4 ms·

Farming at work: social media in the enterprise

15 points by rakkhi 16y ago

patio11 16y ago
If you have some coders or innovators in the IT team give them a 20% project to get a Dispora instance up and running. You might want to hold off on that.
- tszming 16y ago
  Diaspora? might be another security nightmare: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/09/22/security-lessons-learned-from-the-diaspora-launch/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/09/22/security-lessons-learned...
  - TomasSedovic 16y ago
    Fun fact: user patio11 (to whom you're replying) is in fact the author of the article you're linking to :-).
    - tszming 16y ago
      Yes, so he should give me an up vote :)
- rakkhi 16y ago
  Could Dispora be more secure? sure - but it is a very early release and guess what being open source you can fix the bugs yourself, on join the community that does. Also while I would not endorse it, it would hardly be the first application that IT departments and IT security departments would have accepted with security holes because it is "Internal". It really depends what you use it for and what information you put on the extent of the risks involved.
edw519 16y ago
This sounds like a solution looking for a problem. Enterprises don't need social solutions. They need good management and good application software. Everything else is a band-aid on the wrong wound. It seems like every enterprise I work at has almost every gadget imaginable on their intranet: policies and procedures in a wiki, tips and tricks in another wiki, special domain knowledge in yet another wiki, an HR portal, project management apps, help desk apps, integration with email, integration with Office, integration with smart phones, etc., etc., etc. And how much difference does it make? Not much, I would guess. People need access to exactly the information they need served up exactly as the need it to solve the problem at hand. This is called "good application software". And the need the resources, guidance, and direction to do the right thing. This is called "good management". Without these two, it's hard to get anything done. With them, those gadgets aren't really necessary.
- patio11 16y ago
  I don't know: wikis were such an enormous productivity boost at my old day job it was difficult to overstate. We had plenty of documentation in Excel files, and that got read pretty much never, for all the hundreds of man months burned up producing it. The wiki was where engineers actually kept the accumulated knowledge that ran the business. (Like the Deep Magic rituals which, when uttered in the presence of a slaughtered chicken under a waning moon, would let you successfully install the software on a production server.)
  - edw519 16y ago
    "wikis were such an enormous productivity boost at my old day job..." For whom? We IT people have a bad habit of thinking that a good solution for us is a good solution for everyone. From my experience in many enterprises, this is usually not the case. First, a few numbers... What I've typically experienced in enterprises: IT people (programmers, analysts, admins) - 1% indirect people (office, sales, management) - 10% direct people (warehouse, factory, call center) - 89% So a 1500 employee enterprise may have 15 IT people, 150 indirect people, and 1335 direct people. (The numbers may vary some, but you get the idea.) In an engineering firm or software house, the engineers and programmers are the direct people, but I don't really think of these types of firms as "enterprise". Remember, no one earns anything until the direct people do something. Their production absorbs the overhead of everyone else, including IT. Why do I bring up these numbers? Because I learned from a smart mentor long ago that solving your direct people's problems delivers value magnitudes greater than solving your indirect people's problems. Kinda like Willie Sutton robbing banks because, "That's where the money is." It's strictly a numbers game. Back to the question at hand: your people, especially your direct people need the right information and direction to get stuff done. Good application software and good management have always been the most effective way of doing this. Sure, gadgets have a place and deliver some value, but they are generally not the solution to enterprise problems. Like wikis, intranets, and all the rest, social media is just another gadget.
    - patio11 16y ago
      It is probably relevant to both our comments that I previously worked at a software consultancy and probably 60% of our headcount were some flavor of engineer or engineering management.

15 points by rakkhi 16y ago

If you have some coders or innovators in the IT team give them a 20% project to get a Dispora instance up and running. You might want to hold off on that.

tszming 16y ago
Diaspora? might be another security nightmare: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/09/22/security-lessons-learned-from-the-diaspora-launch/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/09/22/security-lessons-learned...
- TomasSedovic 16y ago
  Fun fact: user patio11 (to whom you're replying) is in fact the author of the article you're linking to :-).
  - tszming 16y ago
    Yes, so he should give me an up vote :)
rakkhi 16y ago
Could Dispora be more secure? sure - but it is a very early release and guess what being open source you can fix the bugs yourself, on join the community that does. Also while I would not endorse it, it would hardly be the first application that IT departments and IT security departments would have accepted with security holes because it is "Internal". It really depends what you use it for and what information you put on the extent of the risks involved.

edw519 16y ago

This sounds like a solution looking for a problem. Enterprises don't need social solutions. They need good management and good application software. Everything else is a band-aid on the wrong wound. It seems like every enterprise I work at has almost every gadget imaginable on their intranet: policies and procedures in a wiki, tips and tricks in another wiki, special domain knowledge in yet another wiki, an HR portal, project management apps, help desk apps, integration with email, integration with Office, integration with smart phones, etc., etc., etc. And how much difference does it make? Not much, I would guess. People need access to exactly the information they need served up exactly as the need it to solve the problem at hand. This is called "good application software". And the need the resources, guidance, and direction to do the right thing. This is called "good management". Without these two, it's hard to get anything done. With them, those gadgets aren't really necessary.

patio11 16y ago
I don't know: wikis were such an enormous productivity boost at my old day job it was difficult to overstate. We had plenty of documentation in Excel files, and that got read pretty much never, for all the hundreds of man months burned up producing it. The wiki was where engineers actually kept the accumulated knowledge that ran the business. (Like the Deep Magic rituals which, when uttered in the presence of a slaughtered chicken under a waning moon, would let you successfully install the software on a production server.)
- edw519 16y ago
  "wikis were such an enormous productivity boost at my old day job..." For whom? We IT people have a bad habit of thinking that a good solution for us is a good solution for everyone. From my experience in many enterprises, this is usually not the case. First, a few numbers... What I've typically experienced in enterprises: IT people (programmers, analysts, admins) - 1% indirect people (office, sales, management) - 10% direct people (warehouse, factory, call center) - 89% So a 1500 employee enterprise may have 15 IT people, 150 indirect people, and 1335 direct people. (The numbers may vary some, but you get the idea.) In an engineering firm or software house, the engineers and programmers are the direct people, but I don't really think of these types of firms as "enterprise". Remember, no one earns anything until the direct people do something. Their production absorbs the overhead of everyone else, including IT. Why do I bring up these numbers? Because I learned from a smart mentor long ago that solving your direct people's problems delivers value magnitudes greater than solving your indirect people's problems. Kinda like Willie Sutton robbing banks because, "That's where the money is." It's strictly a numbers game. Back to the question at hand: your people, especially your direct people need the right information and direction to get stuff done. Good application software and good management have always been the most effective way of doing this. Sure, gadgets have a place and deliver some value, but they are generally not the solution to enterprise problems. Like wikis, intranets, and all the rest, social media is just another gadget.
  - patio11 16y ago
    It is probably relevant to both our comments that I previously worked at a software consultancy and probably 60% of our headcount were some flavor of engineer or engineering management.