factlines - weblog

Developer's Blog - the start

boyan.filipov@factline.com (Boyan Filipov) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 10:37:04 +0000

Hello friends of factline,

Happy new year to everyone!

Whoever donest know me, my name is Boyan Filipov, and im the CTO for factline. With the new year of 2012, comes a new blog! In this blog i will try to post from time to time things from the development part of factline - some things will be techical, some maybe not too much, the idea is that everyone might get a glimpse now and then at how things develop here, where things are going and what is currently bing developed.

For now i will just say that we are looking forward to the 2012, there are tons of things planned to be developed, and the same amount of work currenly on our heads. I just hope we have enough time to implement it all.

I will post very soon with a more detailed update.

Best,

Boyan.

Bericht über geplanten Kriterienkatalog im Standard

kasper.claudia@googlemail.com (Claudia Kasper) — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 10:07:17 +0000

In der Ausgabe vom 28. Dezember 2007 berichtet Der Standard über einen geplanten Kriterienkatalog für ASP Services der unter maßgeblicher Mitwirkung factlines entwickelt wird. Zum Artikel

Erfolgsgeschichte: Lebensmittel & Fruchtbarkeit

kasper.claudia@googlemail.com (Claudia Kasper) — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 12:55:40 +0000

factline ist Partner des EU-Projektes Food & Fecundity (6. EU-Rahmenprogramm für Forschung, Technologische Entwicklung und Demonstration, Thematische Priorität 5: Lebensmittelqualität und sicherheit. Diesbezüglich haben wir heute ein Email von der FFG bekommen:

"....Ich freue mich, Ihnen mitteilen zu dürfen, dass die Success Story für as Projekt Food and Fecundity nun fertiggestellt wurde......"

Doch lesen Sie selbst: Success Story: Lebensmittel & Fruchtbarkeit

By: Thomas N. Burg

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 22:26:19 +0000

Mir geht es v.a. um die currikulare Einbettung; die ist wohl nicht immer gegeben, oder? Würde mich interessieren.

By: Martin Ebner

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 07:07:52 +0000

In Graz seit September 2006, Klagenfurt ebenso.
Linz und Uni Salzburt schon etwas länger.
Die TU Wien bietet WordPress Blogs sogar noch etws länger an (wobei hier nicht von ePortfolios die Rede ist)

liebe grüße
martin

By: Thomas N. Burg

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 06:47:38 +0000

Oh danke. das war mir unbekannt. Seit wann ist das denn der Fall?

By: e-Learning Blog » Blog Archiv » [publication] Vorstudienbericht e-Portfolio

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 06:16:44 +0000

[...] (via randaenge) [...]

By: Martin Ebner

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 05:54:46 +0000

hi thomas,

gegen den satz
“Zudem sind wir die einzigen und ersten die Implementierungen aufzuweisen haben”
sollte zumindest erwähnt werden, dass die TU Graz
schon länger die Software ELGG flächendecken im Einsatz hat (und auch die Uni Linz und Klagenfurt)
http://tugll.tugraz.at

on the ecosystem of ePortfolios

burg@socialware.at (Thomas Burg) — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 19:46:46 +0000

I spent the last 24 hours (subtract sleeping from that) with first watching very impressive Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg "unleashing" the facebook OS then aside from my daily business investigating into standards for e-portfolio applications (helpful node Scott Wilson). So what's the connection you might ask. Well while I was browsing the specs from IMS yesterday Zuckerberg's video popped up many times in front of my virtual eye ;-)

So what's at stake in the e-portfolio business? And what's the connection to Facebook?

It's only a few weeks since I deal with e-portfolios. My perspective and interest is derived from my experience with social software and web 2.0 applications and concepts and of course my 10 years of working at a university.

My working definition for e-portfolios goes along those lines published by IMS.

ePortfolios are collections of personal information about a learner that represent accomplishments, goals, experiences, and other personalized records that a learner can present to schools, employers, or other entities. Typical uses of ePortfolios go beyond the traditional concept of a transcript to include applying for jobs, designing personalized learning, and tracking career planning.

and extend a little further: e-portfolios are digital representations of a person and thus need to be an integral part of a person's digital life. Thus e-portfolios need to be either aggregators of data or citizens in bigger digital environments.

Now this somehow contradicts what is happening at universities, school authorities and in the software industry. And please hold on, in a view lines I'll link to the Facebook revelation.

