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• WebCenter Customer Spotlight: Institute of Financing for Agriculture and Fisheries

  - by kellsey.ruppel

   Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter  Solution SummaryThe Institute of Financing for Agriculture and Fisheries (IFAP) provides access, process payments, and oversee the application of EU and domestic funds distribution to individuals and companies. IFAP business objectives were to establish electronic processing of EU funds, improve relations between government agencies and public in compliance with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) requirements for information management and security They implemented a complete solution for managing the entire document content life cycle through the use of Oracle WebCenter Content and Oracle WebCenter Capture. IFAP improved relationships with the public by accelerating payments electronically to individuals and organizations engaged in agriculture and fisheries, which is much easier, faster, and more secure than paper-based payments and the solution complies with ISO information and security requirements.  Company OverviewAs part of the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development, and Fisheries, the mission of the Institute of Financing for Agriculture and Fisheries (IFAP) is to provide access, process payments, and oversee the application of European Union (EU) and domestic funds distribution to individuals and companies engaged in the agriculture, rural development, and fisheries industries. Business ChallengesIFAP main business objective was to establish electronic processing of EU funds invested in agriculture and fisheries, improve relations between government agencies and the public and  comply with International Organization for Standardization (ISO) requirements for information management and security systems regarding access to stored documents. Solution DeployedIFAP implemented a complete solution for managing the entire document content life cycle through the use of Oracle WebCenter Content and Oracle WebCenter Capture.  The use of paper was replaced with digital formats, accelerating internal processes and ensuring compliance with ISO requirements Business Results Scalability The number of documents included and managed in the document system, called iDOC, increased to a total of 490,847, of which 103,298 are internally generated, 113,824 are digitized correspondence, and 264,870 are forms that have been digitized or received via the institute’s Web site. Efficiency  IFAP improved relationships with the public by accelerating payments electronically to individuals and organizations engaged in agriculture and fisheries, which is much easier, faster, and more secure than paper-based payments. The overall productivity increased through the use of digital formats and citizens’ ID cards as digital signatures. Compliance The implemented solution complies with International Organization for Standardization (ISO) requirements for information management and security systems regarding access to stored documents. Oracle Products and Services IFAP Customer Snapshot Oracle WebCenter Content Oracle WebCenter Capture Oracle Application Server Oracle Forms Oracle Reports

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• 25 reasons to attend JavaOne 2012

  - by arungupta

  17th JavaOne is just around the corner, less than 3 weeks away! If you are still thinking about registering for the conference, here are my top 25 reasons to attend the conference: Biggest gathering of Java geeks in the world Latest and greatest content with 475 technical sessions/Birds of Feathers/Hands-on labs sessions (about 20% more from last year) Reduced number of keynotes to accommodate room for more technical content No product pitches, exclusive focus on technology (I can tell you that from my experience as a track lead) Sessions are divided in different in-depth technical tracks to focus on Java technology that most interests you Reruns of several popular sessions Experts and Practitioners-led HOLs and tutorials Rock star speakers, panelists, faculties, and instructors. Meet several Java Champions and JUG leaders from all around the world Engage with speakers and discuss with fellow developers in a casual setting with lots of networking space A complete conference dedicated for Java Embedded Extensive and fast-paced hands-on University Sessions on Sunday, learn while you are at the conference. You can register for Java University only or attend with the conference. Dukes Choice Awards recognize and celebrate the most innovative usage of the Java platform DEMOgrounds and Exhibition Hall provide extensive opportunities for networking and engagement with the biggest names in Java (dedicated hours on each day as well) Dedicated day for Java User Groups and Communities (GlassFish Community Event and NetBeans Community Day) Multiple registration packages to meet your needs Pay for 4 full conference passes and get a fifth one free Students and Bloggers get a free pass Geek Bike Ride with fellow speakers and attendees in a casual setting Greenest conference on the plane Enjoy different cuisines in the San Francisco city, take a trip to Alcatraz or Napa Valley or go running on the crooked street ;-) There are tons of tourist opportunities in/around San Francisco. Tons of parties during the conference, in the evening, late night, and early mornings. Don't forget Thirsty Bear Party! Pearl Jam and Kings of Leon at Appreciation Party Oracle Music Festival at Yerba Buena Gardens Grab the bragging rights "I have attended JavaOne"! Learn a new skill, build new connections, conceive a new idea and push the boundaries of Java in the most important educational and networking event of the year for Java developers and enthusiasts. With so much geekgasm going on during the 5 days of JavaOne, is there a reason for you to wait ? Register for the conference now! Grab your buttons, banners, and other collateral at JavaOne Toolkit. You can also send an email to [email protected]. And reach out to us using different social media channels ... As a 13 year veteran of the conference, I can tell this is some thing every Java developer must experience! I will be there, will you ?

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• PMI South Florida Job Fair 2010

  - by Sam Abraham

  The South Florida Chapter of the Project Management Institute is planning a Job Fair slated for September 2010. This year has seen a significant improvement in the job market with many surveyed companies indicating their intention to add temporary or permanent staff to their workforce in the near future.   The Job Fair Initiative fits well within the chapter's message and goal for this year: "Exercising Social Responsibility" - Our responsibility as PMI volunteers at all levels towards our members and surrounding community.   Our Free-to-members Annual Job Fair will play an important role in connecting Recruiters, Exhibitors and Job Seekers together thereby helping hiring companies gain access to a large talent pool at an affordable cost (Totally free in certain cases, details to be revealed once finalized) while giving job seekers centralized access to many reputable hiring companies in the South Florida area.   My involvement in the 2010 Job Fair started with a good conversation I had with Bernie Saenz, President and CEO of the South Florida PMI Chapter, in a networking event a few months ago. I had approached him with a few ideas in line with his goal to serve the community and our members given today's difficult economic climate. Bernie indicated that the Project Manager for the 2010 Job Fair had just been appointed and invited me to participate in this important initiative as a member of her team. I simply couldn't resist and gladly accepted the invitation.   I chose an initial role as Recruiter Relations Lead which entails developing documentation and timelines for our project plan with regards to Recruiter Engagement as well as reaching out to recruiting companies to meet target representation at the Job Fair.   Being heavily involved in the local Technical community has afforded me the privilege of coming in contact with many reputable Technology Recruiting companies. (As a matter of fact, I already have 2 interested very reputable IT recruiting firms willing to join us at the fair)   The excitement for me however will be finding and reaching out to recruiters in areas of Project Management and Leadership that I might not have been exposed to before including Finance, Healthcare and Marketing, to name a few.   Keep an eye in the upcoming few weeks for official announcements on the PMI South Florida Job Fair 2010.   Environment.Exit(0);   -Sam Abraham Site Director - West Palm Beach .Net User Group Recruiter Relations Lead - PMI South Florida Job Fair 2010 Project Lead - Mentoring Programs- PMI South Florida

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• Stop Saying "Multi-Channel!"

