WebChanges

News from TWIKI.NET

Welcome to WebChanges. When we launched TWIKI.NET at LinuxWorld last August in San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center, we wondered what excitement, changes, and success the future would bring, and how we could best communicate these events to customers, partners, and TWiki champions around the world. We've decided to publish this newsletter, WebChanges, to keep everyone up to date with the many things happening at TWIKI.NET.

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In this issue of WebChanges:

TWIKI.NET Newsletter Issue 1, 2008-03-21

YouTube Contest

TWiki is one of the best kept secrets of the web. TWIKI.NET's YouTube contest is aiming to let the cat out of the bag.

TWiki people seem to like telling other TWiki people about how they use TWiki and so we're arranging a way for people to do just that – on YouTube. All you have to do is to make a short video, upload it to YouTube and you could win cash prizes. The prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places are:

  • 1st Prize - $2,000
  • 2nd Prize - $750
  • 3rd Prize - $500

But just to make sure that no one feels left out, every qualifying entry gets a free TWiki T-shirt.

Everyone tells their TWiki story in different ways so we're not imposing any restrictions on the entries other than that we expect them to be between 1 and 5 minutes long. Don't worry if you are not a video expert. If what you have to say is interesting, creative and original (and maybe funny!) then people will turn a blind eye to a bit of camera shake or less-than-perfect editing.

Judging will be done in two phases, first by the TWiki community and then by TWIKI.NET. The top six entries selected by the TWiki community will go onto the final round. The team at TWIKI.NET will then select the winners and award the prizes. Note that it will be the TWiki community that decides if an entry qualifies for the T-shirt. So have some fun, and let the world know how you've tweaked TWiki to do something original!

For more details on how to enter and the contest rules, please see http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/YouTubeDemoContest2008 Don't delay in submitting your entry – the deadline is 14 Apr 2008!

TWIKI.NET Announces New Leadership

Thomas Barton has joined the company as Chairman of the Board and Interim CEO.

Barton replaces co-Founder Rod Beckstrom, who has left the company to become the first Director of the U.S. Government’s newly created National Cyber Security Center, which will operate within the Department of Homeland Security.

Barton joins TWIKI.NET with substantial experience in open source software. He was Interim CEO of Cygnus Solutions, a leader in open source software development tools, which was acquired by Red Hat Software in 1999. At Red Hat, he continued as Senior Vice President of Client Services. More recently, he was CEO at Rackable Systems. He led the company from December of 2002 to April of 2007, growing annual sales from $25 million to $360 million during that time frame. He took the company public in June of 2005.

We are thrilled to get Tom Barton on board. His proven ability to turn innovation into market leadership in open source make him the ideal replacement for Rod Beckstrom, for whom we wish the best of luck in Washington DC.

TWiki Meet-ups

Whenever we talk to TWiki users we're always amazed at what they've been able to accomplish with TWiki. What would happen if we brought forty or fifty TWiki users together in the same room?

Our first TWiki meet-up took place in Sunnyvale, CA in late November 2007 and was attended by more than 50 people. TWIKI.NET provided the venue, pizza, beer and some TWiki input in the form of presentations from Rod Beckstrom and Peter Thoeny. The remainder of the evening's education (and entertainment!) was provided by Silicon Valley TWiki users. Vicki Brown provided proof – if any was necessary – that TWiki is truly an enterprise wiki. The TWiki at Yahoo has 18,000 registered users and 321,000 pages. In October alone there were nearly 4 million page views and 860,000 page edits. Vicki has created some TWiki application magic that Yahoo uses to help manage projects. Vicki has kindly made this “magic” available on her website: http://cfcl.com/twiki/bin/view/Projects/TWikiMeetupPresDownload

Guy Martin of Motorola talked about how MOST (Motorola Open Source Technologies) uses TWiki to coordinate their geographically dispersed team. You can see videos of these presentations at http://www.twiki.net/blog_2008-01-28.html

We're calling them meet-ups because we've set up a TWiki meet-up section on www.meetups.com and encourage you to sign up. Not only can you keep track of the various TWiki meet ups around the world, but it is a good place to find out about meetings on other subjects that you might find interesting. If you do sign up, please join the TWiki group at http://newcareer.meetup.com/110/ - it's an easy way to keep track of upcoming TWiki meetings. There have also been TWiki meet-ups outside of the USA: Belgium, Denmark and Holland.

For those of you who prefer to get your information in the traditional TWiki way, take a look at http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/TWikiMeetUps. Read the instructions to create a new TWiki meet-up event, and/or contact feedback@twiki.net for more information.

Consultants Program

There is so much TWiki skill and knowledge available that we've created the TWIKI.NET Independent Consultants Program to help support and empower TWiki users through the world.

Since its beginning in 1998, TWiki has been the leading open source enterprise wiki. During this time, hundreds of contributers have been building TWiki and honing their TWiki skills. Some of these contributers have become expert TWiki consultants in their own right, while others have chosen to make money by other means, treating TWiki as an open source hobby.

TWIKI.NET would like to support TWiki champions and users everywhere by forming a network of TWiki consultants to help meet customer needs. If you are active in the open source community or have experience supporting TWiki installations, we'd like to hear from you. We would also like to hear from people who have experience using their TWiki skills to solve everyday business problems, every thing from project management to quality systems to..., well you fill in the blank! We know there is a lot of TWiki talent out there, so please contact us and let us know your areas of expertise! For more information, please see the consultants page http://www.twiki.net/consultants.html on our website.

