Planet B2B Standards

OAGi CEO Blog : OAGi launches new survey entitled "How are you using OAGIS?"

2012-05-25T07:17:00+00:00

We have just launched a new OAGIS survey entitled "How are you using OAGIS?". The purpose of this survey is to find out more information about who is using OAGIS and how they are using it.

We have added the survey to our OAGIS download page as well as the front page of our web site. We invite you to participate in the survey. You can go directly to the survey here.

Thank you to all for your support of the OAGi community.

Gregory Maciag : Standards Organizations

2012-05-24T05:54:00+00:00

I like this thought from Michelle Marlborough: “It seems that the need for a new standard is partly driven by desperation – a realization that we are in a bit of a mess. The process of development of a consensus-based standard is then, by necessity, a long and slow process. And so we find ourselves in a bit of a bigger mess and with a mammoth task of implementing the standard and unraveling the already created mess.”

I've seen this pattern repeat itself many times. One of the aims of standards organizations must be to abstract the “despair” phase and to smooth the “unraveling” phase. So, we must make people aware of their need for standards so that they don't have to experience despair.

We can do this by drawing their attention to standards successes in other fields of endeavor and bringing the real costs of “mess” to life. In the standards creation and implementation phase, we need to provide facilitation so that the wood and the trees come into focus, and so that progress is captured and built on. Geeks Talk Clinical

OAGi CEO Blog : OAGi is now offering a 20% discount on your first years membership

2012-05-23T07:29:00+00:00

We are pleased to announce that OAGi is now offering a 20% discount on your first years membership.

The OAGi staff works hard to maximize your membership experience. We have listed the Business and Technical benefits just below. You can write to us with questions by clicking here. Just tell us you are interested in joining and we will work through the process with you.

Access to Members Only Resources

§ Training videos

§ Our Cloud Computing Panel Video

§ Free copy of our BOD Flattener software

§ Free copies of our best practices documents

§ Free access to our webinar recordings

§ And more

Technical Benefits

§ Privilege to form, lead and participate on Working Groups

§ Privilege to vote in Working Groups

§ Ensure the technology meets your organizations needs

§ Show your leadership in industry

§ Network with other experts

Business Benefits

§ Show your leadership in industry

§ Use the OAGi Member Logo

§ Exposure for yourself and your organization

§ 20% off services and training

§ Meeting attendance is free

§ Outstanding and inexpensive learning opportunity

Membership Structure

OAGi membership is open to all organizations. This includes:

§ Supply Chain Organizations

§ Solution Providers

§ Government agencies and Ministries

You can see our membership dues structure and details here.

You can also download a presentation on benefits and more, called Why join OAGi?

For more information please contact us right now at membership@oagi.org.

Gregory Maciag : Electronic Health Records and EHR Standards

2012-05-22T06:28:46+00:00

Arjen Westerink asks: “What it will take to encourage EHR [electronic health record] vendors to develop truly interoperable EHRs?” Collaboration and competition seem to be irreconcilable forces. “So far, there is little financial incentive to support true interoperability, and if anything, many vendors see some level of proprietary distinction as desirable – creating barriers to customer defection,” he writes.

He asks whether government should stimulate standards or whether the industry should wait for standards to emerge. The problem with this, as I see it, is that the industry can't hang around waiting for either eventuality. In particular, I don't believe that industry standards emerge by themselves any more. The kind of de facto industry standard that we used to see in, say, punch cards, was driven by closed intellectual property - patents and copyrights. That's not going to happen in healthcare data standards, and any organization nurturing the idea that it can produce a proprietary standard that will be taken up by the industry is kidding itself.

Data professionals in the healthcare industry need to get together and create standards. They need them for the growth of the industry. Trying to establish islands of dominance is not a tenable strategy. To do so is to fight yesterday's battles instead of building a bright tomorrow. Interoperability is coming – so bring it on.

Health Management Technology

Gregory Maciag : Thanks!