From my point of view 3 main issues are at stake (on different levels of course) in the gradually rising e-portfolio business. This is not a comprehensive list by any means and very unsystematic. Only a blog permits that opportunity ;-).

So, well those three issues are:

- interoperability (portability)

- sales strategies (integration into administration software)

- adoption (is an e-portfolio really going to be a digital representation or just a little more than a storage for official data needed for school and work)

On Adoption: The most important issue is the decisive question: do I have an e-portfolio because I want one or because I need one. Well the latter is very likely. So after that decision the questions stays: can I make it my place or is compliance with institutions the overall guiding principle. If it's going to be my place - and we are far away from that - than it needs to be some sort of personal space with extensions into institutional requirements and not vice versa. Well this approach might be different from an institutional perspective.

On Interoperability: Aside from that portability is a first concern because you might want/need to move from one (e-portfolio) application (=institution) to another. But does that really matter? It does at least as long as an e-portfolio is part of your institutional life. If the institutional compliance is achieved via webservices and mashups that might be different. Than interoperability is about using and displaying data that resides here and there and portability is more a question of moving your digital presence along your idiosyncratic preferences to other applications.

On Sales Strategies: to make this post short. I could imagine that Facebook or any other user-centered application (note: social graph) that is able to offer decent APIs could host those modules/plugins that are needed for institutional e-portfolios. I think it makes particularly sense to develop an e-portfolio at my preferred personal digital presence and mashup data with several institutions where necessary instead of having my real digital presence at - for instance - Facebook and my faked one at my school's application.

And here is the innovation: schools, authorities and software vendors need to conceive of those requirements that are needed and offer either open platform (such that belong to users) that have APIS for that matter or better provide modules for existing platforms. And Facbook's F8 is just a nice example.

Update:

An alternative take on that topc by Stephen Downes : Open Educational Resource

Update 2:

Very interesting remarks on that entire

FCS 2.6.2

burg@socialware.at (Thomas Burg) — Wed, 30 May 2007 08:32:39 +0000

Wir freuen uns mitteilen zu können, dass wir den Release FCS 2.6.2 am Dienstag den 29. Mai auf unsere und ihre Server raufgeladen haben. Für wenige Sekunden wurden die Server upgedated. DNeben zahlreichen Bugfixes gibt es eine Reihe von neuen Features

In Kürze seien die wichtigsten erwähnt:

Plattform Cloning Funktionalität: sAdmins können ab jetzt gesamte Plattformen inklusive Struktur, Inhalten und Usergruppen beliebig oft vervielfältigen (Szenario bspw: ausgehend von einem Muster-E-Portfolio könnenmi wenigan Handgriffen idente Plattformen für verschiedene UserInnen angelegt werden.
RSS: Services und Folder sowie Latest Changes werden im RSS 2.0-Format zur Verfügung gestellt. Ein präzises Berechtigungssystem erlaubt auf Token-Basis die punktegenaue Syndizierung von Inhalten.

Zusätzlich kann FCS als RSS-Aggregator fungieren

Ajaxifizierung der Kommentare mit dem Ziel der Vereinfachung und Beschleunigung.
tinyMCE wurde als WYSIWYG-Editor mit Zusatzfunktionen wie zbsp. factInclude integriert und ersetzt den bisherigen Editor.
Edit Include als eine Include-Option
Session keep alive, d.h. sie können das Session Timeout (bisher 30 Minuten) damit umgehen
Ajaxifizierung für die Boxen der linken Sidebar: ermöglicht schnelles Öffnen/Schließen ohne Neuladen der Seite.
Multiple set permissions in Verzeichnissen (new folder action).

BlogTalks ist da!

burg@socialware.at (Thomas Burg) — Mon, 21 May 2007 17:45:08 +0000

Nach langer Arbeit vieler Beteiligter ist es nun endlich da: das Buch zur von Jan Schmidt und mir organisierten Social Software Konferenz BlogTalk Reloaded: BlogTalks Reloaded - Social Software - Research & Cases.

Ich bin besonders froh darüber mittlerweile das dritte Buch zu einem Thema herausgegeben zu haben, welches akademische Forschung and angewandte Praxis gleichermaßen miteinander verbindet. Zudem ist es erneut gelungen eine internationale Gruppe von AutorInnen zu versammeln.

