial trends, appropriate/potential discounts), and cross-selling of related products, in some cases provide by companies partnering with suppliers (and perhaps agreed to previously by consuming companies).

   

• Communities of interest. Traditional EDI systems, although created for a "hub" vendor to address a number of "spokes," act on numerous one-to-one relationships and deliver no sense of community. In the new "webbed" world of commerce, brand loyalty will be enhanced through the creation of communities that increase the customer lock-in to all of the brands promoted within the community.

   

• Democratization. The new relationships will bring a more democratic notion of commerce in which both large and small companies can participate equally by using standard communications and data exchange methods.

So, we'll see commerce move rapidly to Internet technology for "hardcore" business reasons, but -- as is typical with the Web -- this will also have a myriad of unanticipated side effects that will transform the way businesses work together.

The Importance of Wasting Time

We all love a good syllogism, don't we? Here's one:

Communities inevitably waste people's time.
Communities are a good thing in a business environment (as well as elsewhere).
Therefore, it's good to waste time.

"Community" is one of those touchy-feely terms that it's really hard to pin down. But think about the difference between a community and a workgroup or a team. Here's my definition:

A community is a group of people who care about each other more than they have to.

Humans form communities at the drop of a hat and in every possible circumstance, from board rooms to hobbyist chat rooms to maximum security prisons. We seem to be creatures that care about one another. (Whoops, sorry, my cynical Web personality slipped for a moment. It won't happen again.)

This is good for business and businesses ought to be encouraging and facilitating the formation of communities among their employees on just about every conceivable topic.

Why? Because communities are the best way to prepare for the future.

In a community, people learn all sorts of things about their fellows. They learn who's interested in what, who's persistent, who's flaky, who's creative, who's methodical, who can be trusted, who's a whiz with a soldering iron or a knitting needle. The community enriches the corporate "knowledge pool" in unpredictable ways.

Well, the future isn't as predictable as used to be. The Web has shown how quickly everything you know can turn out to be wrong. So how do you prepare for the future? You have to prepare to be surprised, and for this you need a knowledge pool that is steaming and rich, with chunks of lord knows what floating in it. (No one said this is going to be pretty.)

In a truly unpredictable environment, you pray for serendipity -- you hope that fortune surprises you in a positive way. Communities maximize serendipity. By enriching the brew, communities increase the chances that you'll be able to identify and act on the good luck that's tossed your way.

Communities have other benefits, as well, of course. For one thing, with intranets "hyperlinking" more organizations - so that people pull together evanescent teams across all functional lines - these self-organizing teams need to have wide webs of people whom they know and trust. Communities make this possible.

And, of course, environments that have an active community life tend to be more satisfying places to work. Communities counter incipient Dilbertism.

They also can, from one point of view, be a waste of time. But, in this light, life itself is a waste of time. Let's just hope that when we die St. Peter doesn't demand an ROI statement from us.

Otherwise, I'll see y'all in Hell.

 
 

