E2.0 Fundamentals
May 8th, 2008by Jeremy Thomas
Recent discussions at work have prompted me to re-iterate something very fundamental that often gets overlooked when it comes to Enterprise 2.0. An organization will never adopt a single social productivity tool. Knowledge will ALWAYS be scattered. We’ve come to accept this on the Internet where search engines make information on a myriad sites searchable, but for some reason organizations think they can get everybody to use “wiki X”, and that the search feature in “wiki X” will be good enough.
Stop.
As Dion Hinchliffe says (and as I have written before),
“Discoverability isn’t an after thought , it’s the core”
Organizations need to embrace the fact that their data will be federated. Sure, workers will put their documents in “wiki X”, but they’ll also put them on the file share, in content management systems, and on email servers. Data that cannot be found is useless. Enterprise search will unlock data and increase the propensity for information (and the knowledge workers who create it) to be discovered. Discoverability leads to recognition, and recognition leads to increased participation. Enterprise 2.0 must be approached holistically.
Clearspace doesn’t do this. Thoughtfarmer doesn’t do this. Mindtouch doesn’t do this. There is no “Enterprise 2.0 in a box” solution. Period.
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May 8th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Come one now. Do you still not understand our architecture?
“data will be federated”
What do you think we’ve built? It’s the only platform that is capable of connecting disparate data stores, file stores, applications and services. Once connected everything is machine mine-able. Where do you think we’re going?
http://mindtouch.com/Technology
May 9th, 2008 at 2:19 am
Good post. I totally agree. Data will be spit over several platforms within an organisation. It could be split over a Drupal instance, phpforums, Mediawiki instance, a Clearspace instance, intranet, External internet site etc.
The issue, I think, is that if the search is really effective people may believe it doesn’t matter where they put their data. Therefore data could just sit in silos around the organisation, rather than being updated and contextualised in a wiki etc. If there is full document search people might stop tagging things etc. and stop describing things succinctly.
I agree with having a really powerful, efficient search engine within the enterprise, but not at the expense of people adhearing to guidelines for the appropriate ‘storage’ of their data.
May 9th, 2008 at 8:27 am
@Aaron – I understand what you’re saying about Mindtouch connecting to disparate apps, and that in aggregate it is made machine mine-able. But what machine is going to do the mining and make the data searchable? In your app arch you show Dekiwiki integrating to a Search tool. And that’s the piece I’m talking about here.
@Richard, I agree, although I think if the E2.0 tools are truly that much easier for workers to use they will prefer them over more traditional, MS-Office oriented ways of information creation.
May 12th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Hey Jeremy, totally agree with your conclusion that “there is no Enterprise 2.0 in a box.” Enterprise 2.0 is as much a mindset as a suite of software tools. You can’t buy a mindset.
ThoughtFarmer does “intranet in a box” pretty well. We use it extensively for internal collaboration, as do our clients. But we still use del.icio.us, Flickr, Wufoo, WordPress, Gmail, Google Desktop Search, NewsGator. One tool will never do it all. Like you said, “knowledge will ALWAYS be scattered.”
May 21st, 2008 at 5:26 am
I agree with your point of view.
I also think knowledge workers should be able to use their own digital ball-point pens (aka blog and wiki editors, for example), their own digital pads of paper or moleskins, etc. An argument, basically, for open API’s in all platforms and applications, data portability (except for secure data belonging to the org’n) and PKM (personal knowledge management).
November 7th, 2008 at 4:52 am
@Jeremy Just stumbled upon your Twitter post “Data within the enterprise will never be unified in one place i.e.a wiki, community, KM platform. Search is key”.
Are you still convinced this is the case that no such single “Enterprise 2.0 solution in the box” exists ?
You state that search is key, but in its current state alone it is insufficient; the main issue being that the information pulled out lacks coherent context. Enterprise search is getting just as broken as web search: too many different sources, too little context.
Although these solutions bring silos together, unfortunately context is either left behind, or when it is brought in, it is difficult to homogenize. The only option is then to give users the ability to build context themselves around all this information once it’s been pulled in.
@Jon Funny you mention PKM which I’ve believed for a long time is an essential step towards EKM adoption. “Personally essential, collectively critical”
These thoughts are actually what lead our team to develop a few months back what we believe to be a very elegant I&KM receipe which gathers any form of information (docs, websites, emails, contacts, search tools), but which more importantly allows users to interact around them. All your information is then searchable, but it becomes contextualised under a single coherent umbrella. “No more silos, just context!”. Social interactions and productivity then kick in to give you (what we think is) an all-in-one enterprise-wide solution for EKM.
Either way, I’d be more than glad to challenge your previous thoughts on this. We are getting very positive feedback with the platform, but it’s definitely a treat to get doubtful people on board and convince them this is actually possible;-)
November 9th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Hey Gregory,
I agree that enterprise search is broken (if not implemented correctly) and can lead an intranet to be even more chaotic than one that doesn’t have search at all. A search solution must be democratic weighting documents based on factors that include inbound links, number of reads etc. Google’s proved that this system (which they call Page Rank) works to surface the most relevant content from the most credited content sources. Most enterprise search solutions don’t do this, and negating the social (democratic) aspect of information discovery will likely lead to a failed search solution.
But, my original point wasn’t meant to focus so much on enterprise search as it was human behavior. I’ve seen a lot of companies attempt to consolidate information to a single repository. But people are creatures of habit, and have learned to use file shares, ad hoc wikis and email to share information. Only a very dramatic cultural change will modify this behavior,and I’m not convinced such change is worth it.
If an enterprise search solution is comprehensive enough, it can act as the homogenization layer, so that at least information is found through a uniform mechanism. People can continue to use their existing information management tools while benefiting from increased visibility across the organization.
As far as building context goes, social bookmarking systems to a long way toward allowing users to classify and reference information assets. In my view, social bookmarking is key to helping “the masses” organize information in a way that is contextually relevant. Enterprise search, then, should acknowledge contextual perspective by, perhaps, associating people’s tags as metadata for a given socially bookmarked asset. A document tagged with the word “green”, then, would show up in a search for “environmentally friendly”.
so perhaps we’re saying the same thing, that while people will create content in silos, “search” is a single, silo-demolishing umbrella, and is the focal-point of an Enterprise 2.0 solution.
November 15th, 2008 at 9:07 am
I believe using a tool like Wikia search – where users can edit and rank search results – would be a more suitable enterprise search mechanism. Giving users the ability to edit and improve search results can provide for the contextualizing of information in a much more appropriate manner. By allowing others to rank assets and include links to intranet/internet articles, social bookmarks or individual profiles, search results can be ‘crowdsourced’ and hopefully become more relevant over time. The strict nature of search based on silos of internal information is too restrictive in an age when an organizations information doesn’t always sit within their firewall.
For example, traditional enterprise search would not index ning/facebook groups, yammer conversations, conference speaches etc. However, if search was editable, users could create links to these information stores and ensure their content was highlighted to users internally.