It’s easy to talk about business/IT alignment using a lot of very nice concepts and big nebulous words like ‘governance’ ‘strategy’ ‘accountability’ ‘objectives’…and so on, but what does it really mean?  Unless the concepts can be translated into something that is practical, useful and viable, all we have is an interesting academic or philosophical discussion.  I love it when I find something that takes the basic principles of business/IT alignment and turns those into something real, tangible and practical.  Canadian company fusedlogic has done exactly that by applying their technology expertise to improve a personal and community experience: using transit.  Take a look at the new application on their site: http://www.fusedlogic.com/iphone-public-transit-application-2126/

With a growing interest in shared public transportation to reduce personal transportation costs as well as contribute to environmental improvements, one of the driving issues is timely access to bus, train and route information.  In extreme climates (whether that’s heat or cold) this can even be considered as a health issue!  fusedlogic has tapped into the demographic range and device/channel preferences to develop a new iPhone application that can access city transit information at the touch of a screen, find your routes, identify stops and even provide estimates on arrivals!  Providing this service only requires an agreement with the local municipal transit authority to share information.

Now seriously, who wouldn’t want their city to provide this?  And for cities considering doing this themselves, I have to question whether it is an appropriate use of city resources to re-invent the wheel – especially if it would only work in one city!  Every municipality should be jumping on this to provide a current, helpful citizen-centric service like this with minimal cost or maintenance required by city resources.

And if that isn’t REAL business/IT alignment, I don’t know what is!

Advertisement