Dreaming of Second Life and enterprise architecture

I haven’t really thought this through, but then why blog about certainties? That’s how you get dogmatic.
My first thoughts about this date back to Google Maps and Google Earth. All I was doing then was luxuriating in the sheer power of the visualisation tools, and beginning to think that I wanted something similar for enterprise architecture.

This wasn’t some massive theoretical exercise for enterprise architectures in general. I wanted to use tools like those stated above very specifically. Use them to visualise (and make visual for others) the systems and applications architecture for a specific enterprise.

Over the last year or so, these thoughts have grown wild and sprouted all over the place. I liked what I saw in people tagging things on Google Earth. I became fascinated with what was happening in Second Life, and in virtual worlds in general.

Always believing that virtual worlds were about learning, about teaching, about applying what was learnt. About finding better ways of doing things.
I began to see the entire applications and infrastructure landscape for a given enterprise as a location on Second Life.  I began to see similar locations for competitors and for collaborators, for the market participants and the supply chain partners. Then I saw locations for those things that were truly commoditised, so commoditised that they could be represented as (guess what?) common land on Second Life. Common land with no fencing, no barriers, nothing in the way.

• [An aside. I just love the etymology of “by hook or by crook”. The phrase does not really translate to “by fair means or foul”, it should be rendered as “by legal means only”. The origin of the phrase relates to access to firewood on common land. You could legitimately chop down (for firewood) any branches of a tree (on common land) which you could pull down using a shepherd’s hook or crook.]

Where was I? Oh yes, Second Life and its use in enterprises, to visualise, monitor, manage, repair and sustain the enterprise applications landscape.

I was still missing something, something that needed to look like an Instant Messaging “channel” within the enterprise, where people could discuss applications issues, and from where they could, if needed, “teleport” themselves to the application in question.

So you can imagine how I felt when I saw this. BlogHUD. Take a look, see what you think. And let me know. Ideas are for free where I come from. If you want to do something about it, go ahead. Just let me know someday.
In the meantime I shall continue dreaming.