Social Software hat sich seit dem ersten Buch BlogTalks (2003) von einer Innovation zu einer Konstante in Diskussionen über Wissensmanagement und E-Learning entwickelt - letztlich eines meiner großen Ziele - siehe auch meine Einleitung zum vorliegenden Buch.

Wrap Up: Aussichten

burg@socialware.at (Thomas Burg) — Thu, 03 May 2007 08:50:04 +0000

Vermischtes heute:

- Wir haben unlängst die Datenbank nach registrierten NutzerInnen auf unseren Servern befragt. Mit knapp 10.000 Userin sind wird exzellent positionniert, zumal unser Service ja keineswegs public ist, sondern bezahlter Weise in Anspruch genommen wird. Einsatzszenarien sind in der Regel: Projektkommuikationen sowie E-Portfolio im Bildungswesen.

- Auch entwicklungsmäßig gibt es Neues zu berichten; wir bereiten gerade den nächsten Release vor, wird vermutlich 2.6.1 werden.
Wesentliche neuen Features sind:
-- Cloning, d.h. wir können auf einfache Weise eine Plattform samt Struktur und Inhalten klonen, besonders für E-Portfolio-Szenarien von Belang bzw. überall dort wo eine Plattform (=Workspace) vorab mit Strukturen und Inhalten gefüllt werden soll.
-- Private RSS-Feeds werden zukünftig über Token abgewickelt und nicht über http-authentication; wir verknüpfen mehrer Veschlüsselungsoptionen um höchste Sicherheit zu gewährleisten, d.h. unsere RSS-Service ist enterprise-fähig.
-- Weitergehende Ajaxifizierung (vermutlich die Kommentarfunktionalität)

Details zum neuen Release, dann wenn es soweit ist (wird nicht mehr lange dauern).

The Storage Context

burg@socialware.at (Thomas Burg) — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 19:23:25 +0000

Storage - I think this is it. Now start with your business models. Ah and yes vote for the shortest most condensed presentation on that topic on Slideshare.

Power: Hiding and Unveiling - about the ethics of Social Software

burg@socialware.at (Thomas Burg) — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 20:15:04 +0000

Below you’ll find a quote from a very favorable review of a new technology – namely Trampoline’s SONAR – that promises to introduce a paradigmatic shift in the way organizations and their employees can make use of information and knowledge – what they do is in fact not so new but there is at least no other application around, except to some extent I see System One in the race tough they lack – as far as I know – social networking capability. If you click the link you’ll find a description of an amazing concept and piece of software. I really like the idea of making things visible – done automagically by tools. But and that’s the reason I’m pointing you there: this entire approach makes only sense if you believe there is a hidden truth that only needs to be unveiled by some magic.

Trampoline: Harnessing Social Behavior in the Enterprise: “Trampoline’s SONAR platform brings a fresh approach to information management, by harnessing the social behaviour that occurs within organizations. SONAR plugs into the corporate network and connects to existing systems, including email servers, contact databases and document stores. It analyses this data to map social networks, information flows, expertise and individuals’ interests throughout the enterprise”
Read/Write Web

On the contrary I think Social Software or Enterprise 2.0 is – at least not only – not about making things visible via decoding meaning and/or social action but essentially about enabling an organizational framework that supports collaboration based on people, objects and the needs of those people on an individual level. To get there you need a change in mindsets first, proper tools that help you to associate on purpose and only eventually tools that make the hidden things visible. Paradoxically by the same token, however, I think those tools – the social software ones – need to support making things visible and invisible at the same time.

I myself wouldn’t trust the data-mining tools of the SONAR kind if I were a knowledge worker. I’d like to be in control and like to freely choose what is in/visible. In German I’d call the impressive SONAR Rasterfahndung (dragnet investigation) which has a rather bad connotation. Somehow this tool is some kind of travesty of the visions of social software by turning some of the basic principles into toolsets of control. Sounds like the old Foucauldian dispositif (thanks to Martin for the link) – a net of un/spoken discourses, institutions, tools, and laws – creates and analyzes the “You” newly from the perspective of the social networking analysis.

Theorie und Praxis: E-Portfolio.

burg@socialware.at (Thomas Burg) — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 20:39:41 +0000

Prof. Baumgartner, Donau-Universität Krems, legt kurz und prägnant die Theorie zu E-Portfolios vor.

