Jim Sinur has his usual pro vs. con argument with himself on the issue of BPM in China.

The anti-BPM argument:  lots of cheap labor, 300k+ engineers turned out every year -so why invest in BPM when we can throw bodies at the problem.

The pro-BPM argument (presumably Jim’s take):

While I value lower labor costs, I think the battle is producing higher gross domestic product (GDP) with less hours per GDP dollar. Eventually Chinas cost have to go up. It’s already happening in India. Don’t throw out BPM; throw out the programmers !!! It’s probably different in the west where the labor costs are higher.

Actually I think this is a tension that takes care of itself.  China (more accurately, firms within China) will invest in BPM when they feel the pressure to do so, and likely not often before that point.  That pressure might be higher labor costs, higher quality standards (not all quality improvements can be fixed by more manpower), or increasing pace of change – the same kind of pressures that apply here.  But I don’t think, at this point, that China’s goal should be higher GDP with less hours of labor – that is a byproduct of other good data, not a goal in-and-of itself.

For now, labor costs are not pressuring China to explore BPM, perhaps. But that picture is likely to change as the economy grows in China at a rapid clip.  But BPM is a “pull” not a “push” sale at this point – the customer has to realize they have the need before you are likely to sell them on the virtues of BPM as the way to satisfy that need.

And we couldn’t agree more.

In this post, Bruce rips into a post from ActiveVOS which claims that BPMN->BPEL is simpler than using BPMN.  ActiveVos’ CTO Michael Rowley points out that because of BPMN’s focus on communicating between people (I believe that he means, sharing process definitions so that two people can come to consensus) is also a weakness of the standard – because this people-centric view is bound to cause it to evolve and change over time.  Mr Rowley has it backwards – the point of “code” isn’t to communicate to a machine to get it to do something!  The real purpose of code is to expose an interface into the machine that is understandable by humans – note: the audience is for humanity, the audience is not the machine.  Otherwise we’d have to write machine code (hex or binary) to write programs.  Or assembler.  Languages make the machine instructions and behaviors more accessible to humans, and that is what they are there for.

Also, the most costly thing about code is that so few of us really understand what it does – even really well-written code – making maintenance over time very expensive.  If BPMN is understandable by a greater number of people, that makes it more valuable than BPEL, which as an XML standard is understandable by relatively few people.  The fact that this expressiveness is challenging to the engineering teams who have to turn this into process execution is beside the point – after all, Rational Software did it for UML, there is no reason that BPMS vendors can’t do it for BPMN.  In fact, we can see that BPMS vendors are meeting this standard, despite the fact that they are each proceeding at a different pace on this trajectory.

Bruce’s post is worth a read, but my favorite points are these:

However, for process modelers, and even for executable process designers, there’s no way BPEL execution makes BPMN modeling “simpler.”  That’s because the subset of BPMN supported with BPEL execution excludes the very features that make BPMN attractive to business-oriented modelers in the first place: things like freeform looping back to a previous step in the flow.  BPEL is inherently block oriented, like a computer program, while BPMN is inherently graph oriented, like a flowchart.

Right. From the modeling point of view I don’t care what the engine is as long as it faithfully implements everything I’m modeling without losing any fidelity.

And Bruce wraps up with:

If BPEL were adequate to execute processes the way business wants to model them, it would have become the BPM runtime standard.  It hasn’t.

Well said, Bruce.

We’re pleased to announce the pricing for bpmCamp will be $100 for early-bird registration, and $150 after that.

Early Bird registration ($100) ends January 1, 2010.

Regular Registration ($150) closes January 21, 2010.

bpmCamp 2010 @ Stanford will get started on January 28, 2010.

Also, thanks to a tip from Sandy Kemsley, the bpmCamp wiki is now easier than ever to view – just go to http://www.bpmcamp.org/wiki/ .  Join the Google Group for bpmCamp to get editing privileges – there’s a link on the left-hand-side of the wiki that makes this easy to do, or drop us an email and I can invite you directly.

We’re looking forward to seeing everyone at bpmCamp in January!  57 days and counting.  Registration site will go up as soon as tomorrow.  More lodging and transportation logistics are coming this week as well.

The top 11 iPhone apps for Business (according to the business insider).  They actually have a pretty good list, but I’ll add my own thoughts since I’m traveling this week…

1. Spots – for finding Wifi Hotspots.  Look, unless you live in a hinterland that does not have its share of Starbucks, you are really not that far from a wifi hotspot.  I don’t find this app a necessity but it sure beats having the iPhone pop up a list of wireless networks you could connect to every 30 seconds (and yes, you can turn off that popup in the preferences – I recommend it).
2. Kayak – for searching flights/hotels.  I might have to add this one.
3. FlightTrack Pro.  This is a good app -but might I recommend Weatherbug elite -which gives you more comprehensive weather information than what the airlines or FTA will report.  As a result, when they tell you its a 15 minute delay but the radar shows massive storms heading your way, you can make a more informed decision. Also, the itinerary-style features are better captured by TripIt in my view.
4. Subway Guide – well, this isn’t too useful in Austin, TX. But the fact that you can access maps that work when you’re NOT connected to the internet is pretty useful.  Otherwise Google has you covered on Google Maps…
5. Taxi Magic.  Much more useful in places that don’t have mass transit to speak of.
6. Spotasaurus.  Looks handy, but honestly I’ve never had a need for it.  I travel all the time.  I still know good places to duck in for parking in Austin, and I’ve found you figure it out pretty quick when you’re on the road too.  Usually if it is hard to find parking, it isn’t cheap anyway.  What’s $2 off of a $35 rate?  Its not like you’re going to find one lot for $2 and one for $25 nearby.
7. Convert.  hm. I mean, I don’t doubt that it works. but top 11? really?  I can’t remember the last time I had to do unit conversions, other than km to miles and back (is it really that hard to multiply by .6 or 1.6? no, it isn’t. )
8. Right Signature.  Hey, this looks like a find.
9. World Factbook.  hm. Yawwwwwwwwwn.
10. Virtual Receptionist.  Well, kind of interesting. But I haven’t needed it yet.
11. Print to Phone.  This looks pretty cool too.  I like the idea, and I’ll have to try it out…

My list of adds:

1. TripIt.  No more itinerary printouts.  It downloads local so you don’t have to be connected.
2. Hello.  Google Apps.  The voice search alone can be a lifesaver when you want to find a restaurant near your current location without much trouble.  And with this, you may not even need to use the starbucks locator and various other branded apps.
3. Tweetdeck (or the like).  How else are you supposed to keep annoying your followers if you don’t have this on your iPhone?
4. <insert financial institution here> – you never know when you’re going to need to check a balance or make sure a check was deposited, or make a trade.  Most major institutions have these now.
5. Yelp/UrbanSpoon – you need to find a place to eat when you’re on the road right?  These are good ways to find a place to eat.
6. OpenTable.  Don’t feel like searching review sites?  OpenTable tends to have higher end restaurants on its service because of the fees it charges.  Consider it automatically filtering out the corner tacqueria or pizza or burger joint, and focusing you on places that take reservations.  Make a reservation straight from the app.
7. Evernote.  Keep your notes / photos of notes synchronized.  Access from your phone.  Its pretty good and comprehensive.
8. I used to have Wall Street Journal on my list, but they put most of their content behind a paywall.  Not worth the trouble anymore, I just need to find something to take its place for good business news.