04 May 2011

Futurist Henry Dow makes the Darwinist case for Synergy 4 being the outcome of natural selection.

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution hinges on something called natural selection. Put simply, it means that a creature born with the best traits to suit its environment will survive. If it can reproduce, it will pass these traits to its offspring. Thus, nature has selected it as a vital species - it will continue to evolve and grow.

The software world also relies on natural selection, and hybridization. Various species of code-based structures compete for resources in an increasingly complex environment. Some adapt and grow - evolving valuable new features and functionality - others die.

In this ecosystem Synergy survives, and thrives.

The more information reproduces, the harder it is to manage.... We can expect problems arising from data clutter, redundancy, and errors to increase monumentally. That is, unless we start managing it now.

You could say GuildOne created Synergy through a process of selective breeding. Over a decade ago, we spliced concepts from data mining, workflow automation and network technologies to hatch a program more unique and capable than its predecessors.  It may not have been apparent in 1999, but Synergy has become a vital organism and a proven way to trim the overgrowth of the information jungle.

What kind of beast is Synergy? That can be difficult to answer succinctly.

Synergy is best explained by its behaviour. It is an interface that feeds real-time data from company departments/silos to users across the entire company. It acts as a company’s internal source of valid information. It is a data cross-checker and proofreader that detects inconsistencies between department systems. It acts as a translator between numerous types of information. It acts as an information auditor. It will create electronic paper trails. It automates tedious and complex tasks.

What Synergy does, depends on how the user adapts it and programs it, but it has the capability to outperform any single business software application in any number of ways.  It is among the fittest of the breed.

Keeping Up With The Times

Natural selection also explains evolution through environmental pressures. If the surroundings change, the organisms have to adapt, otherwise they are likely to die off, never to be seen again except as fossils. The lizards that used to be big and clumsy disappeared. The small, fast ones stuck around.

As environments change and species proliferate, behaviours change and evolve.  In the case of humans, tools and technology have evolved rapidly. Homo sapiens’ big brains, opposable thumbs, and strong backs have taken us from making a wheel to the point where most of us now rely heavily on computer technology – whether it is working on a laptop or texting on a cell phone – in a few thousand years; a time span that is a blip in the history of the planet.

Because of the human trait for refining and improving tools, computers have gotten faster and more capable of while becoming more compact. To put in perspective, your laptop has more computing power than all the Apollo space capsules combined.

Synergy has become a vital organism and a proven way to trim the overgrowth of the information jungle...it has the capability to outperform any single business software application in any number of ways.

Organizations are data factories. Remember when hard drives were measured in megabytes? Computer scientists now talk about zetabytes (trillions of gigabytes) of data that will need to be stored by the end of the decade. Trillions. Of Gigabytes.

All those zetabytes will house more and more information on us and our things. Streams of data reflecting our work, communication, and archiving proliferate. The more information reproduces, the harder it is to manage - a kind of digital noise pollution.  We can expect problems arising from data clutter, redundancy, and errors to increase monumentally. That is, unless we start managing it now.

This brings us back to Synergy. Clearly it is a complex and diverse creature.  Its core strength is its adaptability.  It embraces all forms and sources of data, combining and recombining bits to form cohesive wholes. Synergy is a tireless agent, sifting through data to point out patterns, inconsistencies - and opportunities. As data grows exponentially, Synergy is a tool that helps eliminate errors and redundancies, reducing volumes of data by trimming the fat that obscures vision and impairs agility.

While we at GuildOne are thrilled to see how our creation has grown and developed, it is more excited to think of what it will become. It is not technology solely for technology’s sake, but for vital purpose.  Not only does it posess the ability to clean databases, aggregate information and make business run more efficiently, it has the potential to change how our users think about doing their business.

As bad data proliferates the need for standards and conventions for data governance become apparent. Knowing software like Synergy can keep data clean and truthful sets the stage for an age where accuracy and compliance with industry standards and regulations is no longer a burden.

And as GuildOne adheres to a philosophy of distributing the knowledge on how creative minds inside our community are adapting Synergy to solve challenging business problems, it is fostering a culture of co-operation and common sense. Sharing and learning ensures progress and perpetuation of the species.

Not only is Synergy an evolution of technology, it is an evolution of vision.