Der Artikel beginnt mit dem Hinweis, dass ePortfolios "immer mehr zu einem unverzichtbaren Begleiter beim Lebenslangen Lernen" werden. Ich höre die Botschaft, allein, mir fehlen die konkreten Beispiele! Auch Peter Baumgartner beschreibt mehr das Potenzial von ePortfolios, als dass er bereits von ihrem Einsatz berichten kann. (Jochen Robes, Weiterbildungsblog )

Soviel läßt sich sagen, wir erkennen das Potenzial und versorgen bereits eine Reihe von Fachhochschulen und Universitäten in Österreich mit einer integrierten E-Portfolio und personenzentrierten Lernumgebung, die - mittlerweile klassische - Web 2.0 Konzepte zum Besten aller Beteiligten einsetzt.

A few words on RSS from the Devs

boyan.filipov@factline.com (Boyan Filipov) — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 10:30:09 +0000

Incoming transmission from the development department:

Well, here we go folks. After a hard month of heavy discussion and painful testing and debugging under time pressure (as well as some development or course :) ), we are finally here - in a position to state that RSS is successfully integrated with the FCS internal mechanics and user interfaces. That was a needed and long awaited step - as they say, the web 2.0-fication of our system.

Ill try to make a short overview of what lives behind the fancy RSS buttons. We had to merge our versioning and permission systems with the mechanics of "subscribing" to a feed, the end result being as they call it "Enterprise readiness" of FCS. One of the notable achievements was having the possibility to have private feeds, using Apache's HTTP authentication engine routed through our FCS user database.

Another thing worth emphasizing is the great effort that had to be put in optimizing the performance, and making the comments feed-ed as part of the feed with an appropriate display... the analyze (explain) of the SQL query that was used to achieve that is 73 rows long. So we are close to the record for the most complex SQL query :). The result though is what was expected - it works, and works fast enough for the current stage of our database.

I think ill stop here before I get too technical. Thanks to everybody that helped in the tough process and of course to all the fish too. :)

Boyan & Ivo.

End of transmission;

FCS 2.6

boyan.filipov@factline.com (Boyan Filipov) — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 11:01:20 +0000

Es ist soweit. FCS 2.6 ist released. Die aktuelle Version ist v.a. ein Feature-Release inkl. ein paar kleinerer Bugfixes. Unsere Ankündigung hurtig in Richtung Web2.0 Features zu gehen ist damit in ersten Schritte realisiert, vieles wird noch folgen.

Nun in Kürze die neuen Features (Boyan - seines Zeichens FCS-Wizard - wird in Kürze in einem detailierteren Post seine 2 cents dazugeben):

FCS generiert RSS 2.0 -Feeds; dies nicht nur für die Letzen Änderungen, sondern für alle Services (Weblog, Files, etc.), sowie für die Folder der Struktur. FCS ist quasi Enterprise-ready insofern als RSS-Feeds nach jeweiligen Berechtigungen gefiltert ausgeliefert werden. Diese Feeds können nun via RSS-Reader abonniert oder in einem anderen CMS integriert werden,
FCS kann (externe) RSS-Feeds darstellen und damit quasi als Aggregator/Reader fungieren.
Wie die meisten unserer Kunden wissen, bieten wir schon seit längerem die einzigartige "include"-Funktionalität, d.h. die Möglichkeit (mehrere) Posts (oder Facts) in einem anderen Fact darzustellen. Damit war es bisher schon möglich auf sehr effiziente Weise komplexere Inhalte einfach zu generieren. Nun ist es möglich, und das ist das neue einzigartige Feature, diese entfernten Facts direkt vorort zu editieren, dies erspart unnötige Klicks und erhöht die Usability dieses Alleinstellungsmerkmals auf bedeutende Weise.

Aktuell laufen noch ein Tests, v.a. hinsichtlich Performance, aktuelle Kundenplattformen werden sukzessive aktualisiert. Jegliche Arten von Anregungen, Fehlerhinweise und Feedback erwünscht.

Schön zu Frühlingsbeginn mit einem neuen Release dabei zu sein.

Direktvermarktung und Web 2.0

burg@socialware.at (Thomas Burg) — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 10:23:43 +0000

Dicom07 war eine - jedenfalls für mich - hervorragende Konferenz. Die Branche der (Direkt)-Vermarkter - vertreten in Österreuch durch DMVÖ - hat einen hohen Bedarf an neuen Kommunikationskanälen, eine gewisse Ahnung, konkrete Nutzenvorstellungen, aber noch ausbaufähiges Verständnis. Gutes Klima für Consulting.

