Social Network of Business Objects (SoNBO): An Innovative Concept for Information Integration in Enterprise Systems

Abstract

This paper describes an innovative approach for information integration, which was successfully implemented and evaluated in a pilot company. This new form of information integration aims at giving employees access to relevant information that is stored in different heterogeneous information systems with the help of a single, uniform software interface. The idea of information integration as such is not new and a variety of technical approaches have been developed in the past. Our approach differs from previous ones in that it makes use of the design principles of “social software” (profiles, networks, activity streams, comments); it is based on the idea of treating Business Objects in the Enterprise Information Systems like members of a Social Network. We are introducing this new view on the profiles and relationships between information objects, which we call the “Social Network of Business Objects” (SoNBO). The user receives the information through the Enterprise Social Software by means of ad hoc queries in the databases of existing information systems thus fulfilling spontaneous needs for information in real-time.