Thingamy breaks a lot of rules for enterprise software - the most important being the break with snapshot-thinking, saving of manipulated data and multiple data-objects representing one real-world object.
Thingamy represents reality by singular and minimised unique data-objects that each is alone in representing a real object. Then it lets that data-object capture not only all properties but also all that happens to the real object and keeps the true history of each object in raw form ready for any application of logic to create reports, accounts or any other image you want at any time.
That simplifies flow and process models tremendously, but most important, it leaves the application of logic up to the user. There is no singular truth, only personal interpretation of reality and individual connection of dots - this must be reflected in the data models so we do not waste time or lose knowledge by trying to extract useful data from manipulated data.
You've enjoyed a good book and a year later it's been made into a film, so you're off to the movies to relive the good moments of the book.
But when you leave the cinema two hours later you have to tell your companion - "You know what, I think the book was better, it was not like I imagined it!"
The words, loosely woven story and imaginary descriptions in the book is the raw information that your mind chooses to connect using your own "logic" while the film has done that for you by strict placement of material objects and by colouring the environment - you have been served manipulated information.
You're walking the woods on a clear fall day, enjoying the sights and the pungent smell of the leaves on the ground, and then taking a photo or three of the sights.
A week later you visit a gallery and there you see that large painting, non-figurative, colourful cannot-really-see-what-it-represents but you have instant flashes of that walk last week, you can even smell the leaves.
Eager to revisit the feeling you fire up your computer when back home to look at the pictures you took, but no, no flash of pungent smells, no nothing, just a realistic, dead picture of trees and leaves.
Each leaf is unique, a unique object with masses of properties - you can turn it over, feel it and smell it and your amazing brain sucks it all up and uses it in your own personal ways. The painting conjures up some of these images, as art does.
The photo you took is rigid, each leaf is dead and only a fraction of it's true properties are available - manipulated and condensed information again. And the rigidity leaves your fantasy little room for anything but details scrutiny - "what's that in the corner?"
My kids spent their first years at a Montessori school where freedom to learn reigned, at their own pace using the learning materials and the prepared environment.
When I was a kid I sat on third row for 45 minutes apiece, listening to a teacher droning on breaking only to tell us to "shut up" and "repeat after me".
My kids walked over to the bookshelf, picked up the material and used it with their bare hands while they experimented and manipulated real objects so they could connect the dots on their own premises.
My teacher tried to hammer in a commonly accepted curriculum, theories merely served as a digested and manipulated version of reality.
Look around you, look at the objects on your desk, then lean forward and study some closer. Or pick a pen up and turn it over.
Now imagine you're sitting inside a two-dimensional picture of your office and desk. Leaning forward gives nothing, picking up and turn over is not possible, moving your coffee mug over to the left is a no-no. That's it, nothing more to be gleaned, no new dots to be connected - that's done already on your behalf.
But we cannot bring the real world with us at all times. The teacher cannot tour the Amazon before lunch with the pupils in tow and do Paris in the afternoon, and the business leader cannot have the whole warehouse spread out on his desk.
Luckily we have IT so we can have reality represented in a portable format.
But so far the old world methods have been copied by IT using multiple, fixed and manipulated snapshots to represent reality - usually known as documents, forms, pictures or GAAP accounts. That method lets us down, the film disappoints, the picture does not give flashbacks and GAAPs keeps an army of analysts busy seeking raw data in a sea of manipulated mess.
With Thingamy you can "pick up" precisely "that" data-leaf, turn it over, "see" the colours and almost smell it. Hey, you can also see when the leaf fell from it's branch, what days it was rained upon and know where to find every other leaf that once rustled in the wind on the same branch.
Then you could create your own personal image of reality, a truer understanding of reality. The ultimate task for all leaders, for all analysts, for all of us.
Great post, Sig!
The fun/reality factor of life is definitely missing in IT and frankly, business in general. Our definition of work has been skewed by the same methods as the old style teacher that tries to "hammer in a commonly accepted curriculum, theories merely served as a digested and manipulated version of reality."
I'm looking forward to more great things coming from Thingamy soon.
Cheers,
-ewH
Posted by: ewH | April 16, 2007 at 18:23
I had a thingamy related thought rocket through my head while working on documentation today.... ;)
Let's assume that every company in the world is using thingamy (by this time you are more wealthy than Bill Gates and Warren Buffet combined). Now we know that thingamy maps real world objects. This means that effectively all things are mapped in thingamy.
Now the obvious thing that pops to mind is that many things would be mapped multiple times, which doesn't really make sense. For example, each of a bank's clients would have the bank's address, and so on, mapped. If the bank were to change its address, then all of its clients would also have to go and change their "bank" object's address....lots of replication.
The obvious solution would be to turn things on their head and only have one bank object, which the bank themselves would administer. So if the bank's address were to change, the next time one of its clients was to draw the raw info for a document it would be correct. (I'm sure by now you are seeing where I'm going with this....)
Obviously the bank's object would not be totally open – certain info would be "private" or "internal" etc. (to draw parallels with OO programming).
So the outcome would really be a "thingamy net", a second life (one that maps reality), an entire service that the world's info could run on. All of reality mapped to raw data, all of it waiting to have logical filters applied.....you up for it?
Posted by: Duncan Drennan | April 17, 2007 at 20:19
Duncan, well of course! (being up for it :))
Interesting that you are picking up on that point - that is one of the traits of thingamy as it does not really set any fictional borders, not limited to a "corporation".
One side of that is it does not see any difference between resources - employees, contractors, government, neighbours, customers - all the same in principle.
That said it should not be dependent on having to run the whole world to work! A bit hard sell-in that I suspect... hehe
Back to the bank account, a very interesting object for this discussion as the funny thing is that I do interact with my bankaccount data-object online already. The account is already property of the bank, I'm just renting space therein and I have to interact directly with that data-object either by logging on at the bank or let my say accounting package do it.
So as you say, the data-object representing an account would be within the bank's system and if in compatible format my local system should be able to extract the data when needed for my reports. Even Quicken does that today with shareprices :)
Then extend that thinking to say my address. An address as a data-object does only represent one real-world object that never changes relationship - my house.
Like the bank I suspect there are local authorities that already have such data-objects. Then, in the system where I'm represented by a data-object the address and I would be linked... and so forth.
It's doable, it's already done but with much effort and on a piecemeal basis between very disparate systems.
Wow, indeed, food for thought here! But basically, one data-object per real-world object - and as small as possible, preferably only with properties that (almost) never change (me: name, birthdate, social security number). There would be no limit how atomised you could go - at the end it will be a question of finding a balance between practical and theoretically ideal models.
Just like physics, they still tweak their reality models as they find new and smaller buildingblocks :)
Posted by: sig | April 17, 2007 at 21:36
"That said it should not be dependent on having to run the whole world to work! A bit hard sell-in that I suspect... hehe"
I must concur :) But, you get the idea. As real-world objects join the thingamy network they have the opportunity to take over their thingamy net objects.
Yes certainly...food for thought
Posted by: Duncan Drennan | April 18, 2007 at 09:15