Opening Silos: The Only Way to Achieve Company Goals
To start, let me be crystal clear - silos develop naturally. For example, let’s take a look at how the agricultural revolution ushered in the age of specialization.
To start, let me be crystal clear - silos develop naturally. For example, let’s take a look at how the agricultural revolution ushered in the age of specialization.
APIs have come a long way from the arcane geek-speak of software interfaces popularized by Win32 APIs (still among the most commonly searched API phrases). Today, APIs represent interfaces between businesses and large swaths of internal enterprise services and business units. APIs not only connect software to software but also help to create entire commercial ecosystems, and so have become integral parts of how enterprises conduct business.
Good API design separates APIs that merely expose assets from those that help developers get things done. As I’ve written before, and as we’ll explore in this article, good design includes the style in which web API URLs are constructed.
In 2012 when I worked at Lenovo, the company set out on a journey to create the Lenovo Unified Customer Intelligence (LUCI) platform. The decisions we made with regard to people and technology involved in that project helped to shape my self-development, relationships with others on the team, and relationship with executives.