Note: This is the second post in my Freedom within a Framework series, which is about enabling the coexistence of enterprise and opportunistic applications. You can read the introductory post here.

As I stated in my introductory post, I believe that it is possible to achieve a balance between the need for stability in enterprise applications, and the need for quick and agile innovation in opportunistic applications. They key to this balance lies is in determining where the domain of control for IT can safely transition into a environment of open access to information. This is a “line of demarcation” that allows for a clean separation of certain types of applications. The best way to picture this concept is to imagine a line on an X-axis, with control of technology at the left side, and anarchy at the right. “Command and Control IT” typically lives as close to the left as is possible, while the world of “consumer-driven IT” lives quite far to the right. There are opposed to be sure, but it is possible for IT to reconcile these differences and foster both sides by creating a shared understanding around which classes applications should be enterprise-class and which can and should be treated as opportunistic.

Another way to visualize this concept is with the “Long Tail,” which is depicted in Figure 1 below. The “Long Tail” was a term coined by Chris Anderson in Wired Magazine to describe how the business models of companies like Amazon or Netflix enables them to profitably offer a wider range of goods and services than traditional organizations. The concept (also referred to as a heavy-tail or Pareto distribution) is a well-known statistical occurrence where a high-frequency population (depicted by the region in green below) is followed by a very long low-frequency population that gradually diminishes in area (or “tails off”). In many cases, the long tail portion of the graph, colored in yellow below, can actually represent the majority of the area under the line in the graph, even though the frequency is lower along that portion of the line than it is in the green area.

Figure 1 - The Long Tail

When applied to Amazon and Netflix, this concept is used to illustrate that organizations with powerful distribution channels can make just as much or more selling ten copies each of 10,000 obscure books as they could selling 100,000 copies of one best-selling book. The application to many organizations is just as powerful when information is the product. Assume for a moment that the green portion of the graph represents enterprise-class applications with a large internal user base and the “long tail” or yellow portion represents opportunistic applications with a much smaller number of users. This is depicted in figure 2 below.

Figure 2 - The Long Tail for Applications

In this scenario, the “long tail” theory argues that an organization could serve more users with several hundred opportunistic applications than it does with a small number of enterprise-class applications, but at a much lower cost. Thus, a “long tail” model can enable an information-driven organization to serve its customer base effectively without greatly increasing the cost of software delivery. Such a model does so by enabling the kinds of opportunistic development which most IT organizations would likely never have the bandwidth or justification to pursue because they are applications which are tactical in nature and which may only serve a small number of users.

While a “Long Tail” mindset enables us to create a clear line of demarcation, simply classifying one type of application or information set as enterprise and another as opportunistic isn’t enough. It is entirely possible for IT to pursue this demarcation with good intentions, and then stifle innovation by requiring that all applications, including opportunistic ones, be developed using only one type of platform or programming language. Thus, another key to creating “Freedom within a Framework” is that IT must give up as much control as is possible, while at the same time recognizing the assets and information over which the enterprise should retain control. In my next post, I’ll discuss the concept of an IFaP architecture which, I believe, provides a powerful architecture for enabling open innovation while, at the same time, providing IT with a framework to manage its information assets.