  - by David Dorf

  I keep hearing the term "multi-channel" in our industry, but its time to move on. It kinda reminds me of the term "ECR" or electronic cash register. Long ago ECR was a leading-edge term, but nowadays its rarely used because its table-stakes. After all, what cash register today isn't electronic? The same logic applies to multi-channel, at least when we're talking about tier-1 and tier-2 retailers. If you're still talking about multi-channel retailing, you're in big trouble. Some have switched over to the term "cross-channel," and that's a step in the right direction but still falls short. Its kinda like saying, "I upgraded my ECR to accept debit cards!" Yawn. Who hasn't? Today's retailers need to focus on omni-channel, which I first heard from my friends over at RSR but was originally coined at IDC. First retailers added e-commerce to their store and catalog channels yielding multi-channel retailing. Consumers could use the channel that worked best for them. Then some consumers wanted to combine channels with features like buy-on-the-Web, pickup-in-the-store. Thus began the cross-channel initiatives to breakdown the silos and enable the channels to communicate with each other. But the multi-channel architecture is full of duplication that thwarts efforts of providing a consistent experience. Each has its own cart, its own pricing, and often its own CRM. This was an outcrop of trying to bring the independent channels to market quickly. Rather than reusing and rebuilding existing components to meet the new demands, silos were created that continue to exist today. Today's consumers want omni-channel retailing. They want to interact with brands in a consistent manner that is channel transparent, yet optimized for that particular interaction. The diagram below, from the soon-to-be-released NRF Mobile Blueprint v2, shows this progression. For retailers to provide an omni-channel experience, there needs to be one logical representation of products, prices, promotions, and customers across all channels. The only thing that varies is the presentation of the content based on the delivery mechanism (e.g. shelf labels, mobile phone, web site, print, etc.) and often these mechanisms can be combined in various ways. I'm looking forward to the day in which I can use my phone to scan QR-codes in a catalog to create a shopping cart of items. Then do some further research on the retailer's Web site and be told about related items that might interest me. Be able to easily solicit opinions and reviews from social sites, and finally enter the store to pickup my items, knowing that any applicable coupons have been applied. In this scenario, I the consumer are dealing with a single brand that is aware of me and my needs throughout the entire transaction. Nirvana.

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• CIO's Corner: Achieving a Balance

  - by Michelle Kimihira

  Author: Rick Beers Senior Director, Product Management, Oracle Fusion Middleware All too often, a CIO is unfairly characterized as either technology-focused or business-focused; as more concerned with either infrastructure performance or business excellence. It seems to me that this completely misses the point. I have long thought that a CIO has probably the most complex C-level position in an enterprise, one that requires an artful balance among four entirely different constituencies, often with competing values and needs. How a CIO balances these is the single largest determinant of success. I was reminded of this while reading the excellent interview of Mark Hurd by CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo in a recent issue of USATODAY (Bartiromo: Oracle's Hurd is in tech sweet spot). The interview covers topics such as Big Data, Leadership and Oracle’s growth strategy. But the topic that really got my interest, and reminded me of the need for balance, was on IT spending trends, in which Mark Hurd observed, “…budgets are tight. What most of our customers have today is both an austerity plan to save money and at the same time a plan to reapply that money to innovation. There isn't a customer we have that doesn't have an austerity plan and an innovation plan.” In an era of economic uncertainty, and an accelerating pace of business change, this is probably the toughest balance a CIO must achieve. Yet for far too many IT organizations, operating costs consume over 75% of their budgets, leaving precious little for innovation and investment in business-critical technology programs. I have found that many CIO’s are trapped by their enterprise systems platforms, which were originally architected for Standardization, Compliance and tightly integrated linear Workflows. Yes, these traits are still required for specific reasons and cannot be compromised. But they are no longer enough. New demands are emerging: the explosion in the volume and diversity of Data, the Consumerization of IT, the rise of Social Media, and the need for continual Business Process Reengineering. These were simply not the design criteria for Enterprise 1.0 and attempting to leverage them with current systems platforms results in an escalation in complexity and a resulting increase in operating costs for many IT organizations. This is the cost vs investment trap and what most constrains CIO’s from achieving the balance they need. But there is a way out of this trap. Enterprise 2.0 represents an entirely new enterprise systems architecture, one that is ‘Business-Centric’ rather than ‘ERP Centric’, which defined the architecture of Enterprise 1.0. Oracle’s best in class suite of Fusion Middleware Products enables a layered approach to enterprise systems architectures that provides the balance that an enterprise needs. The most exciting part of all this? The bottom two layers are focused upon reducing costs and the upper two layers provide business value and innovation. Finally, the Balance a CIO needs.  Additional Information Product Information on Oracle.com: Oracle Fusion Middleware Follow us on Twitter and Facebook Subscribe to our regular Fusion Middleware Newsletter

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• Tackling Big Data Analytics with Oracle Data Integrator

  - by Irem Radzik

  v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";}  By Mike Eisterer  The term big data draws a lot of attention, but behind the hype there's a simple story. For decades, companies have been making business decisions based on transactional data stored in relational databases. Beyond that critical data, however, is a potential treasure trove of less structured data: weblogs, social media, email, sensors, and documents that can be mined for useful information.  Companies are facing emerging technologies, increasing data volumes, numerous data varieties and the processing power needed to efficiently analyze data which changes with high velocity. Oracle offers the broadest and most integrated portfolio of products to help you acquire and organize these diverse data sources and analyze them alongside your existing data to find new insights and capitalize on hidden relationships Oracle Data Integrator Enterprise Edition(ODI) is critical to any enterprise big data strategy. ODI and the Oracle Data Connectors provide native access to Hadoop, leveraging such technologies as MapReduce, HDFS and Hive. Alongside with ODI’s metadata driven approach for extracting, loading and transforming data; companies may now integrate their existing data with big data technologies and deliver timely and trusted data to their analytic and decision support platforms. In this session, you’ll learn about ODI and Oracle Big Data Connectors and how, coupled together, they provide the critical integration with multiple big data platforms. Tackling Big Data Analytics with Oracle Data Integrator October 1, 2012 12:15 PM at MOSCONE WEST – 3005 For other data integration sessions at OpenWorld, please check our Focus-On document.  If you are not able to attend OpenWorld, please check out our latest resources for Data Integration.

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• One Week To Go: OTN Architect Day: Cloud Computing