2012-05-21T17:59:00+00:00

The staff of both ACORD and LOMA want to thank you for attending the ACORD-LOMA Insurance Systems Forum in Orlando last week.

Gregory Maciag : Telematics

2012-05-21T06:49:00+00:00

Good quotes from Marcia Bernier on ACORD's development of standards in telematics, as reported at the 2012 Insurance-Canada.ca Technology Conference (ICTC). The article also contains interesting comments from Sandy Dunn at Wunelli, who is launching a UK-based telematics standards initiative: “Insurers have a small window of opportunity to agree to a common data standard. As an industry we need to grasp the opportunity now, while telematics is still in its infancy in the UK, or we will find ourselves facing the same issues insurers faced, for example, in sharing 'No Claims Discount' information.”

I echo this but add: think wider than UK. We can get this right for the entire industry and save everybody time and money. At the very least, UK-based insurers will want a standard that works across Europe and, increasingly, globally.

For a contrary view, check out the comments from Insurethebox's Mike Brockman in Insurance Times. He makes a “competitive advantage” argument for non-standardization. Hmm. I'm getting visions of the Sony memory stick. (Don't remember the Sony memory stick...? My point exactly.)

The Intersection

Insurance Times

OAGi CEO Blog : Meet our OAGi Outstanding Contributors

2012-05-21T06:14:00+00:00

It is my honor to announce this Spring's recipients of the OAGi Outstanding Contributors Awards. The Outstanding Contributor Awards Program contains two parts, the Outstanding Contributor Award and the Outstanding Contributing Organization Award.

The OAGi Individual Recognition Program is focused on showing appreciation for the participation and contributions made a specific participant from a member organization.

The OAGi Organizational Recognition Program is focused on showing appreciation for the contributions made by an organizational member and their participants.

This year at our Plenary Meeting on April 25, 2012 at NIST in Gaithersburg, we announced the following Outstanding Contributor winners:

- Nigel Davies, Vortx

- John Cartwright, Intel

- Jean-Claude Monney, Microsoft

- Steffen Fohn, ADP

We also announced the following Outstanding Contributing Organization winner:

- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Engineering Lab, Integration Division

The details for each Award Winner are just below. These are also posted on our website under the "Community" menu.

Please join me in thanking each winner for their many contributions to the work of OAGi.

Nigel Davies

- Nigel became a Board Member in 1998 through 2001 when at HK Systems and implemented OAGIS for them

- Then Nigel moved to Delphion from 2002 to 2003 and implemented OAGIS for them

- Then Nigel worked at Catalyst / CDC Software from 2003 to 2009 and implemented OAGIS for them

- Nigel served as OAGi Chair while at Catalyst 2004 - 2007

- Now Nigel is at Vortx from 2010 to 2012 and implemented OAGIS for them

John Cartwright

- John joined the OAGi Policy Board in 2007

- He then co-founded the High Tech Council in 2007

- Served as Chair of the High Tech Council 2008 - 2009

- Served as Vice-Chair of Membership 2008 - 2011

- Working Groups built and delivered PTP-OTC in OAGIS for the high tech industry in 2008

- Working Groups delivered Collaborative Forecasting in OAGIS for the high tech industry in 2009

Jean-Claude Monney

- Jean Claude served as Chair of the High Tech Council 2010 - 2011

- Jean-Claude also served on the OAGi Policy Board from 2010 - 2011

- Working Groups delivered OAGIS Logistics for the high tech industry 2010

- Working Groups also delivered Trade Compliance content in 2011

- Provided marketing expertise to OAGi CEO during the Cloud and Mobile launches

Steffen Fohn

- Steffen as Vice Chair of Finance for two years while a member of the Policy Board

- Serves as Co-Chair of the OAGi Architectural Council from 2008 to present

- Serves as Chair of the HR-Gap Analysis Working Group

- OAGIS X Working Group member

- Contributed updates to the ConfirmBOD best practices document

- Contributed the Data Management best practices document

- Contributed updates to the BOD Flattener Program

- Serves on the OAGi Quality Working Group

- As a member of the HR-XML Tech Steering Committee, acts as a technical liaison between HR-XML and OAGi

