If you tend to agree with the following:

1. All work is a process, most of it is Barely Repeatable. Humans get together in organisations to create value, and that mostly in what we would call unpredictable processes - knowledge work, practices and unstructured processes.
2. Transactions are semantic, double-entry book keeping is not. A transaction is change of ownership or location, or both, always defined by words. An invoice is just an iffy and temporary proxy.
3. Knowledge is semantic. As defined by Plato - knowledge is how objects relates to other objects.
4. Intellectual capital should always be amassed and easily disseminated. A real process engine can capture everything and reuse as experience instantly, growing capital by the minute.
5. Occams Razor and the Parsimony Principle applies to business as well. Complexity kills progress and wastes resources, simple is always better and truer.

Then Thingamy would be the logical choice as the core platform for Business Software, and/or the system to implement and run your Business.

Before IT came to life we developed "frameworks" and models based on old technologies like pen, paper, ledgers and legwork. Organisational hierarchies, double entry book keeping, budgets, business rules, documents and more. That worked, reasonably well, at the time.

Then IT came to life. Software is always a model, and the new technology; IT, accepted the old models. Hence today's Business/Enterprise software are models of models. And that is never smart.

Thingamy is different from everything else, it's architecture is different, it's built on different concepts as it models reality directly skipping all former assumptions. Thingamy is very much in accordance with principles of parsimony.

That's why it's alone in delivering the following and much more:

Barely Repeatable Processes, true history with versioning of all data and activities, SOX and Basel II etc compliant by architecture, reporting depth never seen before, accounting reports with no need for double entry book-keeping, translate ten years of US GAAP to IFRS in an afternoon, check balance sheet changes last 12 minutes - and - real time process reporting and view including any level of transparency adding peer review (and yes, peer pressure, better than boss pressure) to the daily work.

Thingamy offers the technology to create new types of Business Apps that will deliver a quantum leap in business value for the end-user. It will enable you to create new markets or expand existing ones in new and unexpected directions.

The best way to compete is to make your competition irrelevant. Thingamy gives you that possibility.

Thingamy can be used under a Value Added Reseller (VAR) license for commercial resale of products including it's run-time environment.

If you are a STARTUP with a new and different Business Model we might come in handy: We can build that model, first as a POC to test, tweak it underway in a true agile fashion, all the way to delivery of a production strength running application on-premise or in the cloud (we use Amazon Web Services a lot). All at a much lower price and time span than any alternative solution. In addition, no other system can do BRPs like we can which opens up to truly differentiating Business Models.

The application build is in four steps, modelling reality directly. Drag and drop, as simple as building a budget in a spreadsheet. The steps are the following:

1. Define the data model by defining templates for objects using default or bespoke property types. Like "medical condition", "case" or "widget".
2. Set relations between objects to add "knowledge" using standard semantics like "patient" "has" "medical condition".
3. Define work flows as snippets joined by choices, forks and loops.
4. Define text and account report templates using queries, sorting and what properties to show.

Create and deliver new Products in man-days instead of man-years, deploy finished app in an instant, upgrade or change without downtime. No other software needed, Thingamy is all-in-one development and deployment.

Lower new product risk dramatically, try out an idea, test the working product with customers, all in a few weeks. Rinse and repeat.

(Detailed screenshots of the process below.)

Thingamy can be used under a Value Added Reseller (VAR) license for commercial resale of products including it's run-time environment.

[All cartoons by Hugh who's a Thingamy shareholder as well.]

Most of your value creation happens in BRPs and they're still manually driven, creating daily issues with accountability, hand-offs, reporting and finding the right information and people.

In fact probably 2/3rd your team's time is spent on making the flow flow and not on value creation!

Thingamy runs your Projects, Programs and Portfolios. Run, not merely manage.

Thingamy allows people to seamlessly collaborate while focusing on the right task at the right time and nothing else.

Thingamy has out-of-the-box solutions for this and specific versions can be delivered for Legal, Advertising and other Case/Project oriented services. Or indeed any bespoke Business Model you are toying with, building and implementing the model in weeks.

These are offered for easy install on-premise or in the cloud, even hosting can be discussed, all at a reasonable price (end-user license) and with implementation in minutes.

Easily Repeatable Processes (ERPs) are well covered by IT based process frameworks (as they are "easy" to model), mostly aptly named "ERP software". ERP (including all industrial production) stands for about 30% of World Wide value creation.

BRP types of processes stands for appr. 60% of World Wide value creation, about twice the amount of total value created in ERPs. And, BRP has little or no IT based process support! BRP is where Thingamy excels and what it delivers; a way to automate the flow-work.

