"Helping you to get on, not get by, with information technology" 1
The Enterprise RSS
Value Chain
By James Dellow.
Pretty much the defining
information management
challenge of our time is the
question of getting the right
information to the right person at
the right time. In practice, IT
departments are often caught
between a rock and a hard place,
desire to access available
technologies, and being asked to
do more with less: less staff, less
budget and a growing list of tasks
and projects just to keep the lights
on.
A typical reaction to this problem,
is to adopt the most popular social
computing technologies,
particularly blogs, wikis. But along
the way, an important allied Web
2.0 technology has been largely
neglected. This technology is
Enterprise RSS and if you can
understand how to harness it, the
possibilities are endless.
While not everyone understands
yet why Enterprise RSS is
important, there is a growing
acknowledgement from many
commentators that it will play an
important role in the evolution of
Web-oriented intranets and
Enterprise 2.0.
©2003-2008 James Dellow/Chief Technology Solutions. Web: http://www.chieftech.com.au/ Phone: +61 414 233 711
Disclaimer: The information in this article is of a general nature. Please seek advice for specific circumstances.
This is because while Web 2.0
technologies are enabling us to
create and make available more
data and content than ever
before, we are still left with the
challenge that too little or too
much information results in poor
business and operational
outcomes. Unfortunately this
vision of the role RSS can play may
not be enough for organisations
to make a full investment in
Enterprise RSS right now.
Email has of course already
created a precedent – since it first
appeared on mainframe
computers in the 1960s, its use as
a business tool has accelerated
exponentially during the last
decade such that it might be
considered the de facto standard
for communication and even
human-centred system
integration. But by providing a
vehicle for organisations to deliver
a vast amount of information to
their employee’s Inboxes, this has
ultimately both enabled and
constrained collaboration and
growth.
Naturally, users are now loath to
augment email with yet another
technology in fear of receiving yet
more information.

The reality is that you do
need to understand the
role of Enterprise RSS.
©2003-2008 James Dellow/Chief Technology Solutions. Web: http://www.chieftech.com.au/ Phone: +61 414 233 711
Disclaimer: The information in this article is of a general nature. Please seek advice for specific circumstances.
"Helping you to get on, not get by, with information technology" 2
They are not ready to see how RSS
can be the defining approach to
mediating the flow of information
to the Inbox. In fact, they should
never even need to know that
they are using RSS.
But if you are a technologists,
social media champion,
knowledge manager or an
information professional of any
other description who is pushing
for the adoption of social media
tools into the enterprise, then the
reality is that you do need to
understand the role of Enterprise
RSS.
You also need to be able to
demonstrate the the fit between
this new technology and the
benefits it might provide in order
to describe a compelling business
case that will make sense in the
short term. This is not about
trying to sell a dream, as the
reward for understanding the role
Enterprise RSS is that it can deliver
immediate tangible benefits while
also providing a platform that can
do so much more in the future.
So why exactly is it difficult to
position the value of Enterprise
RSS?
Well, first, RSS is not a well
understood concept. RSS is a
family of Web feed formats used
to publish frequently updated
works – such as blog entries, news
headlines, audio, and video – in a
standardised format, also known
as a protocol. An RSS document
(which is called a "feed", "web
feed" or "channel") includes full or
summarised text, plus meta data
such as publishing dates and
authorship. Web feeds benefit
publishers by letting them
syndicate content quickly and
automatically.
The RSS (“Really Simple
Syndication”) protocol (which you
might also hear referred to as
ATOM as this is a variation of a
family of evolved RSS protocol
standards) is one of the oldest
ideas in the Web 2.0 cloud.
However, no one ever really gets
excited about protocols, even if
they are simple but powerful
standard like RSS. Still, as has
been pointed out before, no one
ever championed the use of SMTP
(Simple Mail Transport Protocol)
but everyone wanted email. In
other words, understandably,
people are only really interested
in what a technology can do for
them, not what it is and there is a
lack of knowledge around the
tactical and strategic benefits of
RSS.
A challenge for Enterprise RSS is
one that many modern IT
practitioners will recognise: the
apparent simplicity of the Web
experience. Many things on the
Web have been engineered to
make the simple for the end user
– who of course believes that
therefore it’s easy. Using feeds
creates an assumption that there
is nothing to do - the gap between
RSS on the Web and Enterprise
RSS is very much like the gap
between Web search and
Enterprise Search. They are in
many respects vastly different

