Enterprise Hits and Misses – The Meta Gets Hacked, The Metaverse Gets Beaten, And Co-Code Gets A Jargon Check

Main Story – Can co-code fill the IT automation (and skills) gap?

In this tight economy, IT teams face two issues: automation and skills. As IT looks to move beyond the cost center, the need for automation only grows. Can co-code help? Phil examines the progress of low-code vendors in Co-code – solving for IT shortages, governance without code and a composite future. He explains the problem:

Instead of driving at cross-purposes, business and IT teams must unite in a common strategy that maximizes the pace and impact of automation while minimizing wasted effort and unintended disruptions. The core principles of how this strategy should work are now beginning to emerge, based on two enabling trends.

But do we need more technical jargon, eg “co-code”? Let’s start by defining it. Phil writes:

The first of these is the introduction of a more componentized approach to IT, enabling low-code and no-code tools to build on the same building blocks used in IT by professional developers. The other is a more collaborative approach to automation and data projects where pro-coders work together with business users of no-code and low-code tools – we call this co-code.

The ‘co’ in co-code stands for both of these ingredients – ‘co’ as in collaborative, and ‘co’ as in composable.

A fruitful area is the automation of ERP workflows. Historically, ERP vendors have not done nearly enough to provide business users with the tools to automate their own workflows. Worse: even ERP developers found this process cumbersome. The result? Technical debt and endless “project status” meetings. But as Phil notes, that is changing. I’m particularly interested in vendors that don’t require you to upgrade to the smartest cloud edition to access low-code tools. Phil cites one such vendor: Neptune Software.

Earlier this year, Neptune Software unveiled a code-free app builder that extends its existing Neptune DXP product, which is a web-native and mobile app platform with deep integrations into core SAP systems and other enterprise application stacks. This underlying platform adds an API layer that effectively transforms the core system of SAP into a set of APIs that can be assembled into new applications.

The vendor believes the tool will appeal to professional coders as well as business users, and sees it being used collaboratively, with professional coders maintaining oversight and leaving business process owners free to build prototypes or try out modifications themselves.

As for the co-code jargon – I will say this much. I actually like “co-code” better than low-code, or absolutely no code. As the excerpt above about Neptun illustrates, co-code expresses the right ambition: IT and business users jointly solve the same problems, sometimes together, sometimes together. Sometimes coding, sometimes not. You probably won’t hear me drop the term “co-code” at event parties – at least I hope not – but at least it gets a point across.

Diginomica chooses – my top diginomica stories this week

• Tesco’s omni-channel vision for the vaccine economy – customer and data-centric in focus – Stuart on Tesco’s omni-ambitions and loyalty card features: “Earlier this year, CEO Ken Murphy argued that the company had emerged as a much stronger business as a result of what it had to do at the height of the pandemic. Flash forward a few months and, as with other major retail players, the shape of things to come is becoming more apparent, although the cost of living crisis and rising inflation add further complications.”
• Evaluating the NIST AI Risk Management Framework – Neil evaluates the NIST approach, which is surprisingly low on AI ethics content: “NIST’s AI Risk Management Framework provides organizations with a lens to manage AI risks – but discussion of AI ethics takes a back seat. Is this a problem, or a better approach?“

Supplier analysis, diginomica style. Here are my top picks from our vendor coverage:

• isolved addresses the (right) issues – Brian reports back from an HR event that made an impact: “Today, isolved sells a relatively complete suite of HRMS applications designed primarily to serve small and medium-sized businesses. Given the completeness of its product line and increasing depth of functionality, we should expect to see them become more exclusive over time.”
• How do we protect privacy while enjoying data? Learn from Zoho’s approach to AI development – “All too often, privacy is at odds with AI advancements. Is there a better way? And how do we avoid headline-making chatbot bias meltdowns? I check in with Zoho as they push further into AI – with an extreme stance on customer data privacy.“

Confluent Current 2022 – will streaming data become mainstream? Derek made the trip to Austin to assess the state of data streaming:

Jon’s grab bag – Martin explores Iceland’s data center game in An Icelandic saga of the sustainability crisis – why data centers in Iceland may have found their moment. Stuart bravely wades into the idiocracy (yikes) of A ‘truly tailored UK data protection regime’ – blue meat thrown to activists as Brexit UK takes aim at GDPR.

The best from the corporate network

My top seven

• Malware apps may have stolen the passwords of 1 million Facebook users, says Meta – Another week, another breach: “Malware, discovered over the past year, masqueraded as various types of apps, including fake photo editors, virtual private networks that claimed to boost browsing speeds and access blocked websites, mobile games and health and lifestyle trackers… All the apps made it through Apple and Google’s security and into the tech giants’ official app stores.”
• Why web apps are one of this year’s leading attack vectors – VentureBeat reports on another breach target, beyond the app stores: “”API attacks are the fastest growing attack strategy on web apps by a wide margin. There has been a 117% increase in API attack traffic in the last year.“
• OK, we’re going digital: Anyone out there who can help us? Organizations have many ambitions for technology investments, but there is a problem. A Joe McKendrick notes: “The calls for talent are getting higher and higher. When asked about the challenges their organizations face when adopting new digital technologies, the top three responses all related to talent gaps.”
• GM Wants Robocar Safety Waiver, San Francisco Not So Safe – I’m really surprised San Francisco doesn’t like urban beta testing for bugged cars (not).
• Beyond Burnout: What Works—and What Doesn’t—McKinsey continues a helpful series on the slowly growing problem of employee burnout.
• Artist finds private journal photos in popular AI training datasets – More evidence of the tensions between AI training and privacy.
• What if you threw a Metaverse party and no one came? – Did I exaggerate Frank Scavo. Read his post and my comment (excerpt follows) and decide:

Agreed – but I refuse to give the “metaverse” concept credibility via the use cases you described. There are good use cases, but similar things have been in production for a few years under the term “virtual reality”, with much less fanfare. Metaverse as a term has been specifically promoted to suggest a technological revolution, spurring enormous economic growth. Training some people with headsets just doesn’t justify these statements…

Whiffs

Between hacks and (clever) cracks, it’s been a tough week in Meta-land:

Which leads to:

But hey, at least Meta is technically fluent:

With a lot of event travel ahead of me, I hope not to see this out of my airplane window:

Time to board… Catch you next time. If you find one #enso piece that qualifies as hit and miss – in a good or bad way – let me know in the comments section which Clive it (almost) always does. Most of the Enterprise hits and misses articles are selected from my curated ones @jonerpnewsfeed.