Contextware Solutions Contextware Industries Contextware Technology Contextware Services Contextware CustomersContextware PartnersAbout Contextware  
   

mission 
management 
investors 
careers 

press center 

Our mission:

Empower the individual while optimizing the enterprise.

A fundamental benefit to the Web is the ability to provide anyone anywhere instant access to information.  Contextware leverages that capability in a very structured way so people have instant access to exactly what they need when they need it — the right information, the right content, the right tools and the right resources. This empowers individuals by helping them learn more quickly; think faster on their feet; improvise, improve and produce better results; and generally be more productive. 

The benefit to the enterprise? Processes, information and resources are captured, organized and distributed so the enterprise can operate more efficiently — and more profitably.

To achieve our mission, we have ten defining principles. These principles guide us in our software development and in the way we work with our customers to derive maximum value from the Contextware platform.

1. Context is king.
Information is substantially more meaningful when it is delivered within an organizational context.

2. Process is the glue.
Business processes successfully connect people with information — they define and communicate the who, what, when, where, why and how of business.

3. The enterprise is people.
Most business processes and activities require assessment, reasoning, improvisation, judgment and decision-making, and simply cannot be completely automated.

4. The language of business is language.

The multiple intersections of subject matter and functional expertise define an enterprise. Technology must align semantically and philosophically to maximize usefulness.

5. You can’t break rules if you don’t know what they are.
Business processes are not immutable laws — they merely communicate successful patterns. Once understood, they most certainly can be improved upon.

6. The greatest value is in the molehill, not the mountain.
Most information produced within knowledge-rich enterprises is the byproduct of a core set of intellectual assets. Determining and managing these core assets is of exponentially greater value and significance than categorizing and indexing everything.

7. Know when good enough is good enough.
Intentional, incremental change is far better than letting things unfold unguided. And all or nothing perspectives, while admirable in intent, generally fail to get ever get executed.

8. Empower the user, not IT.
Business users must be able to easily use and manage the technologies that are utterly dependent on their expertise and participation.

9. Software, by definition, can never be truly intuitive.

Intuition is the natural ability to instantly understand. While software should strive to be intuitive, it is simply not of nature, therefore all aspects are entirely learned. While some metaphors succeed better than others and become conditionally intuitive over time and most certainly should be reused, software designers should constantly question, instead of faithfully accept. Great leaps in interface design and usability are far more important and valuable than worrying about the accompanying learning curves.

10. Just because everyone else does it doesn't make it right.

Changes in technology are typically evolutionary – incremental changes constrained by conventional thinking. True innovation occurs when something can be made substantially better by rethinking it and representing it in a new and different way – the change becomes radical as does the increase in the value delivered.

 

 
   

contact / 800.371.7969

 © 2001-2008 Contextware, Inc.