But the way we handle BRPs is a BIG problem:

About 65% of all resource use and time spent in BRPs is spent on making the flow flow (meetings, email, budgeting, planning, searching, reporting...), i.e. not on value creation. That wasted time could be converted to value- and profit-creation if you could automate the flow part of the workflows.

With 60% (or more) of World Wide GDP happening in BRPs, and 65% of that is wasted on making the flow flow and not value creation it follows that about 40% of World Wide GDP is waste and could be converted to value creation by automation. The increase in GDP would thus be fully 67%.

If you're running a type of organisation with all being BRP and your profit margin is 20%, then automating the flows could increase your profit ten times.

BRP takes many forms, and names - "Projects", "Cases", "Knowledge work", "Ad hoc processes", "Practices" - but in general it can be defined as follows:

A temporary activity or sequence of activities initiated by an issue, an idea or a request, with multiple participants where the sequence of activities are directed by human knowledge to act according to the current situation and related circumstances.

Thingamy is the only known process based IT system that can run BRPs with ease.

BRP Engine: All current IT process models are linear and predictable, only veering off the path by using rules and simple choices. Thingamy uses flow snippets interlinked by in-process participant choices to deliver a true framework to any unpredictable process.

Breaking the complexity barrier: Current Business software models a model; the old framework with it's rules, hierarchies, double entry book keeping and other old technology based models. Thingamy models reality directly and parsimony rules. If your model holds 20 objects Thingamy would be 1'000 less complex than the usual systems, with 100 objects all of 40'000 less complex. Guess which is easier to make "bullet proof" - the one which is 40'000 times more complex or the simple one?

Allows a Strategy: Michael Porter defined a Strategy as follows: "What value are you to deliver, to what customers, and how are you going to be different?". Current popularity of "best practices" and rigid systems means that the last part is not possible, all will be alike and the only way to compete is to get up earlier in the morning. Thingamy is all about bespoke build for easy changes, hence it allows you to have a Strategy again.

Transparency: Nothing beats real time transparency; trust, direct customer and supplier involvement, and peer review and pressure are but a few of the effects that will have a positive impact on your business. Thingamy allows of course any transparency level and a slow easing into transparency (that might be a tad threatening for some).

Report depth and Knowledge: Plato defined Knowledge as "how objects relates to other objects". This is precisely what Thingamy offers using W3C standard N-triples (subject, predicator, object) to add knowledge which leads to finding and reporting the right stuff at the right time. Sales reports for December of "widgets sold to customers who has an uncle in Berlin who cycles on Sundays and that drinks Beck's beer" is no sweat.

Innovate by challenging assumptions: A core Thingamy trait with the neat side-effect of being the most efficient innovation methodology in existence.

No silos: Thingamy is holistic, it's one single system, just like the Business focusing on a single strategy. But it can do a snippet of the whole flow, start in a corner and expand from there until all is run as one. A holistic view of all Business processes does not look like a neat flow schema, it looks like a big ball of yarn. And that Thingamy can model.

Take a look at our 30megs site for even more details.

Common Lisp. Everything is programmed in CL to ensure simplest and most efficient code possible. CL's exceptional long term robustness is assured by the ANSI standard, it's long history, independence of OSs, backing by many commercial vendors, and many open implementations.

Objects. Data-objects represents real-world objects, and flows and reports are objects. All by user-defined classes, built by simple drag and drop and all are run-time changeable.

DBMS. To minimise overhead and make coding simpler Thingamy has it's own bespoke Persistent Common Lisp Objects DBMS. Fully scalable and ACID compliant and extremely efficient as it's an intricate part of the system.

API. The API is XML-RPC based and is low level to allow connection to all functions in the system. Connection setup details is available to any administrator. RESTful implementations can be had.

RDF N-triples. The knowledge bearer that allows efficient access to the right objects at the right time in the flows or for reports. It follows the W3C standard using (subject, predicator, object).

TCP/IP. Default user interfaces connects with the system using any browser. The default user interfaces can be replaced by any other user interface built on the outside connecting via the API.

True history. Thingamy does not allow any deletes, it merely hides "deleted" objects. This ensures the possibility to be SOX, Basel II and any other requirements compliant by architecture. All actions or activities timestamps the objects, and versions are kept to allow reports or system views to be had for any point-of-time or time-period down to the second.

Split between Representation and Presentation. The system holds only object representation. Presentations (documents, reports) are created on-the-fly using the report templates to allow any report or document to be had in real time.

Raw data only. (This is a result, or vice versa, of the Presentation/Representation split) - No report or other presentation formats are saved, only raw data is kept to allow any number of reports or documents to be had independently.