  - by Bob Rhubart

  One week remains until OTN Architect Day: Cloud Computing kicks of at the spectacular Oracle HQ campus in Redwood Shores, CA. The event is free, and there is still time to register. When: Tuesday July 9, 2013 8:30am - 12:30pm Where: Oracle Conference Center350 Oracle Pkwy Redwood City, CA 94065 Register now. It's free! Here's the latest update to the event agenda: 8:30am - 9:00am Registration and Continental Breakfast 9:00am - 9:45am Keynote 21st Century IT | Dr. James Baty VP, Global Enterprise Architecture Program, Oracle Imagine a time long, long ago. A time when servers were certified and dedicated to specific applications, when anything posted on an enterprise web site was from restricted, approved channels, and when we tried to limit the growth of 'dirty' data and storage. Today, applications are services running in the muti-tenant hybrid cloud. Companies beg their customers to tweet them, friend them, and publicly rate their products. And constantly analyzing a deluge of Internet, social and sensor data is the key to creating the next super-successful product, or capturing an evil terrorist. The old IT architecture was planned, dedicated, stable, controlled, with separate and well-defined roles. The new architecture is shared, dynamic, continuous, XaaS, DevOps. This keynote session describes the challenges and opportunities that the new business / IT paradigms present to the IT architecture and architects. 9:45am - 10:30am Technical Session Oracle Cloud: A Case Study in Building a Cloud | Anbu Krishnaswami Enterprise Architect, Oracle Building a Cloud can be challenging thanks to the complex requirements unique to Cloud computing and the massive scale typically associated with Cloud. Cloud providers can take an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) approach and build a cloud on virtualized commodity hardware, or they can take the Platform as a Service (PaaS) path, a service-oriented approach based on pre-configured, integrated, engineered systems. This presentation uses the Oracle Cloud itself as a case study in the use of engineered systems, demonstrating how the technical design of engineered systems is leveraged for building PaaS and SaaS Cloud services and a Cloud management infrastructure. The presentation will also explore the principles, patterns, best practices, and architecture views provided in Oracle's Cloud reference architecture. 10:30 am -10:45 am Break 10:45am-11:30am Technical Session Database as a Service | Markus Michalewicz Senior Principal Product Manager Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) New applications are now commonly built in a Cloud model, where the database is consumed as a service, and many established business processes are beginning to migrate to database as a service (DBaaS). This adoption of DBaaS is made possible by the availability of new capabilities in the database that enable resource pooling, dynamic resource management, model-based provisioning, metered use, and effective quality-of-service controls. This session will examine the catalog of database services at a large commercial bank to understand how these capabilities are enabling DBaaS for a wide range of needs within the enterprise. 11:30 am - 12:00 pm Panel Q&A Dr. James Baty, Anbu Krishnaswami, and Markus Michalewicz respond to audience questions. Registration is free, but seating is limited, so register now.

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• One Week To Go: OTN Architect Day: Cloud Computing

  - by Bob Rhubart

  One week remains until OTN Architect Day: Cloud Computing kicks of at the spectacular Oracle HQ campus in Redwood Shores, CA. The event is free, and there is still time to register. When: Tuesday July 9, 2013 8:30am - 12:30pm Where: Oracle Conference Center350 Oracle Pkwy Redwood City, CA 94065 Register now. It's free! Here's the latest update to the event agenda: 8:30am - 9:00am Registration and Continental Breakfast 9:00am - 9:45am Keynote 21st Century IT | Dr. James Baty VP, Global Enterprise Architecture Program, Oracle Imagine a time long, long ago. A time when servers were certified and dedicated to specific applications, when anything posted on an enterprise web site was from restricted, approved channels, and when we tried to limit the growth of 'dirty' data and storage. Today, applications are services running in the muti-tenant hybrid cloud. Companies beg their customers to tweet them, friend them, and publicly rate their products. And constantly analyzing a deluge of Internet, social and sensor data is the key to creating the next super-successful product, or capturing an evil terrorist. The old IT architecture was planned, dedicated, stable, controlled, with separate and well-defined roles. The new architecture is shared, dynamic, continuous, XaaS, DevOps. This keynote session describes the challenges and opportunities that the new business / IT paradigms present to the IT architecture and architects. 9:45am - 10:30am Technical Session Oracle Cloud: A Case Study in Building a Cloud | Anbu Krishnaswami Enterprise Architect, Oracle Building a Cloud can be challenging thanks to the complex requirements unique to Cloud computing and the massive scale typically associated with Cloud. Cloud providers can take an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) approach and build a cloud on virtualized commodity hardware, or they can take the Platform as a Service (PaaS) path, a service-oriented approach based on pre-configured, integrated, engineered systems. This presentation uses the Oracle Cloud itself as a case study in the use of engineered systems, demonstrating how the technical design of engineered systems is leveraged for building PaaS and SaaS Cloud services and a Cloud management infrastructure. The presentation will also explore the principles, patterns, best practices, and architecture views provided in Oracle's Cloud reference architecture. 10:30 am -10:45 am Break 10:45am-11:30am Technical Session Database as a Service | Markus Michalewicz Senior Principal Product Manager Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) New applications are now commonly built in a Cloud model, where the database is consumed as a service, and many established business processes are beginning to migrate to database as a service (DBaaS). This adoption of DBaaS is made possible by the availability of new capabilities in the database that enable resource pooling, dynamic resource management, model-based provisioning, metered use, and effective quality-of-service controls. This session will examine the catalog of database services at a large commercial bank to understand how these capabilities are enabling DBaaS for a wide range of needs within the enterprise. 11:30 am - 12:00 pm Panel Q&A Dr. James Baty, Anbu Krishnaswami, and Markus Michalewicz respond to audience questions. Registration is free, but seating is limited, so register now.

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• links for 2010-12-22

  - by Bob Rhubart

  @hajonormann: BPM: Top Seven Architectural Topics in 2010 Oracle ACE Director Hajo Normann offers details on how to design a BPM/SOA solution including: modeling human interaction, improving BPM models, orchestrating composed services, central task management, new approaches for business-IT alignment, solutions for non-deterministic processes, and choreography. (tags: oracle otn soasymposium infoq soa bpm) InfoQ: Simplicity, The Way of the Unusual Architect Dan North talks about the tendency developers-becoming-architects have to create bigger and more complex systems. Without trying to be simplistic, North argues for simplicity, offering strategies to extract the simple essence from complex situations. (tags: ping.fm) Fun with Sun Ray, 3D, Oracle VM x86 and SRIOV (Wim Coekaerts Blog) "One of the things I like about my job is that I get to play around with stuff and make use of the technologies we work on in my teams. Sort of my own little playground." - Wim Coekaerts (tags: oracle otn virtualization oraclevm) Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.0.0 Released! (Oracle's Virtualization Blog) And you were worried about what to get that special someone for Christmas... (tags: oracle otn virtualization virtualbox) Virtual Developer Day: Oracle WebLogic Server & Java EE (#OTNVDD) (Oracle Technology Network Blog (aka TechBlog)) "Virtual Developer Day is back with a vengeance! On Feb. 1, login to learn how Oracle WebLogic Server enables a whole new level of productivity for enterprise developers." Registration is open. (tags: oracle otn events webinar java) New Coherence 3.6 Oracle University Course (Cristóbal Soto's Blog) Cristóbal Soto shares information on the "Oracle Coherence 3.6: Share and Manage Data in Clusters" course now available through Oracle University. (tags: oracle otn grid coherence) The Aquarium: Oracle WebLogic Server & Java EE developer day "Oracle WebLogic is well on its way to contribute to the general Java EE 6 momentum and the OTN Blog has just announced a Virtual Developer Day for Oracle WebLogic." (tags: oracle otn weblogic java) Enterprise 2.0 Use Cases for Semantic Web (Reiser 2.0) "How can an enterprise improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their Knowledge and Community model leveraging semantic technologies and social networking dynamics?" - Peter Reiser (tags: oracle otn enterprise2.0 semanticweb) John Gøtze: European Interoperability Framework 2.0 "This week, the European Commission announced an updated interoperability policy in the EU. The Commission has committed itself to adopt a Communication that introduces the European Interoperability Strategy (EIS) and an update to the European Interoperability Framework (EIF)..." - John Gøtze (tags: entarch Interoperability) Andy Mulholland: Maybe Web 3.0 is quite understandable – and a natural result "The idea of Web 1.0 = content, Web 2.0 = people and Web 3.0 = services has a nice symmetrical feel to it, in fact it feels basically right as such a definition would include the two other major definitions as well. So if we put these things all together what picture do we see?" - Andy Mulholland (tags: web2.0 web3.0) Ken Downs: A Working Definition of Business Logic, with Implications for CRUD Code "The Wikipedia entry on 'Business Logic' has a wonderfully honest opening sentence stating that 'Business logic, or domain logic, is a non-technical term...'"  (tags: businesslogic crud)