Anbei meine Folien - ich habe versucht die Rahmenbediungen darzustellen. (ich hab den Veranstaltern empfohlen alle Folien auch via Slideshare zur Verfügung zu stellen - we will see)

Interview im Morgenjournal

(user guest) — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 08:50:22 +0000

Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund. Interview zu Themen wie Web 2.0 und Crowdsourcing.

Heute war Pressetag

burg@socialware.at (Thomas Burg) — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 16:06:15 +0000

Der Hype erreicht einen ersten Höhepunkt hierzulande: pte erkundigte sich zu: MySpace und Second Life innerhalb einer Stunde - da bleibt beinahe die Arbeit auf der Strecke ;-)

Facets of Web 2.0

burg@socialware.at (Thomas Burg) — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 13:43:52 +0000

Been thinking about my presentation for Dicom 07 (23. Österreichischer Direct Marketing Kongress). I'm pretty sure to meet a crowd that is heavily interested to understand what's going on on the web and how to come up with ideas/concepts/models that earn money with Web 2.0. So I will deal with the cultural change that is underway and all those experiments that somehow bring innovation theory (Eric Von Hippel) and Web 2.0 together.

Looking for the hottest topic for that crowd I stumbled across the concept (notion) of crowdsourcing. See DE-Wikipedia, EN-Wikipedia. See also the excellent introduction written by Hannes Treichl (in German) and the German weblog Crowdwisdom.

Well, well just another meme - with a book (to be) written by a Wired editor due for spring 2008

Crowdsourcing: May 2006.
At that time, Google returned three hits from a search for "crowdsourcing." One linked back to the Web site created by the illustrator on the story, James Jean. Another linked to an interview with Steve Silberman, a fellow contributing editor at the magazine.

From my point of view the most successful (innovative) projects in this area will harness the power of toolkits that support lead-user(crowd)-innovation. Toolkits though are not a business model in itself but reflect an entirely new customer relationship. There is one big caveat: remember those days when communities per se were conceived as successful business models - this concept failed whoppingly. One reason the hubris that imagined customers - us (the crowd) - as dumb sheep that do the the work. Compare also this (somehow cynical) exhibit.

Other aspects of my presentation will cover more basic grounding. For some of us those groundings are surely redundant, those are:
- the Cluetrain manifesto - conceive of markets as ongoing conversations;

- the web as a net of small pieces loosely joined - a of the many conclusion that can be drawn is to support the remixing, refactoring of content that means open up your content thus others can interact with it (you)

- understand the web as a group forming network and not as another broadcasting outlet.

- understand the importance of social-objects - that is provide objects like photos, videos, texts, profiles and support the communities that possibly emerge around those.

Anyway once I'm done the slides will show up here.

web 2.0 business event

burg@socialware.at (Thomas Burg) — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 19:01:42 +0000

Just back from Lift07, which - I have to admit - I didn't like too much. Piles on my virtual and real desktop. Next week I'm presenting at a business event (see below). Besides the typical Web 2.0 stuff I'll show some real applications/use cases (from our portfolio) that create benefits for their users. Once I'm done with the slides you'll get them here.

Future Network - die Plattform für IT-Entscheider Web 2.0 - Herausforderung oder Hype?

And here are the slides I'm going to present.

Again: communication

burg@socialware.at (Thomas Burg) — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 08:31:19 +0000

A brief but striking analysis on productivity losses in big companies. "[...] when you triple the number of employees, you halve their productivity" - that's something. Based on that it's quite clear to focus on communication and the sociability of knowledge when you grow and are big already.

The 3/2 rule of employee productivityI think it is largely down to communications: the degree to which a vision is shared and the effective dissemination of new ideas ideas and working practices. Innovation velocity is dependent on collaboration; and collaboration among larger groups and creation networks require different skills and tools than what most executives are used to from smaller situations and is therefore often underestimated.

Tagging is creative

burg@socialware.at (Thomas Burg) — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 09:13:11 +0000

Only recently a new PEW Internet & American Life Projekt report was published: 28% of Online Americans Have Used the Internet to Tag Content (PDF). I'm actually surprised by that fast adoption. But as it is tagging supports the organization and findability, and the networking of digital information more easily than the traditional classification schemes that are deeply routed in the (physical) lack of space concept. Tagging is surly more individual and has different intentions than a conventional classification. First of all it lets the individual decide on how to classify objects second it aggregates those tags and objects and supports an exchange of concepts that ends up in some dynamic taxonomy.