National Institute of Standards and Technology,

Engineering Laboratory, Systems Integration Division

- NIST Joined OAGi in 2002

- Hosted OAGi Meeting 11 years in a row including April 2012

- Built and demonstrated a NIST Test Bed working with OAGi, AIAG, and several Solution Providers

- Worked with OAGi and ATHENA Project from Europe

- Did research with OWL to mediate the differences between dialects of OAGIS

- Collaboration with OAGi and AIAG on a Product Data Management Working Group that produced the Engineering Work Document standard in OAGIS

- NIST Schema and NDR Testing Tools

- Facilitated a large STEP / OAGIS Harmonization Project across many standards organizations and was instrumental in writing the results report of that effort.

- Facilitated OAGi participation in the NIST Ontology Summit

OAGi CEO Blog : Call for Participation - OAGIS Certified Professional Developer Program

2012-05-18T05:23:00+00:00

We are pleased to announce and invite you to participate in our new OAGIS Certified Professional Developer (OCPD) program.

We announced this program at our recent Plenary Meeting April 25 and we are inviting our membership to participate in shaping and building the courses and tests necessary to execute this program.

It is planned that this program will be done in stages and each piece of the program will be built so it can be introduced separately. The program will have five parts.

The planned parts of this program include:

Executive Level Course that is a summary of all and comes with a Certificate of Knowledge of OAGIS Technology and Architecture.
XML and XSD knowledge. This section may also include JSON.
OAGIS Platform and Architecture - Operational Use.
OAGIS Data Management and Verb use include Confirm BOD and Get/Show.
OAGIS Extensions and Lightening, adding new content, new BOD development, context concepts and eventually context implementation once OAGIS fully supports UN/CEFACT UCM.
OAGIS Content Knowledge (last modules to be developed).

Here is a link to the detailed proposal.

Please write to me here if you are interested in participating. Participation is open to all members in good standing.

OAGi CEO Blog : OAGi Mobile, Cloud, JSON Working Group continues to make progress

2012-05-17T11:02:00+00:00

Our Mobile, Cloud, and JSON Working Group meets at 4 PM today and continues to meet and make progress. Although the scope of the Working Group is large because all these items are inter-related, the team is taking things one or two topics at a time.

We are moving forward on the naming and design rules for how we will express JSON, because there are several design patterns possible, and we are also gathering case studies for mobile applications.

Here is the scope of the Working Group as a reminder:

– Mobile Business Case Studies as examples

– Working with Solution Providers to support OAGIS JSON based apps on mobile devices

– OAGIS Apps for mobile devices from OAGi and its members

– Changes to the OAGIS BOD architecture to provide improved support for cloud

– JSON based instances of the OAGIS BODs

– A JSON tool converter

– JSON Naming and Design Rules (NDR) similar to the current OAGIS XSD NDR

– REST processing guide for OAGIS

The scope of this Working Group is not tied to any particular release of OAGIS and there is no set date for any of these deliverable, as there needs to be some research done and these topics will continue to evolve.

Gregory Maciag : Cost of Poor Data Management

2012-05-14T07:56:00+00:00

Experian notes an important cost of poor data management that is usually overlooked: distracted management attention. It's well known that poor data management can result in poor decisions, but it's less widely appreciated that it can also undermine decision timelines and distort the scope of decisions. (These are my terms, by the way, which I offer in addition to the comments in the Experian piece.)

I wonder also if we've become too comfortable with the idea of information overload. Since we all know there's lots and lots of data washing around our world, no one's going to yell at us if we're not on top of it. Being distracted by data issues is an acceptable form of distraction. I'm not saying that anyone consciously treats data management as a scapegoat in this way, but nevertheless it happens.

We have to remember that it's not data we need, it's relevant data. Data management is the discipline that specializes in relevance. Cost