Twiki Enterprise Agility Platform™ Blog

Meet us in Boston, June 14 -19 2010

Many of our friends, customers and supporters came to vote us (thank you!) into the Enterprise 2.0 Launchpad finals at the last E2.0 Conference in San Francisco. We were honored to be on the keynote demo stage.

We'll be at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston this summer, and have an exciting set of panels and talks lined up. They were selected through a community vote (thank you again!), and the final selection by the E2.0 conference advisory board is pending. See the list of all Community selected talks here

You can check out all our talks/panels here:

Collaboration to Save Lives (Featuring our partners from Carnegie Mellon University's Disaster Management Initiative, the Emergency Communications Leadership and Innovation center, and the security and emergency preparedness specialists at the San Jose Water Co.)

Hitchhiker's guide to Enterprise 2.0 ROI (With our friends from Box.net, Saba and Gartner)

Collaboration in China (With our partners from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and China Source)

E2.0 - Embrace and Extend E1.0 (Featuring our CTO Peter Thoeny and Dan Woods, co-author of Wikis for Dummies and prominent Forbes.com author)

pencil 2010-02-01 | Milind Pansare | Category Community | Permalink

SalesForce Chatter

Sales Force, Inc. made a big push last week introducing "Chatter", indicating that Enterprise Social Networking is suddenly something for all businesses to pay attention to. In the old days, chatter meant 'to talk rapidly in a foolish or purposeless way', so from a marketing perspective this is an interesting choice for a platform name. In my apparently dated way of thinking, 'chatter' was and is not something encouraged by most corporations. SalesForce's use of this label does not help make the argument that Enterprise Social Networking provides value to the organization. It only makes one wonder if the name was overly influenced by Twitter's success.

SalesForce openly admits they have yet to even deploy the software internally while their CEO Benioff said in an interview (captured in a BusinessWeek article) at the company's Dreamforce conference in San Francisco: "Collaboration is becoming a big part of how our customers will work". So what this looks like from the outside is a 'we don't use our own products for collaborating just yet, but we will have a really neat collaboration platform for you shortly' kind of announcement. Seems a little "me too", following John Chambers at Cisco. In any event, Benioff is now another voice openly recognizing the value of what we've helped our customers achieve from the moment Twiki, Inc. was formed two years ago.

If you want some very good insight into how to position your organization to benefit from this transition independent of the vendor platform discussion, it's definitely worth the time to read Andrew McAfee's "Enterprise 2.0".

From the start, Twiki, Inc. has run on the Twiki collaboration platform. Yes, we do use email and yes we also have a non-twiki based AP/AR system, but what might come as surprise to many is that we use a well integrated CRM and sales force automation tool built on Twiki that includes a Enterprise Social Networking feature called TWikiConnect (complete with Facebook like functionality but designed for corporate use). TwikiConnect has been deployed by our customers for over a year now, integrated with LDAP or Active Directory. And unlike SalesForce, we don't dictate to the customer regarding operating model being in the cloud or on their H/W behind the corporate firewall - we support whichever deployment approach is recommended by your IT organization.

Through this announcement SalesForce seems to recognize that their current Sales Force Automation product (very nicely implemented, despite being built on the old application development model with great reporting but lacking enterprise collaboration functionally), is really a hosted "Enterprise 1.0 application silo" and changing the existing SFA product to support true collaboration is not so easy.

Going back to traditional thinking again; Is it really news to anyone that in the agile Enterprise 2.0 model, the sales team also needs to collaborate with the rest of the organization?

Anyone want to have a 'chat' with us about collaboration or social networking in the age of the agile enterprise? Please give us a ring or post a Tweet to @Twiki.

I hope our marketing department doesn't suggest we introduce 'Twatter' as our SalesForce integration when we have one. Someone, please, help us with good name!

pencil 2009-11-23 | Will Thomas | Category Marketing | Permalink

Securing Twiki file attachments

One evening after the Enterprise 2.0 show at the Moscone Center earlier this week, I had a great meeting with Rob Murchison and Tom Shircliff of www.IntelligentBuildings.com. Rob is the Twiki Champion there and shared some very interesting Twiki use cases. During the conversation, Rob mentioned that the instructions on how to secure attachments in Twiki provided in the documentation at the twiki.org site were not all that clear. Taking Rob's feedback and after some discussions with our technical team, I updated the instructions at www.twiki.org.

http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/TWiki/TWikiAccessControl#Securing_File_Attachments

Any suggestions for additional improvements to Twiki are always welcome. Send us a mail at info@twiki.net or join the Twiki Community at www.twiki.org

I hope many folks find this information helpful.

Best,

Will

pencil 2009-11-06 | Will Thomas | Category Best Practices | Permalink

Twiki is a finalist at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference Launchpad

We got some really great news late last Friday.

Twiki is a Finalist at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference Launchpad competition!