Courtesy of penmachine

Hence we will see a different adoption in enterprises that are cautiously opening up their information space to individual and social information management. On the other hand since there is an ongoing pressure to be more competitve enterprises need be creative and innovative. And again information management is the mother of all innovation. Efficiency (at many levels) is not a nice to have but a must and if tagging can help you need to make use of it.

factline is going to integrate a tagging mechanism into its platform that will deliver the comfort and efficiency of tagging by combining it with the structuring needs of organizations. More on that later.

Netzwerke und Unternehmenskommunikation.

burg@socialware.at (Thomas Burg) — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 15:26:17 +0000

Duncan J. Watts (djw24@columbia.edu) Professor für Soziologie an der Columbia University in New York räumt mit der These der Netzwerkeffekte über Multiplikatoren bzw. dem Two-step flow of communication-Modell auf. Vielmehr bedarf es der kritischen Masse und entsprechender Kontexte, damit aus einem Funken ein Waldbrand entsteht.
Wenn man nun diese Überlegeungen auf das Feld der unternehmensinternen Kommunikation umlegt, dann geht es darum die Möglichkeiten für Kommunikation zu verbesseren, die Auffindbarkeit und das Vernetzen der Mitarbeiter kann dann die Energie bereitstellen, die für Produktivität udn Innovationsfreude nötig ist.

Accidental Influentials: Understanding that trends in public opinion are driven not by a few influentials influencing everyone else but by many easily influenced people influencing one another should change how companies incorporate social influence into their marketing campaigns. Because the ultimate impact of any individualhighly influential or notdepends on decisions made by people one, two, or more steps away from her or him, word-of-mouth marketing strategies shouldnt focus on finding supposed influentials. Rather, marketing dollars might better be directed toward helping large numbers of ordinary peoplepossibly with Web-based social networking toolsto reach and influence others just like them.

Social Media in the Enterprise

burg@socialware.at (Thomas Burg) — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 10:07:55 +0000

According to a US-study on the awareness and use of social media we are at the beginning or better in the midst of a broad acceptance in the corporate world.
The statistically valid (=representative) survey of the Fortune 500 in the USA concludes:

(The Hype is Real, PDF) This research proves conclusively that social media is coming to the business world at a faster rate than many anticipated. It also indicates that corporate familiarity and usage of social media is racing far ahead of what many have predicted.

42% of the respondents know social networking sites like LinkedIn or MySpace . More than 25 % claim that social software is very important for their business. That's something. You might wonder what it is that is supported by those new tools.
While this is not easily answered it is impressing at what rate social software (or better online communication tools) is used in the Fortune 500 corporations.

Leave the bunker

burg@socialware.at (Thomas Burg) — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 09:42:52 +0000

Following this wise statement.

For Success in the Enterprise, Think Platform:Software architecture is an unintended consequence of social architecture, Smith says. If you have a dysfunctional organization, and you build software to align with it, youre going to get dysfunctional software. We need to go in with our eyes open and understand. This may exacerbate issues. Dont expect putting new technology is going to change that. it often exacerbates issues.

Joe McKendrick is referring to David M. Smith from Gartner and discusses briefly the difference of SOA and Web 2.0 in terms of customer acceptance. The latter requires less changes in the business processes and therefore is more easily deployable.

That might be true but think of Smith's notion of the paradigm shift that's underway and not easily digested, accepted and utilized. This paradigm shift is about a move from monolithic platforms that reside in the bunkers of corporations to the web as a platform.
This is an important issue especially relevant for SMEs, I think. If you conceive of the web as platform that hosts your business tools than you have to grasp the idea of a virtual and distributed platform. You don't put it somewhere although you can host parts of the internet on your premises - as long as those servers are connected to the rest of the network you can harness its benefits. The success factor of a platform is its ability to accommodate an ecosystem.
That means think precisely how your platform (this small part of the internet) supports exchange and conversation based on open standards.

