Look Inward. Look Outward. Break it Down.

There are two types of entites in an organization. Those that look inward and those that look outward. This applies to any size organization. Each extreme is deadly. Too much inward looking and one loses sight of all the ways the world moves on organically outside. Too much outward looking and ones loses all sense of self control. The middle road seems worthwhile. All things in moderation.

The same inward and outward view is true of one's, potential and existing, customers or believers. The hope is to match outward and inward appetites.

Most very large organizations fall into looking inward. They focus on internal issues. They become protective. And they often close their borders. They raise up walls. This can work for awhile - especially when everyone in a domain is looking inward - including clients.

But in the face of even a moderate amount of client and competitive outward looking behavior, introspection is ultimately doomed. It is like the network effect: The power of the arrangement is more than simply a linear function of the participants. It goes more like the scale of potential connections.

This is, in technical microcosm, the story of APIs and microservices. The move to outward facing APIs and microservices is a reflection of the larger effect of a move to looking outwards overall.

Fintech organizations (banks "which can be defined as a bank or division thereof") now a see a world where it is important to look for new vehicles and new services. And to actively partner and acquire those vehicles. One bank buying another bank wants seamless integration. The melding should be about business initiatives and synergies and not about whether COBOL speaks to Fortran... those days are long gone. And the days where differences could be used an effective protective wall are likewise gone.

Industries where there are walls:
PLC communications. Cold chain management. Security systems.

Domains where the walls have been broken down:
Google maps and APis in general. AWS, Cloudfoundry and VMware systems. Network management protocols: Cisco.

Areas in transformation:
Building automation - witness a move to RESTful webservices.
Certain types of industrial automation - witness MTconnect. Platforms like GE Predix for IIoT. Renewable energy management - witness Sunspec and others.
Tools and platform providers are deaggregating- witness Microsoft Azure and IBM Bluemix.

Even energy itself is being deaggregated with Microgrids - with a strong analogy to microserviecs and APis. Utilities which continue to look inward will have serious problems.

There can be no knowledge without looking inward and outward. One needs to work on the viewpoint where one is most blind. 

Programmable Logic Controllers, PLCs, Reliability.

PLCs are not about all the long list that gets hauled out about their speed and ease of programming and all the issues of "how they work". PLCs are about reliability. PLCs are expensive... for reasons that many are too late in understanding.

You can make your own PLC if you work out how to get the hardware and ecosystem up to or better than the standards for existing PLC reliability. Most will never understand what this requires until they fail. Nor will they have the self awareness to get past their own flaws and look outwards (and maybe even bypass failure?).

Am I challenging you? Yes. Am I challenging you to "self sufficiency" or "rugged individualism"? Look at how ecosystem plays to reliability and then ecosystems like the open source and maker movement and then decide.

Are PLC use cases what is driving the massive reduction of costs in underpinnings of their function?  Spoiler: It is the glass screen in your pocket, and the search bar everywhere.

"Come now, let us reason together". You want to build one? Yes you do! *grin* Let's see how.