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Unlocking value from data – how can the API Economy help you?

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In 2000 you needed a Website, in 2010 you needed a mobile app, in 2020 you will need an API”

John Musser, founder of Programmableweb.com

Underlying that intriguing statement there is a shift happening. Actually, it is a connected series of shifts that need explaining. On a wider level we are living through the Fourth Industrial Revolution, everyone’s talking Digital Transformation, and many CIOs are struggling with disconnected legacy infrastructure and systems. Can they keep pace with the transformation their organisations require? Next week I’m speaking at an Executive Workshop event in London run by APIDays and IBM that is designed to explain John Musser’s quote and show you how the API-Economy can be put to work for you and your company.

To transform you need to be shifting your organisation from a legacy approach to new ways of working and thinking. You’ll need fundamental changes in how you conduct business, to adapt as the market shifts and as new technology presents opportunities. You need to think in terms of new business models and new ways to find and create value for the business. The successful businesses adapt continuously and embrace reinvention (we call that Mutable Business, but that’s another story). In making everything in IT work together it works for you. Integration not only connects for better experiences for your customers, partners and employees, but it also adds value through the new functionalities and new services provided by connecting different functions together, both from your own development team as well as plugging in to apps from the wider market. This is the API Economy that next week’s workshop will explain.

This exclusive event aimed at CIOs and senior execs is happening Tuesday 24th September, starting at 9:00 at the Royal Society of Arts. It’s organised by IBM and APIdays, who run API focused conferences in Melbourne, Paris, Helsinki, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Barcelona (and London). Let me run through the agenda for the day:

  • Mehdi Medjaoui the founder of the APIdays conference series will set the scope and scene for the new API landscape.
  • I will be speaking about how the API Economy is driving the move to Ecosystems and Software Composition. I’ll be presenting ideas from a Bloor paper I’m co-creating with David Norfolk our practice lead for development and governance. There’s a shift from products to platforms, from closed business systems to open APIs, from running your own systems to joining ecosystems, marketplaces and extending your solution by connecting to other people’s apps. We’ll discuss lessons learned, the mindset required and how you should be thinking like a composer rather than a builder/developer.
  • Ken Parmelee, IBM’s Director of Cloud Pak for Integration will talk integration in conjunction with app modernization and the agile approach to connecting new functions together. He’ll go through the options the Cloud Pak brings and he’ll show how you can open up your legacy applications to unlock their data for new value.
  • Peter Brabec, the API Economy & DataPower Leader at IBM Europe will explain the evolution of API Connect, DataPower and other Integration products into a combined Integration platform. As well as talking architecture he’ll discuss the approaches to simplify, while at the same time improving security and control.
  • Following the speakers there will be three parallel workshop sessions with enough time so that the audience will be able to experience all three:
    • Monica Raffaelli will explore how Cloud Pak for Integration is designed to support the journey to a more agile integration architecture.
    • Charlotte Nielsen will demo the two different software capabilities integrating APP Connect with API Connect.
    • Carlo Marcoli will build a fintech solution in minutes with IBM App Connect. His demo will build an account information and aggregation service on top of the PSD2 APIs that are exposed by open banking in the EU.
  • Chris Roper, IBM’s Hybrid Cloud Integration Sales Leader for UKI, will summarise all of the morning’s session and pull out the common themes of where the value is created in the API economy, unlocking your data, and the new approach to innovation and software reuse.
  • The formal presentations and workshops will finish at 12:15 giving ample time for lunch and networking.

Bloor are delighted to be involved in this Executive Workshop. The API Economy is here and now. We use it all the time without thinking too much about it. We expect the app or the website we are on to connect to Google Maps to show us the way. Whether it’s getting food with Uber Eats or booking a holiday with Expedia, behind the scenes the API Economy is connecting us to many different partner services seamlessly. Come along next Tuesday and find out how you can use it to innovate and unlock value for your own organisation. Go here to find out more and register for a place (using the code GuestOfIBM). And if you want to find out more about API options, please contact us.