It's all about UI

Wiki is to Document Management Systems as Graphical User Interface is to Command Line

People create silo's not technology

A couple of recent posts by Thomas Van Wal, SharePoint 2007: Gateway Drug to Enterprise Social Tools, and Dion Hinchcliffe, SharePoint andEnterprise 2.0: The good, the bad and the ugly seem to have re-started the SharePoint it's not really Enterprise 2.0 meme. These are both balanced articles and I agree with a lot of the points raised in them and certainly as with any application SharePoint has its strengths and weakness's. However one of the common criticisms of SharePoint is the rapid proliferation of sites upon deployment and I can confirm this from my own experiences, that in a large enterprise, within one year you can be looking at 1000's of SharePoint sites. But is this the fault of SharePoint? No this is a failure of deployment, it is a user failure.
SharePoint is no different to any other content management system and I've seen this same issue in every large content management I've worked with. There are two main reasons this occurs, firstly if someone does not manage the structure users will proliferate folders/sites in an uncontrolled fashion. In general people simply create what they need in that moment for their project. Secondly they restrict the access permissions, the assumption is that if they don't restrict access then someone will delete it/change it. Nothing creates silo's quicker than allowing users to control permission settings.
The implication in the 'proliferation of Sharepoint sites' comments is that if the companies had implemented a 'proper' Enterprise 2.0 tool set then this would not of happened. Sorry I don't buy this. It doesn't matter what the tool is if you don't invest resources in defining structure and allow users to manage permissions then you end up with a proliferation of silo's. I've heard of the same sort of proliferation of silo's occurring within wiki's based on Socailtext and Confluence, both of which allow user to create silo'ed wiki spaces. Even when the ability to set permission is inactivated or is not available, such as in MediaWiki, then you still need invest in wiki gardening to introduce and maintain structure as the wiki grows.
In the end it is not the tools but rather that those implementing social computing need to understand what they are trying to do. I'd guess that in many of the companies where silo's have proliferated it is more because the tools were introduced by people who understand technology not people/communities. In the end the whole social computing thing is not about the technology it is about the culture. If you don't understand the culture you are trying to create then don't be surprised if you end up with a mass of silo's.

Amplified08

This week rather than attend a wiki Wednesday gathering I attended Amplified08. This was a gathering of various 'social media' networks from across the UK. Details of what happened can be read over on the Amplified08 wiki and blog. What did I think of it? I met some interesting people had some interesting conversation but left not really any the wiser as to the aim of the meeting beyond a desire to connect people. The interesting thing is that when I attend a wiki Wednesday meeting I go along with the expectation of meeting interesting people and having interesting conversations. Why did I expect something different? Maybe my issues is that I'm too preconditioned to expect meetings to be focused around producing a product. Maybe it's because I'm interested in wiki's and I share that in common with those who attend wiki Wednesday's, I'd describe this as a strong tie. However in the case of Amplified08 the thing we all had in common was an interest in social media and that we belonged to at least one networking group, for me this is a weak tie. If I had to choose between attending a wiki Wednesday or another Amplified session then wiki Wednesday wins. What would make me change my mind? A higher purpose. One reason community's band together is to speak with a unified voice. The old adage "we are stronger if we stand together than stand alone". So what could that higher purpose be? Net Neutrality, Defending the freedom of the network, Defining standards, Influencing government, Taking back ownership of our identity data. What would you choose?

Dear Gartner

This week I had a fantastic small world encounter. Sitting in a meeting with colleagues from another large pharmaceutical company I was asked if I'd met Jessica? Admitting I was part of the team that produced it I enquired where they had 'encountered' her. The answer "in a Gartner report". At first I was flattered but once I saw the report I was less than amused. Why? Gartner had incorporated not one or two slides but the whole slide deck, except one - the acknowledgment slide. Further they identified the source as www.slideshare.net. This is equivalent to showing a video and identifying the source as YouTube. It is amusing that Gartner appear not to understand the basic difference between author and publisher. I'm not upset that Jessica is hanging out with consultants but I would like her to let me know who they are. So you should feel free to use the content but please provide acknowledgment to the author and maybe a comment against the content where it is published.

omCollab - Intergrated enterprise 2.0 toolset

Stumbled across this one today while reviewing options for improving our Scuttle, social bookmarking, instance. I've been keeping a watching brief on the work that Andreas has been doing ever since I met him at a London Wiki Wednesday meeting about a year ago. I remember a conversation about how social bookmarking was undervalued and the great opportunity for integration between social bookmarking and the other web 2.0/enterprise 2.0 tools. Well Andreas has not only developed an updated and improved version of Scuttle, omBookmarks, but has actually released an integrated suite of open source web2.0/enterprise2.0 tools, omCollab. What is more this has all been nicely packaged and released as open source (installation and download instructions here).
omCollab combines MediaWiki, Wordpress and omBookmarks together, while judicious and intelligent use of mediawiki extensions provides light but significant integration between the tools. The user is presented with a consistent look and feel across the platform with integration of the user ID delivering a solid social networking experience.
Andreas has delivered a great product that is significantly ahead of the crowd. IMHO it has the potential to be an open source challenger to Microsfot's SharePoint, IBM's Connections and probable knocks Suite 2.0 into touch. Does it contain all the tools I've previously identified as constituting the enterprise2.0 tool set? No a GTDware component is missing and without RSS it may well prove difficult to deliver a rich social profile into the social networking experience however these thing can be added with time. For now just enjoy and be grateful someone has raised the bar on enterprise2.0.

When Jo meets Charlie

'Why when I'm constantly interrupted by email alerts would I be interested in adding to my problem by installing an Instant Messenger?'

This question and other like it are answered in this new slide deck that has just been shared by John Castledine, a colleague of mine. He felt that the 'meet Charlie'/'meet Jessica' presentations had 'missed the opportunity to speak directly about WHY Enterprise 2.0 tools should be adopted widely in the workplace'. I'd agree with him and this addition to the 'meet Charlie' pantheon certainly delivers against that brief.

When Jo meets Charlie

view presentation (tags: enterprise 2.0 web km)

How valuable is tabbed browsing?

I’ve recently been helping a group of colleagues improve the way they share literature, a combination of social bookmarking (capture and archive) and RSS reader (alerting to new items of interest). Pretty simple until you realise they are all stuck using IE6 and so no tabbed browsing. They all like the idea and the simplicity of the process/workflow but when they realised that the RSS reader was web based they were concerned that the process would not work. Why? Because it meant they had to open yet another instance of IE6, they already had 4 or 5 instance open to do their work, if this was the case then they probably wouldn’t bother. I look at my work desktop and I have IE7, it’s non-standard one of the perks of being in IT, and I realised just how enabling tabbed browsing is. Once you have tabbed browsing you can live within one instance of your browser but more importantly you can configure it with multiple home pages. Now when I open my browser at the start of the day I open all the tools in the enterprise tool set and I’m ready to go. I can sympathise with my colleagues who are already opening 4 or 5 web based applications in different browser instances and here I am suggesting they add a couple more. So I’m adding another tool to the enterprise tool set and that’s a browser that supports tabbed browsing.