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• Games at Work Part 2: Gamification and Enterprise Applications

  - by ultan o'broin

  Gamification and Enterprise Applications In part 1 of this article, we explored why people are motivated to play games so much. Now, let's think about what that means for Oracle applications user experience. (Even the coffee is gamified. Acknowledgement @noelruane. Check out the Guardian article Dublin's Frothing with Tech Fever. Game development is big business in Ireland too.) Applying game dynamics (gamification) effectively in the enterprise applications space to reflect business objectives is now a hot user experience topic. Consider, for example, how such dynamics could solve applications users’ problems such as: Becoming familiar or expert with an application or process Building loyalty, customer satisfaction, and branding relationships Collaborating effectively and populating content in the community Completing tasks or solving problems on time Encouraging teamwork to achieve goals Improving data accuracy and completeness of entry Locating and managing the correct resources or information Managing changes and exceptions Setting and reaching targets, quotas, or objectives Games’ Incentives, Motivation, and Behavior I asked Julian Orr, Senior Usability Engineer, in the Oracle Fusion Applications CRM User Experience (UX) team for his thoughts on what potential gamification might offer Oracle Fusion Applications. Julian pointed to the powerful incentives offered by games as the starting place: “The biggest potential for gamification in enterprise apps is as an intrinsic motivator. Mechanisms include fun, social interaction, teamwork, primal wiring, adrenaline, financial, closed-loop feedback, locus of control, flow state, and so on. But we need to know what works best for a given work situation.” For example, in CRM service applications, we might look at the motivations of typical service applications users (see figure 1) and then determine how we can 'gamify' these motivations with techniques to optimize the desired work behavior for the role (see figure 2). Description of Figure 1 Description of Figure 2 Involving Our Users Online game players are skilled collaborators as well as problem solvers. Erika Webb (@erikanollwebb), Oracle Fusion Applications UX Manager, has run gamification events for Oracle, including one on collaboration and gamification in Oracle online communities that involved Oracle customers and partners. Read more... However, let’s be clear: gamifying a user interface that’s poorly designed is merely putting the lipstick of gamification on the pig of work. Gamification cannot replace good design and killer content based on understanding how applications users really work and what motivates them. So, Let the Games Begin! Gamification has tremendous potential for the enterprise application user experience. The Oracle Fusion Applications UX team is innovating fast and hard in this area, researching with our users how gamification can make work more satisfying and enterprises more productive. If you’re interested in knowing more about our gamification research, sign up for more information or check out how your company can get involved through the Oracle Usability Advisory Board. Your thoughts? Find those comments.

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• WebCenter Customer Spotlight: Global Village Telecom Ltda

  - by me

  Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter  Solution SummaryGlobal Village Telecom Ltda. (GVT)  is a leading Brazilian telecommunications company, developing solutions and providing services for corporate and end users. GVT is located in Curitiba, Brazil, employs 6,000 people and has an annual revenue of around US$1 billion.  GVT business objectives were to improve corporate communications, accelerate internal information flow, provide continuous access to the all business files and  enable the company’s leadership to provide information to all departments in real time. GVT implemented Oracle WebCenter Content to centralize the company's content and they built  a portal to share and find content in real-time. Oracle WebCenter Content enabled GVT to quickly and efficiently integrate communication among all company employees—ensuring that GVT maintain a competitive edge in the market. Human Resources reduced the time required for issuing internal statements to all staff from three weeks to one day. Company OverviewGlobal Village Telecom Ltda. (GVT)  is a leading telecommunications company, developing solutions and providing services for corporate and end users. The company offers diverse innovative products and advanced solutions in conventional fixed telephone communications, data transmission, high speed broadband internet services, and voice over IP (VoIP) services for all market segment. GVT is located in Curitiba, Brazil, employs 6,000 people and have an  annual revenue of around US$1 billion.   Business ChallengesGVT business objectives were to improve corporate communications, accelerate internal information flow, provide continuous access to the all business files and enable the company’s leadership to provide information to all departments in real time. Solution DeployedGVT worked with the Oracle Partner IT7 to deploy Oracle WebCenter Content to securely centralize the company's content such as growth indicators, spreadsheets, and corporate and descriptive project schedules. The solution enabled real-time information sharing through the development of Click GVT, a portal that currently receives 100,000 monthly impressions from employee searches. Business ResultsGVT gained a competitive edge in the communications market by accelerating internal information flow, streamlining the content standardizing information and enabled real-time information sharing and discovery. Human Resources  reduced the time required for issuing  internal statements to all staff from three weeks to one day. “The competitive nature of telecommunication industry demands rapid information in the internal flow of the company. Oracle WebCenter Content enabled us to quickly and efficiently integrate communication among all company employees—ensuring that we maintain a competitive edge in the market.” Marcel Mendes Filho, Systems Manager, Global Village Telecom Ltda. Additional Information Global Viallage Telecom Ltda Customer Snapshot Oracle WebCenter Content

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• Where can I hire local programmers with very specific skillsets?

  - by Lostsoul

  I have been browsing the site and haven't found a exact fit to this question so I'll post it but if its already answered(since I'm sure its a common problem, then let me know). I have a business and want to create a totally different product in a different industry than I'm currently in, so I learned how to program and created a working prototype. I have a bit of savings and am getting some cash flow from my current business so I can go out and hire a developer(in the future hopefully it can be permenant but right now I just need a person willing to work on contract and code on weekends or their spare time and I just want to pay in cash instead of equity or future promises). At first I wasn't sure what kind of developer to hire but this question helped me understand I should target specific skills I need as opposed to general programmers. This poses a problem for me since general programmers are everywhere but if I want specific skills I'm unsure how to get them. I thought about a list of approaches but it doesn't feel complete or effective since it seems to be assuming good developers are actively looking. If it helps I want someone local(since this is my first developer hire) and looking for skills like cuda, hadoop, hbase, java and c. Any suggestions? As a FYI, I have been thinking of approaching it as: Go to meet ups for one or more skills I need. Use LinkedIn to find people with the skills I need Search for job postings that contain skills I need and then use linkedIn to reach out to that firms employees since many profiles on linkedin are not very updated or detailed but job postings generally are. Send postings to universities and maybe find a student who loves technology so much they learned these tools on their own. Post on job board. Not sure how successful it will be to post to monster. Use Craigslist, not sure if a highly skilled developer would go here for work. What am I missing? I could be wrong but it seems like good/smart/able developers aren't hunting for work non-stop(especially in this tech job market). Plus most successful people I know have work/life balance so I'm not sure if the best ones really care about code after work. Lastly, most of the skills I need aren't used in big corporations so not sure how aggressively smart developers at small shops look for work. I don’t really know any developers personally, so but should I be using the above plan or if they live balanced lives should I be looking outside of the regular resources(and instead focus on asking around my gym or my accountant or something)? Sorry, I'm making huge assumptions here, I guess because developers are a total mystery to me. I kind of wish Jane Goodall wrote a book on understanding developers social behaviour better :-p