Middle World Resources A BiWeekly Compendium of Resources
Walking the Walk   At a Delphi Seminar, an attended from a very large manufacturer of household cleaners and other familiar products (unfortunately, I don't have permission to use the company's name) talked about how the corporate intranet search site had been setting expectations for the look and feel of other corporate applications. Everything from the layout of the pages to the simplicity of the user interface are influencing the applications the company is providing to its employees, albeit not consciously -- no one set a corporate style guide saying "Thou shalt look like a Web search site." In fact, this woman agreed that there is one more effect of this viral behavior so typical of the Web. Beyond the look and feel, Web search sites train people that they ought to be able to search 50-100M documents by themselves -- without the aid of a licensed Information Retrieval expert, as in the old days. This do-it-yourself-ism is also spreading throughout the organization. In some ways, this may be the most important legacy of the revolution in searching the Web has brought us.	Cool Tool For the Hyperlinked Individual  As John Henry Patrick Swayze once said, "The Price of Liberty is Eternal Spam." Spam-Ex can help you manage those unwanted messages offering you ways to get rich quick and inviting you to talk with lonely co-eds who apparently have discerned correctly that you are a Love Machine. Spam-ex checks your email at a frequency that you set and looks for subject lines that contain too many exclamation points and dollar signs, known spammer addresses and other telltale signs of spam. With a click of a button, it not only deletes the spam, it also can send a message to the abuse monitors at the service that sent it along. (Because spammers are a clever lot, frequently they cover their tracks successfully; still it feels go-o-o-d to think you may be dropping a dime on a spammer.) After a couple of weeks, I'm still playing with it and trying to decide if it should become part of the increasingly rickety edifice I call "my desktop." But I may be on the verge of plunking down the $28 that will keep Spam-ex e'er vigilant on my desktop. You can try it out for free at http://www.unisyn.com.
Internetcetera According to a report by IDC quoted in Internet World (Jan., 1998), there were 53.2M Internet users around the world at the end of September and should be 60M by the time you read this. The report also says that there are 200M Web pages, up from 72M at the end of 1996. In other words, the percentage of what you've read is plummeting rapidly.

Mail I Stopped Reading, Dept.

Dear Mr. Weinberger:

I would like to offer your company competitive advantage in the realm of electronic commerce and a new source of revenue for your search engine.

I have developed a new way to organize information that makes shopping easier for people who do not understanding structured query language and for women in particular. ..."

Email, Recriminations and Wisecracks

Tim Hiltabiddle, designer extraordinaire (you can tell because he doesn't use capitals much when he writes), comments:

i'm a better person for having JOHO in my life. i'd like to say, "Thank you, Dave." and thank you most of all for the animated construction dude shovelin' a pile o' shit!

Lilly Buchwitz, on a similar theme, offers the following:

Unsolicited comments: Lose the under construction logo already. Geez, every page on the Web is under construction. Isn't that the whole point? Besides, I've seen worse-designed pages. Not many, but there are some...

I couldn't agree more with Lilly's comments about every Web page being under construction. But I'm going to keep the little shit-piling dude there as a type of Web garlic that keeps vampires away, except that in this case its real role is to keep me from being held responsible for what I've written.

On the other hand, Gerry Murray at IDC truly understands the deeply held principles that keep me loyal to me shit-shovelling guy and to the hideous (but handmade) animated org chart gif, despite the firestorm of protest. Gerry writes:

I noticed you got some negative feedback on your org graphic. These people just don't get it; it very obviously utilizes a rats fleeing a sinking ship metaphor and successfully reinforces the concept that you better have an exit strategy because your employer has one for you.

Actually, what's needed is more animation, not less. You need a second org chart colliding with the first one and showing how random nature of corporate reshuffling. In fact, how about two chess boards knocking against one another, some pieces fall off the table, others fall over and roll around in circles, some wobble but don't fall down, and a few withstand the impact and dominant the world.

Or, even better, how about doing all of these on the same page? With liberal use of the blink command? Gerry, you can be my graphic designer any time you want!

Note to Philosophy Grad Students: Potential topic for your doctoral dissertation: Deconstructing the Blink Command. (I have reason to believe that Derrida himself reads -- um, de-reads and then erases -- JOHO. This one's goin' out to you, Jacques!)

Abe Kleinfeld comments on the ad we pilloried in the previous issue:

That Hitachi ad reminds me of that joke where the guy's fax machine is built into his butt... I'm sure you remember it. Maybe it should advertise Hitachi fax machines, "apparently your fax has arrived."

Gerry Murray, designer and deconstructionist extraordinaire, contributes:

As for your Hitachi marketing contest my reply is "Maybe we don't do TexMex at the next company outing."

Jeff Millar sends some "Deep Thoughts" in response to last issue's Bogus Contest:

I think a good gift for Bill Gates would be a chocolate revolver. And since he's so busy, you'd probably have to run up to him real quick and hand it to him.

As a member of the sales force, broken promises don't upset me. I just think, why did they believe me?