Open Source Release 4.2

Version 4.2 of the open source TWiki was released on twiki.org in the middle of January.

This point release includes many enhancements and bug fixes, but most significantly it includes a completely new WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor integration that TWIKI.NET helped fund. The WYSIWYG enhancements make TWiki much more user friendly - especially for non-technical users - and is expected to significantly increase the number of users who will create content on TWiki. Among many other features, this release adds a SQL-like query language that enables wiki champions to create sophisticated TWiki applications.

The Certified TWiki Virtual Appliance (CTVA) distribution of TWIKI.NET is currently based on the open source TWiki 4.1.2 and contains the latest WYSIWYG editor. CTVA will be updated to version 4.2 after we complete our certification. CTVA comes with an installation program and auto-updater for a hands-off deployment. It ships with a set of plugins typically used in the workplace and comes with a number of TWiki applications that provide a turn key web 2.0 solution for the enterprise.

A Closer Look – Roles People Play in a Wiki

A Closer Look is the part of the newsletter where we focus on a particular aspect of TWiki. In this edition we’re looking at what roles people play in a wiki deployment.

To understand how publishing wikis and structured wikis are used, it is helpful to point out the different roles people play. Starting at the source, one can identify these roles:

  1. Sponsors
  2. Wiki vendors
  3. Extension builders
  4. Wiki administrators
  5. Wiki champions
  6. Contributors - aka writers
  7. Consumers - aka readers

Sponsors approve and support the deployment of the wiki. In a grassroots wiki, the team lead typically plays this role. In a departmental wiki it can be at the VP level; for a corporate wiki it can be at the executive level. Historically, wikis are deployed in grassroots, but nowadays they often attract attention at the executive level because of the awareness Wikipedia brought to the wiki space. Support by management is essential for a wiki deployed across the whole organization.

Vendors offer open source or closed source software; they also provide essential support for wiki administrators.

Extension builders are programmers who enhance the functionality of the wiki by creating plugins, add-ons and skins. Extensions may be provided by the wiki vendor, by a third party (such as system integrators and consultants), or may be built by an engineering team in-house. Extensions create value for the whole project. For example, TWiki has over 400 extensions. Extensions scale a wiki into vertical markets that one would never anticipate. Extensions are canned applications; wiki administrators need to install them for its user base.

A Wiki administrator installs, configures and manages the wiki. Teams typically deploy their own wiki in a grassroots. One person in the team plays the wiki administrator role. Once grassroots wikis get at the radar screen of the CTO or CIO they tend to get consolidated into a central wiki, typically managed by the IT department. The administrator is concerned about the dial tone of the wiki, e.g. software updates, backups and system availability, but does not manage the content.

A wiki champion is a person who both understands the process of the work for a given project or business (the domain), and how to use a wiki (best practices in collaboration). The wiki champion is primarily concerned about training and content: how to structure the content to make it easy for the users to navigate and find relevant content. In a structured wiki, this champion also creates lightweight wiki applications. TWiki is a structured wiki; it has a database within the wiki where users can create wiki application simply by using wiki markup, e.g. no deep programming skills are required to create customized trackers, inventory lists and vertical applications of all sorts. Structured wikis are in the long tail of implementing business processes, that is, users create many smaller applications tailored to their needs. The wiki champions help automate business processes.

Contributors - or writers - use the wiki as a white board. A wiki is by definition a very collaborative environment, e.g. a wiki mainly thrives because of its contributors – or dies because of lack thereof. Wikis are very organic – the unstructured and free form way of sharing content brings a lot of effectiveness, transparency and accountability to the organization. Contributors also use applications, which can be canned applications or in the case of a structured wiki, tailored wiki applications. A white board or a blank sheet of paper can be intimidating; an application reduces the choices, e.g. it makes it easier to participate. Both, free form whiteboard use and structured application use of a wiki is valuable, in fact powerful when they are used in combination. It is important to start as a white board, and to add structure only as needed (iteratively, in bazaar-style.)

Consumers - or readers - are primarily concerned about finding content they need for their daily work. The contributor/consumer relationship can be among peers (such as documenting how-to's), up the hierarchy (such as managers looking at status reports), or across departments or teams (such as product marketing creating material for the sales teams). It is good practice to keep the consumer needs in mind when creating content in the wiki. One type of consumers are the lurkers – often people who do not yet appreciate how wikis can bring value to the organization. Bulletin boards and wikis at the workplace have a typical write/read ratio of between 1/10 and 1/20. On public sites, the ratio can be much larger. For example, TWiki.org has a ratio of 1/150.

Naturally a person can take more than one role in a wiki:

  • In open source wikis such as TWiki and MediaWiki, vendor and extension builder can be one and the same.
  • In a grassroots wiki, one and the same person plays the role of administrator and wiki champion.
  • A wiki champion is also a contributor and a consumer.
  • Contributors are typically also consumers.
  • Consumers might just be readers.

People not familiar with wikis use web pages as reference material; even though there is an edit button, it can be intimidating to click that button. The wiki champion plays an important role in helping the readers understand the value in becoming writers. A writable web comes with a paradigm shift, and many people need to get used to the idea that it is OK to edit content written by other people.

(Reference: Peter Thoeny's blog on Roles People Play in a Wiki, 2007-07-11)

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