Weekly API Evangelist Governance (Guidance)
Jerome Louvel and I are building Naftiko to around the concept of “capabilities”. These capabilities deliver the integrations needed to power businesses, and possess the technical and business details needed to automate and orchestrate across the digital resources we need to deliver the business experiences we need to keep our operations moving forward.
The definition of a capability is the power or ability to do something, the extent of someone's or something's ability, or the the ability to execute a specified course of action or to achieve a desired outcome. I really like focusing on the concept of a capability because it helps keeps us centered on the business and customer needs, and not tech for the sake of tech.
Naftiko is about taking your average data, applications, system, and cloud integration and aligning it with business operations using domain-driven design. Rather than just focusing on the technical details, we are focused on the alignment needed with business to realize the outcomes we envision, which we believe will help ground our integrations in the ways that matter.
The concept of a capability translates the many different resources available across the software as a service (SaaS) into the ability to do something, reflecting an organization’s ability to also do something, enabling your ability to execute a specified course of action or to achieve a desired outcome. Mining SaaS resources, refining into capabilities to deliver experiences.
A capability states that there is a certain level of awareness surrounding whatever you are doing. To be aware of what you are capable of in the world of technology means that you need to be able to observe the current state of your API usage. Without it you aren’t capable of much. To be capable, you must possess a certain level of understanding and control over both your business and technical capabilities.
One of the other underpinning aspects of being capable of accomplishing something in the world of technology is whether or not you can afford to do something. Not just start doing something, but sustain doing it for any given amount of time. This is why Naftiko will be helping answer the questions you need to understand about the money you are spending and making via integrations.
There is also a certain level of reliability and quality that goes with the word capability. You may be capable of doing something once, but can you do it over and over in a reliable manner, with a certain level of quality required to move things forward. The word capability possesses a certain strength to it that only applies with reliable and high quality digital experiences.
Whether or not you are capable as a team or company is something that is determined by people talking. People within a company and across the markets in which they operate are the ones who will define all the aspects of a digital capability I have discussed so far, and I don’t think we can even be capable or use the word capability without people communicating around what is possible.
I am first and foremost as storyteller. I can’t do this API thing without words mattering. This is why I’ve struggled so much in the artificial intelligence conversation. Words don’t matter here. When it comes to building Naftiko, and helping startups, SMB, SME, and enterprises manage their API operations, we’ll be centering everything around the concept of a capability, because for the reasons we’ve laid out here—being capable, knowing what you are capable of, and strengthening your capabilities matters.
If we're going to grow capacity, you need to do it in a way where it is meaningful capability. - Joseph Dunford