For IT departments in
particular this kind of feed
syndication infrastructure
provides the means to
effectively manage supply
and demand of syndicated
content and data.
©2003-2008 James Dellow/Chief Technology Solutions. Web: http://www.chieftech.com.au/ Phone: +61 414 233 711
Disclaimer: The information in this article is of a general nature. Please seek advice for specific circumstances.
"Helping you to get on, not get by, with information technology" 3
applications of similar
technologies.
Getting the maximum benefits
from RSS inside the firewall takes
more than simply giving users a
method to consume RSS using a
corporate endorsed desktop RSS
reader (in the same way that it is
difficult to satisfy the request for
‘Google-like-search’ in the
enterprise).
Yet it is the very potential of
Enterprise RSS to provide a
platform for brand new
information and social computing
solutions that makes it so
important. Enterprise RSS
provides the necessary support
for the effective use of feeds
within an organisation as part of
the overall enterprise information
environment.
In fact, Enterprise RSS is an
absolutely critical element of
Enterprise 2.0 “plumbing” -
without it, disparate social
computing tools like blogs and
wikis just add to the problem of
the information flooded silos that
already exist.
Enterprise RSS achieves this by:
• Providing tools to make
composite feeds from
other feeds and data,
including legacy systems;
• Making it easy for people
to find the feeds they
need and the feeds they
want;
• Making sure feeds are
available, readable and
bandwidth efficient;
• Finding out what people
are reading (and what
they are not)… and
feeding this back into the
Enterprise RSS system;
and
• Protecting users from
malicious code and
support for secure feeds
that only authorised users
can access.
While end-users are less
concerned about some of those
benefits, for IT departments in
particular this kind of feed
syndication infrastructure
provides the means to effectively
manage supply and demand of
syndicated content and data
through the corporate network.
And as far as the end-user is
concerned, they simply get
reliable access to the right
information, at the right time in
the way they want to access it.
Of course a major weakness of
arguing the case for Enterprise
RSS based on these benefits is
that it assumes you are actually
trying to build a Web 2.0-
orientated intranet. The fact is
that the information workplace
created by many organisations is
unplanned. So if you have barely
scratched the surface of
enterprise social computing or are
simply looking for more cost
effective tactical approaches to
information management, then

The Enterprise RSS Feed
Value Chain consists of four
steps that describe the flow
of syndicated information
through a feed system.
©2003-2008 James Dellow/Chief Technology Solutions. Web: http://www.chieftech.com.au/ Phone: +61 414 233 711
Disclaimer: The information in this article is of a general nature. Please seek advice for specific circumstances.
"Helping you to get on, not get by, with information technology" 4
the value of Enterprise RSS may
not make immediate sense.
What is needed is further analysis
to understand when, where and
how Enterprise RSS can contribute
to your immediate goals.
Typically, an investment in a new
information technology requires a
business case. But calculating a
credible return on investment
(ROI) on any kind of information
technology can be difficult at the
best of times and Enterprise RSS is
certainly no different.
Identifying hard benefits for
syndication tools may be the best
starting point – for example:
• Lowering messaging
system overheads by
reducing email volumes;
• Eliminating paid
subscriptions for content
that is actually available
for free online; and
• Faster and cheaper
application development
by leveraging syndication
for information
integration.
However, identifying softer or less
tangible benefits can be more
difficult without deliberate
analysis of the link between the
capabilities Enterprise RSS offers
and other corporate or
information system objectives.
So, how can you effectively
analyse these higher order
benefits of Enterprise RSS?
The Enterprise RSS Value Chain
provides a model to help you to
identify where an Enterprise RSS
system can generate value and to
decide which of those Enterprise
RSS elements you might need.
The Enterprise RSS Feed Value
Chain consists of four steps that
describe the flow of syndicated
information through a feed
system:
1. Publish - The data source
of the feed publishes its
content;
2. Process - The feed is
processed in some way;
3. Republish - Access to the
feed is managed; and
4. Consume - The feed
content is consumed by
an end-user or some
other independent
system.
Surrounding this value chain is a
bubble representing user and
activity flow, while the whole
system sits on top of a
management layer.
At the most simplistic level, this
value chain only consists of the
Consume step, with no
management process or flow
feedback loops. This is the “out of
the box” configuration of
Enterprise RSS and it describes
the environment most

Wallem used Enterprise
RSS to save the company
nearly US$400 million
annually.
©2003-2008 James Dellow/Chief Technology Solutions. Web: http://www.chieftech.com.au/ Phone: +61 414 233 711
Disclaimer: The information in this article is of a general nature. Please seek advice for specific circumstances.
"Helping you to get on, not get by, with information technology" 5
organisations have when they say,
“yes, we’re using RSS”.
To apply the value chain as an
analysis tool you need to create a
matrix between the value chain
steps and one or more corporate
or system objectives. After
following the flow of feed content
and data through the value chain
from each source to the end-user,
you then need to take a helicopter
view of all these flows to look for
common threads and issues.
Finally, map these flows back to
your corporate or system
objectives. Once this is completed
you can determine the
appropriate technologies needed
to support each step in the value
chain (see the example solution
profiles at this end of this article).
Shipping company Wallem used
Enterprise RSS as an information
technology solution to save the
company nearly US$400 million
annually in fuel oil costs.
As a complete solution the
Wallem procurement system
integrates the K2 Blackpearl
(www.k2.com) workflow
management engine, Microsoft
SharePoint (www.microsoft.com)
and Attensa’s Enterprise RSS
platform (www.attensa.com) in its
Enterprise RSS Value Chain.
In this instance K2 Blackpearl
manages the Publish and Process
steps (with some data published
in SharePoint), while Attensa
looks after Republish step
allowing procurement data alerts
to be “consumed” via desktop RSS
reader, Web, Blackberry and also
email.
Based on triggers from the
workflow system when a ship
enters a port, information can be
pushed to the ship’s captain and it
is this information that has
enabled cost savings through
better decision making.
The Wallem Enterprise RSS case
study has three key organisational
benefits that can be mapped to
the Enterprise RSS Value Chain:
• It uses a simple, but
robust Web-orientated IT
architecture built from
commodity software
components – this
reduces the cost of
development, risk and
total cost of ownership
(Management);
• It allows information to
be shared effectively in a
shipping environment
where remote end-users
can be affected by poor
bandwidth and
connectivity (Republish,
Consume); and
• The information shared
through this solution
results in real and
immediate direct cost
savings to the business
(Publish, Process).
Of course while the Wallem
example is a very practical
example of light weight
integration using Enterprise RSS,
the value chain still has

