Finn by Jon Clinch

I bet most of today's generation have at least one common point with generations before them. The stories and adventures of Huckleberry Finn (in the same way as tom sawyer accompanied many hours of my life) have transcended years and the book is one of these master pieces that belong to human genius. Mark Twain seemed as if he could read my mind more than a hundred years before my birth. The anger, hardness, sometimes sweet sadness and invincible spirit of freedom that flows through a child's veins sitting in the garden of his parents' house in morocco, under this beautiful eternal sun and that soooo blue sky or my dear country, are transmitted to him by a man who lived long before in a country far to the west, far far away to a child's mind.

Well, have you ever wondered what is the story behind this dark and mysterious figure of Mr. Finn, Huckleberry's father? The name of this man used to awake deep rage and fear at the same time as I was a child. But I guess I have to thank this character because he certainly helped me get under the skin of Huckleberry and intensely live his adventures as if they were mine. Jon Clinch offers us one door into the soul of this unforgettable character, that is of Finn. Jon Clinch published a book, entitled "Finn" that tells the story of Huckleberry's father, grand-father, uncle, and Finn's mistress. Even the young Huck is depicted as a child in all its complexity, just opening up and facing a full-of-fear and ugly world.

This book transports the one who still have some small piece of Huckleberry Finn in themselves into the intrigues, violent and dangerous life stories taking place near an ever-present and silent Mississippi. The book is already on my book shelf, in my virtual shelfari library.

You can check the website for the book here. You will get much information about Huckleberry, Mark Twain, about the book itself and the author Jon Clich.

Marwane El Kharbili.

Ontologies: State of the Art, Business Potential, and Grand Challenges

The title of this article is the title of the book I want to talk about. Yet another short book notification. The book is written by Martin Hepp, Pieter De Leenheer, Aldo De Moor and York Sure, all of them famous researchers in the field of knwoledge management and ontologies (not restricted to). This book introduces ontologies and discusses a number of parameters important for an ontology management project. The authors go on by clarifying the apports of ontologies on the basis of which they extract choices to be made in ontology design. the book concludes by showing what future developments can be expected in the field of ontologies.

These are informations about the book:

Series: Semantic Web And Beyond Computing for Human Experience. Volume 7
ISBN: 978-0-387-69899-1.
SpringelrLink: http://www.springerlink.com/content/k0r366152j2681n5/

A reference book probably , for reasearchers and practitioners of ontology design and management. Enjoy the read!

Marwane El Kharbili

Enterprise Ontology

Does the title of this entry attract your attention? It does put mine under 5000 Volts anyway! This entry is about the following book:

• Enterprise OntologyTheory and Methodology
• by Dietz, Jan L.G.
• 2006, XIV, 244 p., Hardcover
• ISBN: 978-3-540-29169-5

If you've already tried one to model an ontology, you've certainly noticed how complex it is to do it for a single domain of expertise, even when one himself an expert is. Let alone describing complex and huge domains as ontologies. Enterprise modelling, construction and operation, so the author, is not a well formalized discipline. The enterprise Ontology pus itself as the answer to this problem. As part of the problematic, the book covers business processes, IS, control among other aspects. The book is destined primarily to researchers and graduate students. I haven't read the book yet, but I certainly will.

Marwane El Kharbili.

BPM basics for dummies

Although the discipline exists since more than 20 years (the IDS Scheer for example was founded in 1984 by Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. mult. August-Wilhelm Scheer), interest in Business Process Management has been increasing dramatically in the industry. The fact that all major players have brought up BPM strategies in recent years is a clear sign for that. But still are many people asking about BPM and thinking about getting fit in using BPM, although fear of new technologies and the buzz syndrom may slow down adoption in most cases (think about SOA). Many experts that most of the potential of BPM has still to be uncovered.

So it might not sound very strange that even Software AG, one of the major software providers in the world, after having acquired WebMethods (completed in june 2007), one of the biggest Business Process Integration software providers, have just made a book available. The book is entitled "BPM basics for dummies", and is destined to narrow adoption barriers of the technology. However the book is mainly treating the subject from the integration and software point of view, and not from the business point of view. The book is rather an introduction to BPM related technologies and a treats the topic more from the perspective of BPM Suites. Sections of the book proceed to a custom definition of BPM, then distinguish functional goals and what the added-values of BPMS are, then give discuss management and technological architectures that go with BPMS.

You can get the book on the corporate site of Software AG, all you need to do is register. The book is planned to be translated to French, Spanisch and German in April 2008. The book was written by Dr. Kiran K. Garimella (VP of BPM Solutions atSoftware AG), Michael J. Lees (Director of BPM Product Marketing at SoftwareAG) and Bruce D. Williams (SVP & GeneralManager of the BPM Solutions Group for Software AG). The most intriguiing and amusing in the book is the "for dummies" layout. It makes reading very easy-going and flowy. Most of all it remindedd me of one of the first books I read about computer science as I was a teenager "HTML for dummies" :D But those times are over.

My verdict: if you are solely intersted in implementing BPM someday, and looking for a detailed presentation of the way one of Business Process Management Suites' providers look at technical BPM and its IT implementation, then here is a compact, easy-to-read and very interesting small book (78 pages). The book can be easily read by newbies to BPM. But you shouldn't limit yourself to this book of course, rather think about how getting to know what BPM can really bring up your organization's corporate strategy, governance and processes to, while staying independant from implementation platforms.

Marwane El Kharbili.