SOA is one of those things that is really tough to explain. I’m often on the look out for new metaphors to help me explain it ways that don’t inflict too much pain and suffering on my typical HR audience. HR people normally have a high tolerance for pain, but talk to them about SOA and you can get them confessing to all sorts of things, just to make you stop.
Anyway, this morning on Twitter I noticed that several of my online connections had recently spilled beverages, adult or otherwise, on their laptops. Closer to home, my wife’s macbook still works after a coffee incident, but only when plugged in to the wall socket, also the range of the wireless has decreased to a few metres, and one of the shift keys doesn’t shift. To fix the laptop would cost more than replacing it, and would mean being without it for a couple of weeks. It limps on. It is the Bruce Willis Die Hard of laptops.
Tom provides advice that only experience brings.
Don’t leave a 2 year old alone with a laptop.
What does this have to do with SOA?
Well, one of the alternatives to a laptop is a desktop. Here the main parts of the computer are separate but connected. If I spill coffee while working with a desktop, I just end up replacing the keyboard. The rest of the system goes on working fine. If you are accident prone, buy a desktop.
SOA is software’s attempt to limit the damage that a cup of coffee does. Much clearer now isn’t it. hmmm. If you are looking for something more sensible on SOA and HR technology, my colleague Jim Holincheck has written a series of notes on this.
Moving swiftly on from SOA.
ASUS and Intel are asking users to help them design a better computer. Have a look at the site WePC.com. I think a coffee proof laptop would be a winner. Not sure that anything can be made to be 2 year old proof though.
This reminds that I have been planning to do some more research in to user led design in an HR context. TIme to get out the Von Hippel.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Tom Raftery // Nov 2, 2008 at 8:33 am
Hey Thomas,
thanks for using my photo – I never thought my 2 yr old would feature in a post about SOA!!!
My new MacBook Pro with the UniBody will hopefully prove more robust but I will be watching him carefully, just in case!
2 Amy Wilson // Nov 2, 2008 at 11:00 am
That’s an excellent analogy! I have to admit my laptop looks similar to the one above (ala my two year old) … so I will continue to limp along until they find a way to create a desktop that comes in separate pieces but can still be hauled around an airport with ease.
3 Meg Bear // Nov 2, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Amy, I was thinking of your laptop with that photo, didn’t know there was a 2YO conspiracy out there. Guess they get together at mommy-and-me classes and decide how to keep us all on our toes.
I do like the SOA analogy. I worry though, that HR people really shouldn’t have to understand SOA. What they should understand is that technology providers are always looking for smarter (and more cost effective) ways to give them innovation and provide solutions to business problems. SOA just happens to be the smartest way to do that today.
In other words, SOA is a means to an end, not the end itself.
4 Thomas Otter // Nov 3, 2008 at 4:39 am
Meg.
Indeed. Software firms often talk recipe when customer want to see the menu.
5 Christopher Otter // Nov 6, 2008 at 3:50 am
Happy Birthday (english)
Gelukkig Verjaarsdag (afrikaans)
halala ngosuko lokuzalwa (isizulu)
mahlohonlo (sotho)
imini enmandi (xhosa)
5 of our eight official languages aint bad!
If anyone happens to read this, wish Thomas happy Birthday (6 Nov) in your country’s official languages and be happy you don’t have 11!
Have a great day and I hope Oliver doesn’t rub Birthday cake into your keyboard…
Your Brother, Boet, Buthi, Bhugani
Christopher
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