A while ago, I had a problem integrating the systems of two vendors together – both were advertised as being able to do such (which is why I went with them).

After support calls on both sides, each side believed it was the other vendor’s problem and not theirs.

In a connected economy where the bar upon dependency, trust and connection are raised higher than they ever have been here I was trying to get two partners who built a solution together to help me troubleshoot the system and work together.

Neither wanted to.  When the road became rough, we fell back to the blame game.

In the end I found out where the problem was and fixed it – on both vendor’s site.  It wasn’t revolutionary, it’s not going to make front-page headlines, but I did get their integration to work.  Somewhere, in both organizations, someone knows how it really works but that information never made it to their respective knowledge bases for customers to figure out on their own.

Connection, Integration, Partnership with organizations through widgets, flows, plugins, integrations, etc make for exciting uses of applications, but if no one knows how to use them, how to support them, how to turn them on then all you’ve created is a library of things that could have been.

Creating integrations all start with Ownership and Responsibility to support and understand what service it provides to your customers.

 

Want more? Check out my book Code Your Way Up – available as an eBook or Paperback on Amazon (CAN and US).  I’m also the co-host of the Remotely Prepared podcast.

Author

Write A Comment