This is a cross post from PaymentsAPI.com.

Recently, PYMNTS.com posted an interview with Retail Decisions entitled Fraudsters Take No Prisoners But Retail Decisions Can Strengthen Your Strategy for Prevention.

The entirety of the interview is just under 10 minutes, and I would encourage anyone who has interest in this topic to set aside the brief time required to listen.
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This is a cross post from PaymentsAPI.com. I rarely cross post…but this presentation is important to watch and something I will be discussing in the next several posts.

If the Messages From The Edge series is about translating, and communicating, the requirements of the software development community…then, perhaps, you will allow me a bit of leeway in interpretation in this post.

What does it truly “mean” when someone states they have developed an “API strategy”? What do you actually desire from exploring Open APIs for Payments?

In some situations it is a “me too” response to industry trends. In others, there is a desire to enable innovation through partnership with the software development community.

But the “API” is solely the tool that is leveraged…the purpose, and desire, is to build a community of developers who desire to leverage the tool.

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You may notice that I have been quiet as of late…

There is, in fact, a good reason.

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As I sit in the hotel prior to heading over to meetings at the National Retail Federation “Big Show” (known on twitter as #NRF11), I’m following a somewhat standard pre-conference routine. The process is relatively simple and includes:

• A cup of coffee
• A music list set on random
• A view from a hotel window
• An open computer (or iPad) reading the conference hashtag and press releases from the event

The goal is simple…a bit of insight into the prevalent themes at the event prior to walking onto the show floor. The routine is only employed, and useful for that matter, when I am an attendee…but it has served quite well in the past.*

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• Marketing Tea Party – My New Year’s Resolutions: Being A Pro In 2011
  January 3, 2011 – Quite possibly the best set of New Year’s Resolutions of the many that I’ve read.
• Chaordic Mind – Your Security Left Behind : How compliance and security can play well together
  January 3, 2011 – An excellent post with a conclusion I appreciate…”Excellence within an organization is not achieved by measuring the compliance of an organization but by measuring the compliance of individuals and employees.”
• TechCrunch – Take The Red Pill: The Rise Of The Hybrid Startup
  January 3, 2011 – I rather like the term “hybrid startup”. The applicability of the term to the world of IP Commerce lies in the fact that the majority of companies leveraging our Platform are, in fact, hybrid. The strict, assumed division between eCommerce, retail, mobile, etc is simply not that clear any longer. These “hybrid” models are here to stay…
• Global Neighbourhoods – The importance of measuring relevancy
  January 3, 2011 – Well worth the read…relevance is key to understanding influence. However, it is quite a bit more difficult to logically measure.
• CloudAve – Speaking At Conferences, Should You Be Compensated?
  January 3, 2011 – This! “The big problem we see today is the whole notion of “pay to play,” meaning “you can speak at our conference if you pay us thousands of dollars.” Which many of the top conferences out there employ because at the end of the day they need to make a profit, but sadly the audience members are left with hearing sales pitches and product demos by the “speakers” who paid to speak! In an ideal world speakers should be selected based on what they can bring to the event not based on how much they are willing to pay.”
• Digital Money Forum – Why?
  January 3, 2011 – Intriguing. This speaks to the concept of consumer affinity and has been ticking in the back of my brain for over a month now…Just sharing now as I feel I, finally, have fully formed thoughts on the topic.