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• WebCenter Customer Spotlight: Hitachi Data Systems

  - by me

  Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter Watch this Webcast to see a live demo on how HDS creates multilingual content for their 35+ regional websites  Solution SummaryHitachi Data Systems (HDS) provides mid-range and high-end storage systems, software and services. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd. HDS is based in Santa Clara, California, and has over 5,300 employees in more then 100 countries and regions. HDS's main objectives were to provide a consistent message across all their sites, to maintain a tight governance structure across their messages and related content, expand the use of the existing content management systems and implement a centralized translation management system. HDS implemented a global web content management system based on Oracle WebCenter Content and integrated the Lingotek translation management system to manage their multilingual content. The implemented solution provides each Geo with the ability to expand their web offering to meet local market needs, while staying aligned with the Corporate Web Guidelines Company OverviewHitachi Data Systems (HDS) provides mid-range and high-end storage systems, software and services. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd. and part of the Hitachi Information Systems & Telecommunications Division. The company sells through direct and indirect channels in more than 170 countries and regions. Its customers include of 50 percent of the Fortune 100 companies. HDS is based in Santa Clara California and has over 5,300 employees in more than 100 countries and regions. Business ChallengesHDS has over 35 global websites and the lack of global web capabilities led to inconsistency of messaging, slower time to market and failed to address local language needs. There was an extensive operational overhead due to manual and redundant processes. Translation efforts where superficial, inconsistent and wasteful and the lack of translation automation tools discouraged localization.  HDS's main objectives were to provide a consistent message across all their sites, to maintain a tight governance structure across their messages and related content, expand the use of the existing content management systems and implement a centralized translation management system. Solution DeployedHDS implemented a global web content management system based on Oracle WebCenter Content. The solution supports decentralized publishing for their 35+ global sites to address local market needs while ensuring editorial and brand review trough embedded review processes. They integrated the Lingotek translation management system into Oracle WebCenter Content to manage their multilingual content. Business Results Provides each Geo with the ability to expand their web offering to meet local market needs, while staying aligned with the Corporate Web Guidelines Enables end-to-end content lifecycle management across multiple languages Leverage translation memory for reuse and consistency Reduce time to market with central repository of translated content Additional Information HDS Webcast Oracle WebCenter Content Lingotek website

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• Send an E-mail Quickly with the GmailThis! Bookmarklet

  - by Asian Angel

  Sometimes you need to send out a quick e-mail for a project that you are working on, something really important that you just remembered, or perhaps just a note to yourself. If you use Gmail and like keeping things simple then join us as we look at the GmailThis! Bookmarklet. GmailThis! in Action To get set up all that you need to do is visit the webpage (link provided below) and drag the bookmarklet to your “Bookmarks Toolbar”. For our example we decided to go with the “personal note” approach. As you can see here we selected/highlighted a portion of the text and then clicked on our new bookmarklet. The bookmarklet will automatically copy and paste the name of the webpage, the URL, and any text that you selected/highlighted into the new e-mail. A nice feature that we liked was that it opened in a new temporary window to help focus on composing our letter. This is what you will see when you have finished your letter and clicked “Send”. The window will automatically close itself after a few seconds so that you do not even have to worry with it afterwards. Looking at our “Inbox” there is our new e-mail looking oh so nice. Conclusion If you need to send out a quick e-mail using your Gmail account then this bookmarklet makes it as quick and simple as possible. This is definitely one to add to your bookmarklets collection. Links Get the GmailThis! Bookmarklet for your browser Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How to Send and Receive Hotmail from Your Gmail AccountShare Your Favorite Webpages with the AddThis BookmarkletPower Up and Manage Your Windows Send To Menu with Send To ToysTurn off New Mail Notification for PocoMail Junk Mail FolderCreate an Email Template in Outlook 2003 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Monitor Applications With Kiwi LocPDF is a Visual PDF Search Tool Download Free iPad Wallpapers at iPad Decor Get Your Delicious Bookmarks In Firefox’s Awesome Bar Manage Photos Across Different Social Sites With Dropico Test Drive Windows 7 Online

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• Avoiding Duplicate Content Penalties on a Corporate/Franchise website

  - by heath

  My question is really an extension of a previous question that was ported from stackoverflow and closed so I cannot edit it. The basic gist is a regional franchise company has decided to force all independent stores into one website look; they currently all have their own domains and completely different websites. After reading the helpful answers and looking over some links provided, I think my solution is to put a 301 on each franchise store site (acme-store1.com, acme-store2.com, etc) back to the main corporate site (acme.com). All of the company history, product info, etc (about 90% of the entire site) applies to all stores. However, each store should have some exclusive content such as staff, location pictures, exclusive events and promotions, etc. I originally thought that I would simply do something like acme.com/store1/staff, acme.com/store2/staff, etc for the store exclusive content and then acme.com/our-company, for example, would cover all stores. However, I now see two issues that I don't know how to solve. They want to see site stats based on what store site they came from. If a user comes from acme-store1.com, is redirected to acme.com and hits several pages, don't I need to somehow keep that original site in the new url to track each page in that user's session and show they originally came from acme-store1.com? Each store is still independently owned and is essentially still in competition with the other stores, albeit, in less competition than they are with other brands. This is important because each store would like THEIR contact info, links to their social media pages, their mailing list sign-up and customer requests on EVERY page. So if a user originally goes to acme-store1.com and is redirected to acme.com, it still should look to the user that it's all about store 1, even though 90% of the content will be exactly the same as it is in the store 2, store 3 and corporate site. For example, acme.com/our-company would have the same company history, same header/footer/navigation, BUT depending on the original site the user came from, it would display contact and links to THAT store. If someone came directly to the corporate site, it would display their contact and links (they have their own as well). I was considering that all redirects would be to store1.acme.com, store2.acme.com, etc (or acme.com/store1) and then I can dynamically add the contact info and appropriate links based on the subdomain or subfolder. But, then I have to worry about duplicate content penalties because, again, about 90% of the text in these "subdomains" are all the same. For reference, this is a PHP5 site. I've already written a compact framework utilizing templates and mod-rewrite that I've used for other sites. Is this an easy fix that I'm just not grasping? Any suggestions?

