I look at more enterprise computing platforms that anyone should and still stay sane. But, I get really frustrated by the type of marketing hype that talks about how the next generation of some sort of platform is designed to bridge the gap between business and IT. Blah blah blah. While it is nice to think that this is indeed possible (I do believe it is) however, the only way that anyone will be able to create such a platform is to create a visualization of value. What the hell do I mean by this? It is pretty simple. You can’t understand and appreciate something unless you can see the value. Of course if you are a real techie you can delve into architecture and a bunch of code and appreciate its finesse. However, if you are a business person who cares about the quality of delivered goods and the number of customers who return products and whether your accounting records meet good business practice, you could care less about some code.

So vendors, if you are listening I have a suggestion. Why not create an interface to your technically sophisticated products that demonstrates to business customers what they get out of their investments? For example, dashboards are often sold to customers who want to have a way to track financial results or customer interactions. In my humble opinion, it would make sense for these dashboard interfaces to be the packaging of software products. Think of how much time it would save if the business customer could immediately see the value of the software without the poor sales person trying to explain what some sophisticated software does under the covers. If software companies deliver their software with a user environment that appeals to the needs of business, they will buy it because it actually solves problems and it actually visualizes the value of the software. What a concept.