If you're ever at work and all the lights go out, and then two big guys come in and put a bag over your head and then put you in the trunk of a car and take you to their evil genius boss who wants you to help him conquer the Earth, boy , I don't know what to tell you.

I think it would be real neat if you're ever on a sales call in a tall building and you blow the deal to jump out the window and go really limp, like a dummy. Then passersby on the street below would try to catch you because, hey, free dummy.

Perhaps in order to understand JavaScript, we need to break it down into its component words, "Javasc" and "ript". What do these words mean? It's a mystery, and I guess so is JavaScript.

The following two are not original to me, but are damn funny:

When I was a kid my favorite relative was Uncle Caveman. After school we'd all go play in his cave, and every once in a while he would eat one of us. It wasn't until later that I found out that Uncle Caveman was a bear.

I can still recall old Mister Barnslow getting out every morning and nailing a fresh load of tadpoles to the old board of his. Then he'd spin it round and round, like a wheel of fortune, and no matter where it stopped he'd yell out, "Tadpoles! Tadpoles is a winner!" We all thought he was crazy. But then we had some growing up to do.

Bogus Contest: Web Theories

Arlene Karsh passed along the following Humor From the Web:

Results of a "Theories" contest sponsored by Omni magazine

Grand Prize Winner

When a cat is dropped, it always lands on its feet, and when toast is dropped, it always lands with the buttered side facing down. I propose to strap buttered toast to the back of a cat; the two will hover, spinning inches above the ground. With a giant buttered cat array, a high-speed monorail could easily link New York with Chicago.

Runner-up #1

If an infinite number of rednecks riding in an infinite number of pickup trucks fire an infinite number of shotgun rounds at an infinite number of highway signs, they will eventually produce all the world's great literary works in Braille.

Runner-up #2

Why Yawning is Contagious: You yawn to equalize the pressure on your eardrums. This pressure change outside your eardrums unbalances other people's ear pressures, so they must yawn to even it out.

Runner-up #3

Communist China is technologically underdeveloped because they have no alphabet and therefore cannot use acronyms to communicate ideas at a faster rate. Runner-up #4

The earth may spin faster on its axis due to deforestation. Just as a figure skater's rate of spin increases when the arms are brought in close to the body, the cutting of tall trees may cause our planet to spin dangerously fast.

Runner-up #5

The quantity of consonants in the English constant is constant. If omitted in one place, they turn up in another. When a Bostonian "pahks" his "cah," the lost r's migrate southwest, causing a Texan to "warsh" his car and invest in "erl" wells.

Some of these are pretty hoary, especially the winner which has been around on the Web for at least five years. (A search on Alta Vista for "strap buttered toast to the back of a cat" turned up 151 Web pages -- but no related books at Amazon.com. The same phrase search in Hotbot turned up 231 hits, and 158 if you only count pages created in the past 12 months. So, Hotbot found 73 hits more than a year old. And after that, the veil of time is drawn closed.)

So, your challenge this week is to come up with new theories, preferably related to the Web. For example:

Theories, please! (Hypotheses and vague suspicions that someone is recording every page you visit are also welcome.)

Editorial Lint

The following information was found trapped at the top of my washing machine when I ran some issues of the JOHO through it.

The JOHO is a free, independent newsletter written and produced by David Weinberger. He denies responsibility for any errors or problems. If you write him with corrections or criticisms, it will probably turn out to have been your fault.

Subscription information, or requests to be removed from the JOHO mailing list, should be sent to [email protected].

Dr. Weinberger is represented by a fiercely aggressive legal team who responds to any provocation with massive litigatory procedures. This notice constitutes fair warning.

Any email sent to the JOHO may be published in the JOHO and snarkily commented on unless the email explicitly states that it's not for publication.

Note to distributors: If you are interested in reselling the popular Hyperlinked Organization brand line of memorabilia, please contact our manager of JOHO Channels, Divad Regrebniew. (The JOHO corn dog attack vehicle with lifelike action figures is no longer available, and will return once we fix the eject button and pending the outcome of the lawsuit.)