Enterprise RSS is the “glue”
for Enterprise 2.0.
©2003-2008 James Dellow/Chief Technology Solutions. Web: http://www.chieftech.com.au/ Phone: +61 414 233 711
Disclaimer: The information in this article is of a general nature. Please seek advice for specific circumstances.
"Helping you to get on, not get by, with information technology" 6
application in other enterprise
social computing scenarios.
For example, media
communication agency Universal
McCann wanted to implement a
Facebook-inspired internal social
networking system for its
employees who are spread across
90 offices in 66 different
countries.
However, they needed to do it
without creating something from
scratch and in a way that would fit
easily into their Microsoft-based
IT environment.
In this instance, the solution was
based on Newsgator’s Social Sites
for Microsoft SharePoint.
We can map the following
benefits from this solution to the
Enterprise RSS Value Chain:
• It used an off the shelf
system that worked with
existing technology
(Management);
• It enabled RSS content to
be aggregated within
SharePoint that increased
productivity (Republish);
and
• It provided support for
social networking and
social information
discovery that was based
on activity feedback
collected automatically by
the Enterprise RSS system
(Process, User and Activity
Flow).
These two examples demonstrate
that while we might have
discovered the need for
Enterprise RSS because it is the
“glue” for Enterprise 2.0,
enterprise feed syndication tools
can also be applied to solving
existing real world information
management problems right now.
And regardless of your objective,
the Enterprise RSS Value Chain
can help you to understand how
to apply the power of RSS inside
your organisation and to develop
the business case for investing in
it.
Solution Profile: Newsgator
Newsgator is one of the leading
commercial Enterprise RSS
vendors. Along with an Enterprise
RSS platform, they also offer a
suite of RSS related software tools
such as RSS readers and a widget
development framework.
They also provide a third-party
extension for Microsoft Office
SharePoint Server that integrates
the capability for collaboration,
social networking and information
sharing around communities of
interest.
Newsgator describe RSS as the
“glue” for Web 2.0, so naturally if
you are trying to bring social
computing or implement Web
2.0-based technology strategies
inside your organisation then
Enterprise RSS needs to be part of
your solution.
 "Helping you to get on, not get by, with information technology" 7

Demonstrating that Enterprise RSS collections of related feeds are

is a universal phenomenon,
Newsgator say that interest in
their software extends well
beyond the United States market
with a strong up take in a range of
knowledge-intensive industries
around the world, including
clients in Australia – for example,
in the financial services sector.
However, Enterprise RSS is also
being applied in other industries
where it is used to reduce the cost
of integrating legacy systems and
other transactional systems, such
as ERP and CRM.
www.newsgator.com
Solution Profile: Xenos
presented in context, which
increases the relevancy for the
intended audience.
This is particularly beneficial for
people who have not yet started
reading feeds themselves and
prefer email – in some cases,
Xenos can help to expose them to
information that they would not
previously been aware of, such as
blogs and other user-generated
content sources. Xenos can help
information professionals to
effectively tap into that sea of
premium RSS content and while
reducing expenditure on
subscriptions to other commercial
content aggregators.

Xenos is a different class of www.metanews.biz

Enterprise RSS tool and is
designed for information
professionals and other
communicators who want to
create tailored newsletters and A version of this article appeared
feeds from existing feeds. A Xenos in the November/December 2008
user can setup a series of profiles edition of Image & Data Manager
pointing at different RSS feeds magazine, titled ‘Enterprise RSS
that they can then review, filter benefits go ignored’.
and augment with internal http://www.idm.net.au/
metadata before forwarding on
the feeds they selected to be the
most valuable or relevant to other
people.

The aim of Xenos is not to copy

content, but to provide a tool for
“human aggregators” who can link
other people to useful content
that appears through the RSS back
channel. By creating custom
newsletters with links back to the
original content the experience of
using RSS is improved and

©2003-2008 James Dellow/Chief Technology Solutions. Web: http://www.chieftech.com.au/ Phone: +61 414 233 711
Disclaimer: The information in this article is of a general nature. Please seek advice for specific circumstances.