Join us November 4 at the Launchpad keynote, live in San Francisco, Moscone North, Room 134 From 2:15-2:40pm, with live voting by the audience. Please Vote for Twiki ! And visit us at Pod #19 in the EXPO

Paige, the Launchpad organizer had this to say on the Enterprise 2.0 Conference Blog: "We saw some really innovative new tools, but the cream rises to the top". Thank you, Paige. We credit our community and customers for their strong support that helped us reach the Finals at LaunchPad.

Having just won at Plug and Play Fall EXPO in September, and having been Finalists at the SourceForge.net Community Choice awards in July, we feel like we might need a breather, but keep them coming!

Remember - our Keynote is November 4, 2:15pm Room #134

pencil 2009-10-21 | Milind Pansare | Category Community | Permalink

Twiki at Cisco

Cisco under John Chambers' leadership is often viewed as a leader in organizational change. In Chambers' view, business is on the verge of a dramatic transformation, a huge leap forward in productivity built on collaboration made possible by Web 2.0-style tools similar to YouTube, FaceBook, and Wikipedia but adapted to the corporate environment, as reported in this Business Week. This is the shift from Enterprise 1.0 to Enterprise 2.0 that we at Twiki refer to as the new Agile Enterprise.

Cisco press talks about the Web 2.0 Evolution at Cisco and Cisco's use of Twiki, where the Cisco Customer Advocacy Remote Operations Services (ROS) team built a network operations knowledge base on Twiki.

Cisco also recognizes Customers and Partners who exemplify this shift through their new Growing With Technology Awards program. Here again, in the Operations Excellence category, Twiki enabled a winner.

We're proud to be a technology enabler for this visionary transformation in the Cisco ecosystem.

pencil 2009-10-15 | Milind Pansare | Category Best Practices | Permalink

Companies as Communities: Productivity Through Collaboration

Guest post by Dawn M. Foster

When most people think about online communities, they think of external communities of sometimes random groups of people interacting online around some common interest. While many online communities fit into this category, I have been seeing an increasing number of companies that are building communities of employees within their organizations to improve collaboration and achieve productivity improvements. I've even been lucky enough to have worked within organizations that felt more like a community than a company and where collaboration was a priority.

Jeet talked about this idea in a recent post about enterprise agility as a path to ROI. He says that "collaboration is the essential ingredient for getting things done in today's enterprise." Collaboration is one of the key functions of any type of community, but communities are more than just a place for people to collaborate. In general, great communities bring people together to form a shared identity and cohesiveness among the members. Many companies struggle with ways to get all of their employees working together as a cohesive group, but becoming more community oriented is a great way for employees to get more involved and feel like they are really part of the corporate identity rather than just another cog in the wheel. Let me provide a few examples that demonstrate the benefits of treating your company as a community.

Collaboration on documents and other information. We have all been in a situation where multiple people were editing a document and passing it around in email with the end result being lost edits, overwriting each others changes and other general document chaos. Having a better way for employees to collaborate on documents is one obvious benefit of the community approach that can be easily demonstrated by time savings and overall quality improvements. However, we can take this community approach one step further. Let's assume that you have 3 people editing a document that contains a proposal for some new business your company is trying to win. What happens when those three people are editing a document that is visible in the community for other people to view? Now, you have a mechanism for additional feedback, ideas, and suggestions from people that you might never have thought to ask about the proposal. You might even find that you have someone who has an in depth knowledge of the company who can offer insights into the company that would have otherwise gone unknown. Now, this doesn't mean that you open every document up to everyone in the company. The solutions that you choose for your community platform should have a robust privacy structure where you can secure sensitive documents and control who can view or edit particular documents.

Improved Decision Making. Another benefit of a community approach is in the decision making process. I once worked at a company where key decisions were debated in our online community prior to implementing most changes. These decisions ranged from broad corporate and product strategy decisions to decisions about which snacks to supply in the break room. While you can't (and shouldn't) open up every decision for your organization to a vote, you can get input from people, ask their opinions, and debate the merits of various options. I think you will be surprised by the insights gained from unusual places within your organization.

Getting Answers. Every day, I come up against something that I don't know. I can try to find the answer on Google or post my question to Twitter, but what about those questions that are specific to my organization? In most cases, some other employee probably knows the answer to your question and can quickly provide you with an answer. I've seen this used for questions ranging from where to find some piece of documentation (human resource policies, legal documents, etc.) to questions from a newly relocated employee needing recommendations for a good doctor that is covered under the company's insurance plan. This ad hoc Q&A between employees helps spread knowledge, but it also builds camaraderie between employees across functional and organizational silos.

Getting your company to behave as community can be a big organizational change, particularly within certain types of companies, but the benefits can be amazing. Have you worked within a company that was collaboration and community oriented, and if so, what were the biggest benefits for your organization?