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• Stuff I learned at Innovate 2011

  - by David Dorf

  After returning from the NRF Innovate 2011 conference, I picked up few nuggets I thought I'd share here.  These thoughts are a bit random, but I hope they're useful nonetheless.Kevin Kelly opened the conference with six verbs that represent the future.  They were Screening, Interacting, Sharing, Accessing, Flowing, and Generating.  It struck me that these are all ways in which we merge the digital and physical worlds.  The internet of things continues to gain momentum.Some buzzwords:  deal economy, subscription commerce, discovery (instead of search), curationThat last one, curation, came up over and over.  Retailers, especially those in fashion, are finding value in helping their customers organize and present their own collections.  Social media has made sharing such collections easy, and mobile lets them take those ideas into the stores.  Mannequins are becoming less relevant.I heard from both HauteLook and Gilt Groupe (flash sale retailers) that a large percentage of their visits come from mobile devices, and most of those are iOS devices.  I find it interesting that even though Android has passed iPhone in units shipped (and will eventually pass iOS as a whole), its still the Apple crowd that leads the way.RadioShack mentioned their Holiday Heroes campaigned was very successful.  They asked their Foursquare users to check-in at a gym, coffee shop, and transportation hub as part of being a hero.  For this feat, customers were awarded a special badge that was worth 20% off at their next store visit. They claim a 3.5x increase in ticket size vs. regular check-in customers, and a 5x increase vs those that don't check-in at all.I also learned of RadioShack's #28 campaign, which is apparently one of the largest Twitter trends ever.  Their partnership with LIVESTRONG has gotten them followers, impressions, and credit for supporting the fight against cancer.The guys at Invodo showed the importance of video to e-commerce.  They gave compelling examples of how video can show customers the value of products better than just words.The highlight of the show was Guy Kawasaki's talk on innovation, which was not only informative but also peppered with humor and personality.  Back in the early days of the internet boom, Guy turned down the CEO position at Yahoo! because the commute was too long.  By his calculation, that was a $2B mistake.There are other good accounts of the conference at the NRF Blog.

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• WebCenter Customer Spotlight: Marvel

  - by me

  Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter  Solution SummaryMarvel Entertainment, LLC (Marvel) is one of the world's most prominent character-based entertainment companies, built on a proven library of over 8,000 characters featured in a variety of media over seventy years. The customer wanted to optimize their brand licensing process, so Marvel worked with Oracle WebCenter partner Fishbowl Solutions and implemented a centralized Content Hub based on Oracle WebCenter Content. The 100% web based secure Intranet/Partner Extranet solution is now managing the entire life cycle of the brand licensing process. Marvel and their brand licensees have  now complete visibility of brand license operations including the history of approval request and related content.  Company OverviewMarvel Entertainment, LLC (Marvel) a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, is one of the world's most prominent character-based entertainment companies, built on a proven library of over 8,000 characters featured in a variety of media over seventy years.  Marvel utilizes its character franchises in entertainment, licensing and publishing.   Sample  characters:    - Spider-Man    - Iron Man    - Captain America    - X-MEN    - Thor    - Avengers    - And a host of others  Business ChallengesMarvel wanted to optimize their brand licensing process for their characters and had following business requirements : Facilitating content worldwide Scalable and flexible infrastructure to manage multiple content types and huge file sizes Optimize the licensing process workflow trough automatic notifications, tracking reviews, issuing approvals, etc. Solution DeployedMarvel worked with Oracle WebCenter partner Fishbowl Solutions and implemented a centralized Content Hub based on Oracle WebCenter Content. The 100% web based secure Intranet/Partner Extranet solution is now managing the entire life cycle of the brand licensing process. The internal users can now manage all digital assets related to a character trough proper categorization of all items, workflow based review and approval of branding styles and a powerful search and retrieval service. The licensees of Marvel brands can now online develop and submit  concepts and prototypes which are reviewed and approved using a collaborative process. Business ResultMarvel and their brand licensees have now complete visibility of brand license operations including the history of approval request and related content. The character brand related content is now in the right place, at the right time at the user's fingertips with highly improved quality. Additional Information Marvel Open World Presentation Oracle WebCenter Content

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• WebCenter Customer Spotlight: American Home Mortgage

  - by Michelle Kimihira

  Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter Solution Summary American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. (AHMSI) is a 3,000 employee company based in Coppell, Texas and provides services to homeowners and loan investors. With a multibillion portfolio under management, AHMSI is one of the country's largest servicers of Alt-A and subprime loans. AHMSI implemented a public-facing secure Web portal using Oracle WebCenter Suite to help investors make informed decisions more quickly and automated much of the investor approval process AHMSI reduced the time needed to process loan modification from approximately 30 days to one week.  UsingOracle WebCenter Content AHMSI can now share strategic & sensitive content in compliance with the various governance regulations.  Company OverviewAmerican Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. provides services to homeowners and loan investors. Whether a borrower holds a traditional, Alt-A, payment option, or subprime loan, the company's highly trained experts are committed to providing high levels of service as they work to address each customer's needs. AHMSI also carefully manages the loan portfolios of investors. With a multibillion portfolio under management, AHMSI is one of the country's largest servicers of Alt-A and subprime loans.  Challenges AHMSI’s biggest challenge was to improve security by minimizing the use of e-mail and FTP sites to share sensitive mortgage loan data with third parties, including estate investors.  Solutions AHMSI implemented Oracle WebCenter Suite to deploy a public-facing Web portal, enabling authorized external users to view content stored on the content server and Oracle WebCenter Content  to create a secure storage area for daily, weekly, and monthly reports. They leveraged the standard group spaces in Oracle WebCenter Portal to enable business users to collaborate more effectively.  Results By automating much of the investor approval process, they reduced the time needed to process loan modifications from approximately 30 days to one week and greatly minimized the use of e-mail and FTP sites to share information. Investors can now view supporting materials including real-time loan information and call center data to help them make more informed decisions more quickly.  The implemented solution complies with various government regulations in dealings with real estate investors.  “To maintain our commitment to providing customers with the highest possible levels of services while creating a competitive advantage for our business, we needed to be able to share strategic and sensitive content in a safe and secure manner. With Oracle WebCenter, we have a flexible and modern user experience platform that allows us to securely, reliably and efficiently manage our portfolio of sensitive data and share it with our business partners. This not only helps ensure compliance with various government regulations, it accelerates processes and supports more informed decision making.” Vince Holt, Manager, Application Management, American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc.  Additional Information AHMSI Customer Snapshot  Oracle WebCenter Suite Oracle WebCenter Content Oracle WebCenter Portal Oracle Fusion Middleware

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• JavaOne Latin America 2011: Keynotes, Sessions, Hands-on Lab, Geek Bike Ride, etc.

  - by arungupta

  After a very successful JavaOne San Francisco, the first JavaOne on the road for 2011 is heading to Latin America next week. There are 59 sessions delivered by several rock star speakers and with 60% sessions delivered by the local community. There are strategy, technical and community keynotes. The community keynote on Thursday will particularly be lot of fun with appearances from Java Champions, JUG leaders, jHome, and several others. Also check out the Exhibitor Floor Plan and don't forget to Register! The complete session schedule gives an overview for the list of technical sessions and hands-on lab. There are several Java EE, GlassFish, and WebLogic sessions and are highlighted below: Tuesday, Dec 6 Oracle WebLogic Server XML-Free Programming: Java Server and Client Development without <> Java EE Application in Production: Tips and Tricks to achieve zero downtime Web Applications and Wicket Scala on GlassFish and Java EE 6 REST and Java best practices, issues and solutions for the Enterprise Building a RESTful Web Application with JAX-RS and Ext JS 4 Wednesday, Dec 7 Oracle GlassFish Server in the Virtual World JAX-RS 2.0: What's in JSR 339 ? JSF 343: What's coming in Java Message Service 2.0 ? The Great News of JSF 2.0! Thursday, Dec 8 Servlet 3.1 Update Develop, Deploy, and Monitor a Java EE 6 Application with Clustered GlassFish 3.1 Migrating from EJB/SOAP to REST with JAX-RS: The Case of the Central Bank of Brazil GlassFish REST Administration Back End: An Insider look at a real REST Application Scripting and Agile Java EE Applications with Jython And this is Brazil so a fun element is important. There are the usual Caiprihinas, Churrascaria, late night social dinners, community engagement, and multiple other fun activities. Fabiane Nardon and SOUJava gang are also organizing a Geek Bike Ride on the Sunday (Dec 4th) before JavaOne. The 20k ride (map) starts at 7am and goes through the streets of Sao Paulo. This is an opportunity to meet some of the JavaOne speakers and attendees outside the conference. They've even designed a t-shirt and 32 geeks have signed up so far. I'm glad my discussion with Fabiane during FISL early this year for arranging this bike ride is finally taking shape! I'm definitely looking forward to it and will be bringing nice fruity Odwalla bars for all the riders. Be there to ride with me and many others :-) Stay updated by following @oracledobrasil and @javaoneconf. I'll be there, will you ? Don't wait and register now! And in case you are interested in reading about the experience from last year ... it was lot of fun! Just check out a collage of pictures yourself ... And the complete album at:

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• Why is my laptop so sluggish? Or Damn You Facebook and Twitter! Or All Hail Chrome!

  - by John Conwell

  In the past three weeks, I've noticed that my laptop (dual core 2.1GHz, 2Gb RAM) has become amazingly sluggish.  I only uses for communications and data lookup workflows, so the slowness was tolerable.  But today I finally got fed up with the suckyness and decided to get to the root of the problem (I do have strong performance roots after all). It actually didn't take all that long to figure it out.  About a year ago I converted to Google Chrome (away from FireFox).  One of the great tools Chrome has is a "Task Manager" tool, that gives you Windows Task Manager like details for all the tabs open in the browser (Shift + Esc).  Since every tab runs in its own process, its easy from Task Manager (both Windows or Chrome) to identify and kill a single performance offending tab.  This is unlike IE, where you only get aggregate data about all tabs open.  Anyway, I digress.  Today my laptop sucked.  Windows Task Manager told me that I had two memory hogging Chrome tabs, but couldn't tell me which web page those tabs are showing.  Enter Chrome Task Manager which tells you the page title, along with CPU, memory and network utilization of each tab.  Enter my amazement.  Turns out Facebook was using just shy of half a Gb of RAM.  Half a Gigabyte!  That's 512 Megabytes!524,288 Kilobytes! 536,870,912 Bytes!  Or 4,294,967,296 Bits!  In other words, that's a frackin boat load of memory.  Now consider that Facebook is running on pretty much 96.3% (statistics based on absolutely nothing) of every house hold desktop, laptop, netbook, and mobile device in America, that is pretty horrific! And I wasn't playing any Facebook games like FarmWars or MafiaVille.  I just had my normal, default home page up showing me who just had breakfast, or just got finished with their morning run. I'm sorry...let me say that again...HALF A GIG OF RAM!  That is just unforgivable. I can just see my mom calling me up:  Mom: "John...I think I need a new computer.  Mine is really slow these days" John: "What do you have running?" Mom: "Oh, just Facebook" John: "Ok, close Facebook and tell me how fast your computer feels" Mom: "Well...I don't know how fast it is.  All I do is use Facebook" John: "Ok Mom, I'll send you a new computer by Tuesday" Oh yea...and the other offending web page?  It was Twitter, using a quarter of a Gigabyte. God I love social networks!

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• Gauging Maturity of your BPM Strategy - part 1 / 2

  - by Sanjeev Sharma

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} In this post I will discuss the essence of maturity assessment and the business imperative for doing the same in the context of BPM. Social psychology purports that an individual progresses from being a beginner to an expert in a given activity or task along four stages of self-awareness: Unconscious Incompetence where the individual does not understand or know how to do something and does not necessarily recognize the deficit and may even deny the usefulness of the skill. Conscious Incompetence where the individual recognizes the deficit, as well as the value of a new skill in addressing the deficit. Conscious Competence where the individual understands or knows how to do something but demonstrating the skill requires explicit concentration. Unconscious Competence where the individual has had so much practice with a skill that it has become "second nature" and serves as a basis of developing other complementary skills. We can extend the above thinking to an organization as a whole by measuring an organization’s level of competence in a specific area or capability, as an aggregate of the competence levels of individuals it is comprised of. After all organizations too like individuals, evolve through experience, develop “memory” and capabilities that are shaped through a constant cycle of learning, un-learning and re-learning. Hence the key to organizational success lies in developing these capabilities to enable execution of its strategy in-line with the external environment i.e. demand, competition, economy etc. However developing a capability merits establishing a base line in order to Assess the magnitude of improvement from past investments Identify gaps and short-comings Prioritize future investments in the right areas A maturity assessment is essentially an organizational self-awareness check that is aimed at depicting the “as-is” snapshot of an existing capability in-order to guide future investments to develop that capability in-line with business goals. This effectively is the essence of a maturity Organizational capabilities stem through its architecture, routines, culture and intellectual resources that are implicitly and explicitly embedded in its business processes. Given that business processes underpin realization of organizational capabilities, is what has prompted business transformation and process management efforts. Thus, the BPM capability of an organization needs to be measured on an on-going basis to ensure delivery of its planned benefits. In my next post I will describe Oracle’s BPM Maturity assessment methodology.

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• Games at Work Part 1: Introduction to Gamification and Applications

  - by ultan o'broin

  Games Are Everywhere How many of you (will admit to) remember playing Pong? OK then, do you play Angry Birds on your phone during work hours? Thought about why we keep playing online, video, and mobile games and what this "gamification" business we're hearing about means for the enterprise applications user experience? In Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, Jane McGonigal says that playing computer and online games now provides more rewards for people than their real lives do. Games offer intrinsic rewards and happiness to the players as they pursue more satisfying work and the success, social connection, and meaning that goes with it. Yep, Gran Turismo, Dungeons & Dragons, Guitar Hero, Mario Kart, Wii Boxing, and the rest are all forms of work it seems. Games are, in fact, work taken so seriously that governments now move to limit the impact of virtual gaming currencies on the real financial system. Anyone who spends hours harvesting crops on FarmVille realizes it’s hard work too. Yet games evoke a positive emotion in players who voluntarily stay engaged with games for hours, day after day. Some 183 million active gamers in the United States play on average 13 hours per week. Weekly, 5 million of those gamers play for longer than a working week (45 hours). So why not harness the work put into games to solve real-world problems? Or, in the case of our applications users, real-world work problems? What’s a Game? Jane explains that all games have four defining traits: a goal, rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation. We need to look at what motivational ideas behind the dynamics of the game—what we call gamification—are appropriate for our users. Typically, these motivators are achievement, altruism, competition, reward, self-expression, and status). Common game techniques for leveraging these motivations include: Badging and avatars Points and awards Leader boards Progress charts Virtual currencies or goods Gifting and giving Challenges and quests Some technology commentators argue for a game layer on top of everything, but this layer is already part of our daily lives in many instances. We see gamification working around us already: the badging and kudos offered on My Oracle Support or other Oracle community forums, becoming a Dragon Slayer implementor of Atlassian applications, being made duke of your favorite coffee shop on Yelp, sharing your workout details with Nike+, or donating to Japanese earthquake relief through FarmVille, for example. And what does all this mean for the applications that you use in your work? Read on in part two...