No double-entry book keeping nor transactions the usual way. Transactions are always defined in semantic ways, by law or rules, hence Thingamy uses pure semantic technologies coupled with the true history: Sales of widgets in December would be by a query (numerical/account report templates) of "add up value of all widgets that changed owner from us in the month of December". That allows also a different type of drill down that is not limited by columns but by relations like "December sales of widgets to customers who has an uncle in Berlin who cycles on Sundays".

Dataflow. To ensure speed of report generation Thingamy (will) use Dataflow and caches so any change to an object will update the cache for dependent reports in the background.

Test suite. As a Development and Run-time Platform Thingamy will be delivered with a comprehensive test-suite that is runnable by the application development engineers, covering all including weird edge-cases (no data corruption!). Including source-code for the test-suite to allow any extension or twist to the tests.

Shell. Common Lisp allows access to the running process via a shell interface. Poke around in the running application at any time.

1. Define data objects to represent real world objects:

	Create the object templates/classes. These will be used to "stamp" out unique data objects that will represent the real world objects directly. That object will then capture all that happens to the real-world object - perfectly mirroring reality.
	Objects has properties so we always know what colour the real-world object has, or when your birthdate was. Defining properties and layout is by drag and drop in the builder interface.

2. Define the relationships between the objects:

Many objects are related. This is reflected in the system and can be used for reports or finding the right object at the right time. The relationships is core to accounting reports as all "transactions" in fact are historical changes to relationships (say change in ownership).

3. Define the sequence of value-creation activities (flows):

	A library of flows or flow-snippets can be created as they're all classes/templates that creates unique instances of flows when started - and any flow can be started from any other flow allowing rampant and efficient re-use.
	Variables are essential for the run-time flexibility. Each variable is a temporary placeholder for a unique object. When an "owner" is selected from a list of "Project owners" he/she will be assigned to the variable "owner" until changed again.
	The activities are of three types - blue are background operators, light grey are "flow operators", dark grey are tasks involving assignees. Sequence is linear from top to bottom, sometimes dipping down a level or more. Building and tweaking is drag-and-drop and click to open for settings.
	Define the settings in this case for a "Display/Fillout" instruction. Add any number and in any sequence text fields, object displays, object fillouts and reports. Set what to show or to fillout. That way you can define a task where all pertinent information is delivered with the fields to fill out.
	Moving between flows using the to-other-flow instruction that gives you complete control over what variables applies in both flows. You can set it to wait for a result or not.

4. Define reports:

	Accounting is not merely accounting reports, it can be any generic numerical report. Start with accounts that uses queries and defined properties to deliver sums for periods of time for specific object properties. Then put these together into accounting reports to create P&L, Cashflows, Balance sheet or any numerical report you like.
	Text based reports are similar but made to display lists instead of numerical results. Start with basic reports then combine these in Related reports and/or Columned reports. When running a report the user can change sorting and point-of-time for historical results.
	Queries in a report can use any combination of matching type, and, or, not, property-value and relations to find the exact objects you require.
	Sort and define how and what you'd like to display. In addition "activities" can be started directly from the report (in context). Here, in the "Project type report" you will be able to "Start a new Project of this type" automatically inheriting the variable "Type" from report to flow.
	Related report groups will list a set of objects according to the rules set in the Report (here "my live projects") and when expanding these in the report deliver the full view of related objects defined in other reports (here "tasks"). These reports can be nested to deliver even more refined reports. Expand up instead of drill down.
	Columned reports simply displays previously defined reports (basic reports and related report groups) in columns - here "Participants per type".

Admin - roles and other system settings:

	User roles is where the system administrator can set rights for any role or user.
	Fine grained settings for all aspects for any user. In fact specific rules can be set for different API connections from different systems.
	System settings: Language (using a freely accessible xml file), back up settings, email notification, and microblogging. In addition the "guest" mechanism can be enabled as well - which gives guests access to temporary users (guest) under the "Default user role". Typically used to allow guests to register first time.

If you'd like to see how the user side looks like / functions take a look at the Projects product site.

A short video of an example "build", a "Work Processor" that goes far beyond mere Management to Run it. The new interfaces are now perfect for iPad, iPhone, any smartphone and browser:

Our generic Work Processor (as in the video), an example of a Thingamy based and built Business Application. Ready to be used, on premise or in the cloud. Try itself out, now in new PUI format perfect for iPhone/iPad and anything else. Log on as "dennis@nn.com" with password "dennis" (others are james@nn.com/james and peter@nn.com/peter).

Sigurd Rinde

Phone: +33 6 8887 9944, Skype: sigurd.rinde, Twitter: @sig, Email: sig@thingamy.com.

Or you can fill in this form and I will get back to you ASAP.

Our 30 megs site, a 'big picture' site about some of the concepts behind Thingamy.

The Thingamy blog - blog feed: