Web 2.0

I have worked with Web 2.0 technology for quite a few years now. I think the least realized value of Web 2.0 technologies is process flow improvement. For some reason (may be over marketing about how 'cool' Web 2.0 is), Web 2.0 technologies are overlooked when considering Enterprise applications. On the other hand, I tend to strongly believe that Web 2.0 is a best fit for enterprise applications.

As technologists assisting business, it is our job to take the experience of Web 2.0 past the wows, oohs and aahs into 'Hey that just decreased the number of errors a user could commit in the process'. Yes it is not glamorous. But, hey, who said it would be, right? IMHO, the best way to elicit this value in a very short time frame, is to take the most cumbersome process use case and narrow down on tasks that a user is most prone to make mistakes and then use Web 2.0 technology to guide the user through the process and hence make it a straight-line scenario.

The above approach also allows the analyst/re-designer to understand the business rules and isolate them out instead of weaving them into the view or controller. Once isolated these rules could be packaged separately into a utility library that could be ported to other applications or be exposed as stateless services or incorporated into a rules engine.

From the few years I have put on as experience, I can tell that there are many many opportunities to do this.

Go out there and have fun doing this... cheerios.