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• TouchDevelop: The Fast Path to Windows 8 and Phone Apps

  - by Clint Edmonson

  Are you looking for a little extra cash for the upcoming holidays? Then you might be interested in creating some cool apps to sell in the Windows Store. Or maybe you’re simply curious and want to try your hand at developing for Windows 8 and Windows Phone. In either case, the newly released TouchDevelop Web App is for you. TouchDevelop Web App is a development environment to create apps on your tablet or smartphone, without requiring a separate PC. Scripts written by using TouchDevelop can access data, media, and sensors on the phone, tablet, and PC. The script can interact with cloud services, including storage, computing, and social networks. TouchDevelop lets you quickly create fun games and useful tools, turning your scripts into true Windows Phone and Windows 8 apps. A year ago, Microsoft Research released TouchDevelop for Windows Phone, which is being used by enthusiasts, students, and researchers to program their phones in fun, inventive, and interesting ways. These scripts are available at TouchDevelop for anyone to download and use. Ever since we released TouchDevelop, we’ve been eyeing the tablet form factor and working on a version for the browser. Now, with the release of TouchDevelop Web App, the wait is over: the tablet version is ready, so go play around with it. All TouchDevelop scripts that are developed on the smartphone can be downloaded to the tablet and run (if hardware allows). Any script that is developed on the tablet can also be accessed on the phone. And scripts can be converted to Windows Phone or Windows 8 apps and submitted to the Windows Phone Store or Windows Store, respectively. TouchDevelop Web App’s editor and programming language have been designed for tablet devices with touchscreens, but you can also use a keyboard and a mouse. So grab your web-enabled device and give the TouchDevelop Web App a try. It’s fun and easy, and could even put a little cash in your holiday-depleted wallet. Or at least give you bragging rights at family get-togethers. Are you interested in further tips on Windows 8 development?  Sign up for the 30 to launch program which will help you build a Windows Store application in 30 days.  You will receive a tip per day for 30 days, along with potential free design consultations and technical support from a Windows 8 expert. As always, stay tuned to my twitter feed for Windows 8, Windows Azure and other Microsoft announcements, updates, and links: @clinted

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• Our Favorite Highlights from OpenWorld 2012

  - by Kathy.Miedema

  By Kathy Miedema and Misha Vaughan, Oracle Applications User Experience The Oracle Applications User Experience (UX) team’s activities around OpenWorld expand every year, but this year we certainly raised the bar.   Members of our team helped deliver three, separate, all-day training events in the week prior to OpenWorld. Our Fusion User Experience Advocates (FXA) and Applications UX Sales Ambassadors (SAMBA) have all-new material around the Oracle user experience to deliver at conferences in the coming year - Fusion Applications design patterns, mobile design patterns, and the new face of Fusion. We also delivered a hands-on workshop sharing user experience tools for our customers that is designed to answer this question: "If I have no UX staff, what do I do?" We also spent the weeks just before OpenWorld preparing to talk about the new face of Fusion Applications, a greatly simplified entry experience into Fusion Applications for self-service users, CRM users, and IT managers who want to change the look and feel quickly. Special thanks to Oracle ACE Director Floyd Teter for the first mention of our project.Jeremy Ashley, VP, Oracle Applications User Experience Customers may have seen one of the many OpenWorld session demos of the new face of Fusion, which will be available with Fusion Applications soon. It was shown in sessions by Oracle's Chris Leone, Anthony Lye, and our own Vice President, Jeremy Ashley, among others.   Leone reinforced the importance of user experience as one of three main design principles for Fusion Applications, emphasizing that Fusion was designed from the beginning to be intelligent, social, and mobile. User experience highlights of the new face of Fusion, he said, included the need for "zero training," and he called the experience "easy to use." He added that deploying it for HCM self-service would be effortless.  Customers take part in a usability lab tour during OpenWorld 2012. Customers also may have seen the new face of Fusion on the demogrounds or during one of our teams' chartered lab tours at the end of the week. We tested other new designs at our on-site lab in the Intercontinental Hotel, next to Moscone West. Applications User Experience team members show eye-tracking and mobile demos at OOW. We were also excited to kick off new branches of the Oracle Usability Advisory Board, which now has groups in Latin America and the Middle East, in addition to North America and EMEA.   And we were pleasantly surprised by the interest in one of our latest research projects, Oracle Voice, which is designed to enable faster data input for on-the-go users. We offer a big thank-you to the Nuance demopod for sharing the demo with OpenWorld attendees.  For more information on our program and products like the new face of Fusion, please comment below. 

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• WebCenter Customer Spotlight: Indecopi

  - by me

  Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter  Solution SummaryIndecopi Optimizes Patent Approval Management and Accelerates Customer Service Times by 40% Indecopi is a decentralized public agency that promotes the country’s markets and protects consumer rights. It promotes fair and honest competition and safeguards all forms of intellectual property through three directorates: Author’s Rights, Inventions and New Technologies, and Trademarks. The business challenge was to unify the agency’s technology infrastructure to create a business process management strategy, consolidate the organization’s Web platform and improve and automate information services for citizens and businesses, and streamline patent procedures by digitizing documentation. Indecopi optimized patent information services , organized information, provided around-the-clock online access to users, and developed a Web site that provides internal and external users access to DIN information, such as patent documentation, through a user-friendly interface. Indecopi achieved impressive business result by reducing use of paper files by 50%, accelerating transaction approvals,  reduce nonvalue-added activities by 85% and  accelerated customer service times by 40%. Company OverviewPeru’s Instituto Nacional de Defensa de la Competencia y de la Protección de la Propiedad Intelectual (Indecopi), the National Institute for the Defense of Competition and Protection of Intellectual Property, is a decentralized public agency that promotes the country’s markets and protects consumer rights. It promotes fair and honest competition and safeguards all forms of intellectual property through three directorates: Author’s Rights, Inventions and New Technologies, and Trademarks. Business ChallengesIndecopi's challenge was to unify the agency’s technology infrastructure to create a business process management strategy, starting with the Directorate of Inventions and New Technologies (DIN), consolidate the organization’s Web platform to meet new demands for software and process development, such as for patent applications, and improve and automate information services for citizens and businesses and streamline patent procedures by digitizing documentation. Solution DeployedIndecopi optimized patent information services with Oracle Business Process Management, automating processes to deliver expedient searches, and to create new services, such as alerts to users. They organized information and provided around-the-clock online access to users with Oracle WebCenter Content. In addition they used Oracle WebLogic Server to develop a Web site that provides internal and external users access to DIN information, such as patent documentation, through a user-friendly interface. Business Results Indecopi achieved impressive business results Reduced use of paper files by 50% Accelerated transaction approvals  reduce nonvalue-added activities, such as manual document copying to obtain patents, by 85% Accelerated customer service times by 40% by optimizing procedures, such as searches and online information related to granting patents “Oracle Business Process Manager has been a paradigm shift in process management. By digitalizing and automating our patents information services, we can now manage everything in the simplest way possible, expanding our options for the creation of new services.” Sergio Rodríguez, Assistant Director, Inventions and New Technologies Directorate, Instituto Nacional de Defensa de la Competencia y la Propiedad Intelectual Additional Information Indecopi Customer Snapshot Oracle WebCenter Content

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