I attended a presentation sponsored by Microsoft, at their local office in Waukesha; ArcReady - Web 2.0 & Beyond, Applying Lessons to Your Company. Session 1 was used to define Web 2.0 in the eyes of the presenter, Jon, Rauschenberger, CTO for Clarity Consulting, followed by how to write web 2.0 applications on the Microsoft platform. Since you can't write an complete application in only 75 minutes, the 2nd session was more a quick sample of some of the technologies available. I was too busy trying to digest the first session to pay much attention, and I had seen most of the technologies presented before.

For me, the first session made the trip down from Madison more then worthwhile. Previously I had thought of Web 2.0 as Ajax, but I know realize it's much more, and just because your site uses Ajax, doesn't make it a Web 2.0 site (and no, you don't have to have a web 2.0 site to be successful). The other main point I took away was, enterprise applications are still not ready to be mainstream web 2.0 applications. All of the examples provided were consumer grade web applications.

High Level Notes:

• Web 2.0 is a term used to describe a web site that encompasses many different technologies and concepts. I feel that to be a Web 2.0 site, you need to use 2 or more of the following, and do 1 of them really good.
  • Develop a Platform, not an application (Facebook, SalesForce.com)
  • Harnessing the Collective (Wikipedia)
  • Data as the Next "Intel Inside" (Google Apps, Microsoft Live, Amazon S3)
  • End of the Software Release Cycle (Google Apps)
  • Lightweight Programming Model (Facebook)
  • Software above a single device
  • Rich User Experience (UX)
• Applications come and go, but a good platform has the potential to live on. Take a look at the big players, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Salesforce, Amazon. They are all developing a platform for developers to write applications for. It kind of reminds me of the open source movement, where you you have a bunch of people producing a piece of software that is so much more then if just 1 person was developing it. Encouraging developers to design applications for your web platform, gives you more functionality then you could ever implement on your own.
• Automated testing and deployment to production is a must in the Web 2.0 age. Fear of breaking production and complicated build procedures slow the process of getting your application and features to market. It also makes it easier to fix bugs when they are found. This really helps support Agile/XP, which is the norm in Web 2.0. Breaking up features such that a single developer can implement something in one day, and let the automated build process deploy it, will get that feature to your customers much sooner. Consider following Microsoft and Google in that their web applications are always in beta.
• The traditional way of gathering requirements does not work as well in Web 2.0, especially with a very Agile, highly automated build. Having a BA sit with a customer and turn out the next version of Encyclopedia Britannica for requirements just doesn't work. Instead, a user experience expert, should sit down with the customer, and come up with a set of working screen mock ups that meet the customers needs. Then, these screens are turned over to the Architect and Developers to implement the backend systems, and hook everything up. This should cut significantly down on end user acceptance testing, since the customer already saw the working screens, which allows for automated deployment to production. The user experience expert needs to have some understanding of development, just as the developers need to have some understanding of the UI.
• End user participation is key in building loyalty. However, this is sometimes difficult in the enterprise (External and Internal), and depends on your application. Some examples of what you can do, and what is almost expected as a minimum in Web 2.0:
  • Developer Blogs
  • Tech Support Forums
  • Feature Request Forums
  • Allow customers to post reviews on products
• There is a difference between internal and external use of web applications in the enterprise.
  • External refers to your public facing applications for customers.
  • Internal refers to intranet applications, such as Sharepoint, used to help your businesses grow and manage data internally.
• Internal use of Web 2.0 is just as important
  • There is a huge amount of untapped data trapped in the minds of employees.
  • It is hard to get people to share information, and break down traditional barriers in the enterprise
  • Platforms such as Sharepoint can greatly increase the exhchange of information, and management of data.
  • You need to train employees on how to use the platform. For example, posting documents in Sharepoint is about 1% of it's total functionality, and in reality, a network share handles it better. The document revision tracking, linking to discussion boards, Wiki's, blogs start to leverage it's full power. How to create and use lists, sites and workspaces should be taught in a way such that IT doesn't need to have a hand in everything.
  • Management needs to be comfortable with things like the Wiki and blog, and encourage their use.

The power point presentation should be posted in a couple of weeks:

http://www.claritycon.com/arcready