Two articles were previously published in Harvard Business Review, dealing with a proposed concept of future transformation, with the aim of expanding the traditional concept of “digital” transformation, to a broader concept (object-oriented transformation, or object transformation) to encompass the tremendous developments that expanded to include everything that surrounds us. It is heading towards building another world parallel to our traditional world, and at that time I was not able to explain the purpose of these articles to all readers, especially non-specialists among them, and this article comes to clarify this concept, in light of recent developments and what will result from them. Where what is known as the concept of "Metaverse" has become at the forefront of the interest of major international technology companies, led by Microsoft and Facebook, and this interest culminated in changing the name of Facebook to "Meta".
The metaverse in short, aims to represent everything that surrounds us in reality, to build a virtual world parallel to our traditional world, in which we find everything that exists in our world. Technologies today are tending to become a bridge linking the real world to the virtual, by designing what has become known as digital twins, which represent digital copies of reality objects.
And the concept that I am working on is directed to building an intellectual approach that integrates with the technological developments of metaverse, by focusing on the region in which the real world is connected to the virtual. Because metavirs will reformulate working methods, in addition to human experiences such as interaction, communication and coordination, where this concept comes, to introduce a (hybrid) approach at the level (thought, action strategy, and communication mechanisms) directed towards the organisms around us.
The future will be based on hybrid jobs, combining more than one specialty, and also requiring integrated skills, knowing programming only may help in accomplishing some tasks, but it may require programming according to an integrated vision, taking into account the features and characteristics of the future environment, so that people can work, interact, and discuss ideas default.
By virtue of my specialization in the field of management information systems, the object-oriented development methodology has always been of interest to me, for what it can offer in the field of future transformation and its challenges, in light of the tremendous technological development, and the lack of a comprehensive methodology for transformation, from here I suggested this methodology based on several indicators, to deal With a hybrid world, as follows:
Thought (a hybrid multidimensional thought)
The future needs multi-dimensional thinking, and leaving linear thinking, to accelerate innovations in a world where the boundaries between what is material, digital and vital are blurring, and we note that all technologies are heading towards this merger and overlap, which will form the general framework of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This methodology, in turn, focuses on the objects (things) around us, of all kinds, as they will be the material of transformation or the essence of transformation, and the objects according to this methodology, are anything around us, that carries certain characteristics, and performs specific functions, and here work is being done to represent the image of the object, To convert it to more than one dimension, from the natural state (physical or biological) to a digital image, by defining the characteristics of these things or objects (attributes), and the functions they perform (behavior), in the real world, to include those properties and functions, in the digital forms or (objects) that are developed. Development is not based on general ideas, but rather based on reality objects.
Object Oriented Strategy
A strategy that focuses on (the essence of transformation), defining the essence of transformation may help in adopting a business model that facilitates dealing with rapid changes, as it is noted that all technologies focus on simulating reality objects in the solutions they offer, and this includes, artificial intelligence, Internet of things, As well as 3D printing, digital twins to virtual reality techniques and finally "Metaverse".
And the objective strategy, provides us with a better abstraction of the objects of reality, and not only that, but the great flexibility in this strategy, speeds up the possibility of modifying solutions, whenever something new occurs on the ground, by modifying the characteristics and functions of those objects.
This strategy is implemented by focusing on the properties and functions of objects, (as the essence of transformation), where these properties and functions are determined at the stage of defining requirements, to be represented directly in the stage of writing the code for development, and as it is known, the code includes (variables) and ( functions). According to this strategy, the properties of objects are represented as "variables" and the functions of the objects are replaced as "functions" in the development process.
Thus, this strategy is very flexible in dealing with future developments and changes, as it allows the modification of solutions whenever developments occur on the ground, and the modification is done by changing the data (characteristics and functions) of those objects, as a result of the change in the real world, so that the solution becomes appropriate to the requirements of reality and efficiently, because The properties and functions of objects are like lines, connecting the real world with the virtual.
A mechanism (language) for communication and interaction
The communication mechanism in this approach, has the largest area of this article, as it provides an example of the process of communication, interaction and involvement of beneficiaries in a three-dimensional world, and this mechanism is represented in the Unified Modeling Language (UML) e, which is a simplified graphical means, to express ideas for software development, previously addressed in the context of articles Which talks about the object-oriented development methodology, as this language was designed to support the object-oriented approach and is adopted in the industrial community for several international companies, and then this language was adopted by the OMG Organization for maintenance and development, and then this language became a public language, not proprietary especially.
This language includes several schemes, allowing discussion and understanding of ideas according to specific formulas, and without the need for linguistic narration, and each of them gives a different level of detail, and a view from a specific angle of the work system, and for all parties, including the beneficiaries.
The most important of these schemes and their functions:
– Use Case Diagram: (Define requirements) How will the product interact with the outside world? A description of the behavior of the product from the user’s point of view, as well as identifying the player influencing the start or activation of the product’s work.
– Class Diagram: (defining and building objects), the class simply, is the ground on which the object is based, in which the characteristics and properties of the object are defined. The class is a general template, and the object is a copy of it. For any car but the object that results from it, it can be for example "Toyota" or "Mercedes" or "Audi" or other cars. Likewise, if the class is entitled “Human,” then the objects that result from it can be “man” or “woman,” or it can even be “doctor” or “engineer.” The class is a general template, which does not carry any values, but the values will appear in the objects. that will result or materialize from that class.
– Collaboration Diagram (object collaboration) In the process of software development in the object-oriented approach, if the program needs to do anything, it is done through object collaboration, and drawing collaboration schematics will help describe how the objects cooperate with each other and in the appropriate way.
– Succession diagram (the cooperation of objects over time) This diagram depends on the cooperation diagram, and its function is to explain how objects cooperate with each other over time, that is, to determine the priorities of work. .
The state diagram (the change of state of the object) The function of this diagram is to determine what states the objects should be in, or in other words, to depict the state changes, for the object, as these diagrams allow taking into account the change of state that the object is going through, to determine the effects that may arise.
– Packaging Diagram (Division and Segmentation) These diagrams help to divide the product into sub-parts, easier to understand, and in an easy and efficient way. Where this scheme focuses, on the logical separation of the components of the product (object).
– Component Diagram (Linking Product Components) It is similar to packaging diagram, as it allows us to encode how the product is actually separated or divided, and in terms of the dependence of each part on the other.
– Processing scheme (formation of the product for processing) Processing schemes provide us with a model in which we can choose the most appropriate method for forming the product, in order to prepare it for the customer, according to the circumstances and requirements.
The schemas of this language allow the logical representation or embodiment of business activities, in a technical way that focuses on objects, this embodiment can be integrated with the technological representation of objects adopted in metaverse, and thus this helps to build an integrated loop theoretically and practically, for the new transformation represented by metaverse, these schemes allow all parties Including the beneficiaries to see the progress of the work and intervene and express an opinion at any stage, that is, it helps in building an integrated perspective of the work system to facilitate its handling from different aspects, in addition to the existence of the dimension of sustainability that is supported by this methodology, by relying on nature with all it contains of objects with their characteristics and functions, in the process of developing technological solutions.
By Ibrahim Khalaf
