Motivation

A few years ago the modernization of enterprise applications from green screen to the web accounted for the bulk of many IT budgets. From  longtime mainframe to your smaller server farm shops, companies were running a number of old, customized, yet still efficient business applications. These core business applications included the full gamut of internal systems necessary to run a business. There was nothing inherently wrong with the applications except that access was limited to rigid green screen interfaces.

As companies began to put new web-enabled facades onto these legacy applications, they began to realize the wealth of information that was hidden behind those old green screen applications. They also recognized that beyond the impractical costs of expanding the capabilities of the existing applications or undertaking a complete redevelopment projects, there existed a gap in the skills necessary to understand the business logic that was embedded into these applications over the years.

Information as an Asset

As the modernization (or migration to the web) continued an immediate artifact was that information, structured or unstructured data, was gaining in value. Specifically, accurate, timely, and relevant information that could reduce decision making time could yield a competitive edge. Savings in time and money through increased efficiency, improved productivity, and the rapid deployment of innovations could all result from the unleashing of the information assets of an enterprise.

The advent of service-oriented architecture (SOA) and web services brought immediate attention to the value of information and focused on the infrastructure necessary to integrate businesses and organizations with consumers, suppliers and partners.

Information Overload

Now that SOA has matured and adoption of web services amongst laggards is commonplace, we find ourselves faced with a new kind of technology dilemma. Teh pendulum has swung from limited information access and availability to information overload. Technologies like Web Services, RSS feeds, email and others, has placed  the burden of  information filtering on the everyday worker or decision maker. If these individuals are not enabled with the tools necessary to perform accurate and timely decisions then we will begin to deteriorate the value of information.

Content Your Way

Given the magnitude of information the average information worker deals with daily and the demands placed on them to be innovated and to work more efficient and productive, it would seem that these individuals could use some help. Could we enable them to access information on their own terms:

• Data created and maintained on demand
  
• Content obtained when they desire
  
• Information rendered the way they want it organized
• Interactions defined based on their behaviors and definition of usability
• Applications created on their own with limited dependencies on IT
  

QEDWiki is a technology enabler that seeks to improve the ways in which the information worker interacts and integrates with the overwhelming amount of information they face in our fast past information driven world.