This is a guest post by Dawn M. Foster. Dawn has more than 13 years of experience in business and technology with expertise in strategic planning, management, community building, community management, open source software, market research, social media, and RSS. She has experience building new communities, managing existing communities, and providing consulting and advice to companies with a particular emphasis on developer and open source communities. Dawn holds an MBA from Ashland University and a bachelor's degree in computer science from Kent State University. She uses a combination of technical and business expertise and education to help companies get real business value from participating in online communities. Dawn regularly blogs about online communities as the author of the Fast Wonder Blog, and she blogs for GigaOM's WebWorkerDaily. She is the author of the book, Companies and Communities: Participating without being sleazy. Dawn is currently providing consulting services to Twiki, Inc.

pencil 2009-10-12 | Dawn Foster | Category Community | Permalink

TWiki.org Community Update, September 2009

The TWiki.org community has been working hard on our upcoming Helsinki release along with making regular patch releases for the current version of TWiki. I would like to highlight some of the great work that people in the community have been doing during the month of September.

First, a big thank you to the 11 people who attended our release meetings in September: Alex Bernegger, Ian Kluft, Jordan Koppole, Klaus Ethgen, Luke Vi, Milind Pansare, Peter Jones, Peter Nixon, Sopan Shewale and Steve Mokris. You can read the notes from the meetings or the IRC logs if you missed one, or would like to catch up on what we've been doing. We hold these release meetings every other Monday at 17:00 GMT, and anyone who would like to contribute to TWiki is welcome to attend. The next meeting is scheduled for October 12.

September Highlights

Key Statistics from the TWiki.org Community in September

  • 5,767 downloads (total over 500,000)
  • 3,104 page updates/month
  • 484 new users (total 43,533 registered users)
  • 845 new pages (total 96,986 pages)

TWiki Advocacy: Support the TWiki.org Community

Not enough time to get involved with TWiki development? Advocating TWiki is a good way to contribute back to the community - it is an active way of saying "thank you" to the community members who spend countless hours improving TWiki.

Word of mouth is a good way of spreading TWiki - your help is greatly appreciated! More exposure means more contributions, and a better platform! To promote TWiki in magazines and web sites use the material in TWiki 4.3 Advocacy.

SourceForge.net introduced a project review feature with thumbs up/down. Help the TWiki community by giving your thumbs up to the TWiki project on SourceForge.net.

Help the community by adding supportive comments to articles that mention TWiki.

Help keep the TWiki entry on Wikipedia accurate and unbiased.

If you are tweeting, you can help out when people tweet about TWiki. Follow us on Twitter, http://twitter.com/twiki to keep up to date.

Closing Remarks

If you would like to get more involved in the TWiki.org community, we have an entire page devoted to ways that you can help. We can always use a hand, and there are plenty of ways that non-developers and developers can help make TWiki.org better. As a contributor you can actively make a difference and help shape the product.

Until next time,
Peter Thoeny

(This is a repost of the TWiki.org blog: TWiki.org Community Update, September 2009.)

pencil 2009-10-05 | Peter Thoeny | Category Community | Permalink

Solving real problems

I often ask myself - what is collaboration ?

From Wikipedia " Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together in an intersection of common goals.." and " Collaborative software is software designed to help people involved in a common task achieve their goals."

So it's clearly about achieving a goal, then.

If I look around at the sea of solutions out there, there are many "collaboration tools", but they mostly seem to concentrate on the basic "share, communicate, interact" metaphor.

But enterprises are focused on goals. I was talking to a passionate Twiki user and valued friend of Twiki, David Pontzer, the other day. David is a Senior Process Engineering Manager, R&D at Mars, Inc. He puts it best- "It is my experience that a true competitive advantage comes from not just getting the tool that everyone can get and use. No advantage there, just keeping up. An advantage can be built by taking a look at how these tools can be customized and supercharged to facilitate your particular ways of working, culture, business, etc. This is where the Twiki solution is strongest. It is cost-effective, flexible, and powerful." A $30 billion global food company (like my kids and me you probably love Dove, M&Ms, Snickers...), gains a competitive advantage by using Twiki to automate many business patterns.

I visited another customer recently, Alps. A $100m Global drinking water solutions company. They use Twiki to automate their order processing with a Twiki application, and collaborate across continents. When I spoke with them, they were not focused on using the buzz words collaboration, enterprise 2.0, social software. They were singularly focused on their business goal. They did tell me that they moved racks of file cabinets down into the basement after they deployed Twiki, and they haven't been down there since.

Achieving goals. With Twiki applications to automate common business patterns like Project Management, CRM, Sales Pipeline tracking, Document management, IT operations, that's exactly what we can help businesses with. And the applications can be easily molded to your own business. And you can easily build your own. (Of course, Enterprise social networking, blogs, forums, all those E2.0 features are included.)

Collaboration defined.

pencil 2009-09-30 | Milind Pansare | Category Case Studies | Permalink

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