Kreativität 2.0 (via Metadaten)

burg@socialware.at (Thomas Burg) — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 14:59:29 +0000

Das ganz untenstehende Zitat zeigt recht anschaulich, wo die Grenzen innovativer Ansätze sind. Jedes Web 2.0 / Social Software Projekt ist abhängig von einem Change-Prozess innerhalb der jeweiligen Organisation. Eine der Kernaussagen mit Perspektive ist, die Konsumenten von Informationssystemen in die Ökologie des Gesamtsystems einzubeziehen und deren Aktivitäten sichtbar zu machen.
Sichtbar machen heisst in diesem Fall zu verstehen, dass auch das Lesen bzw. Navigieren ein kreativer Akt ist. Das ist vergleichbar mit dem Muster, welches wir von Amazon kennen - Automated Collaborative Filtering - durch das Sichtbarmachen der Spuren, die eine Userin in einem Informationssystem hinterläßt wird ein Wissen geschaffen, welches mitunter wertvoller ist als das vermeintlich kreative Verfassen von Inhalten.

Den Wert des Spurenlegens hat Vannevar Bush in seinem legendärem Essay "As we may think" im Jahre 1945 herausgestrichen.

Moreover, when numerous items have been thus joined together to form a trail, they can be reviewed in turn, rapidly or slowly, by deflecting a lever like that used for turning the pages of a book. It is exactly as though the physical items had been gathered together to form a new book. It is more than this, for any item can be joined into numerous trails. (V. Bush, "As we may think"

Zurück in die Gegenwart: es geht darum die Silos in den Organisationen zu öffnen und die Kommunikation querbeet zu unterstützen. Eine Enterprise-Software 2.0 muss daher die Konsumation von Informationen via der Sichtbarmachung von Metadaten kreativ machen.

Enterprise 2.0 Tools Don't Address The Politics Of KM
I was reviewing an enterprise wiki implementation recently. This is a group that had impact across the organization on multiple divisions. The wiki was great. The customizations were great. But the people aspect had the 1.0 hangover. Only members of this group had access to the wiki while the implications of the knowledge that gets created was enterprise wide . This seems to be a common problem in many organizations experimenting with Enterprise 2.0. Its not about deploying tools; its about breaking silos and allowing a "true" read-write web to emerge. Groups that are primarily considered to be knowledge consumers need to be included in the new web of participation for true value to emerge. Enterprise 2.0 ecosystems , though bottom-up could still create silos of knowledge unless we proactively evangelize the fact that knowledge consumers are also knowledge producers. In a typical software company this could mean that a Wiki that the Quality group sets up needs to be open to the delivery teams for true knowldge churn to happen. Otherwise we have a new silo, accerlated by Enterprise 2.0 tools.

After Email

burg@socialware.at (Thomas Burg) — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 10:04:31 +0000

At e-week you'll find an enlightening article on the benefits of using RSS instead of email for efficient communication especially within a business context.

RSS Offers Relief from Enterprise E-Mail Overload: 'Even though it's a consumer-driven technology, it may have more benefit for a company than for an individual user. It helps streamline existing forms of communication, so a company will see benefit right away,' said Oliver Young, an analyst at Forrester Research. 'It can mean more efficient use of e-mail. It's geared toward timeliness and what needs more, or less, attention. RSS can really drive benefit that way.'

A long-time favorite topic of mine is visibility as a central means of efficient communication and knowledge sharing. While email accelerates the distribution of information it - by the same token - not only fills your inbox rapidly it also obfuscates itself. Items in your inbox do not provide context and/or a place to make sense of information.

Having that said I think it's necessary to state that e-mail will be with us for a long time. And that it still is an excellent business tool - but and that's for sure we are heading into a different paradigm. A paradigm that makes usage of different web-based communications tools like: wikis, weblogs, aso.

RSS itself could run into the same risks if it is just another IMAP-folder in your e-mail software - although by using RSS you can get rid of spam. The very value of RSS is recognizable if you use this webservice as a tool to make data and information visible - be it on your intranet or on your website. The moment data starts wandering and doing that visibly we will have a place to gather and communicate.

factline goes Web 2.0

burg@socialware.at (Thomas Burg) — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 21:02:49 +0000

2007 bringt nicht nur eine neue Regierung für Österreich, nein beinahe größere Dinge geraten in Bewegung. factline wird einen großen Schritt in die Zukunft machen. Basierend auf einem bewährten Enterprise Content Management und hypermedialen Collaboration Tool, dem factline Community Server, werden in den nächsten Monaten relevante Social Software und Web 2.0 Elemente intergriert werden. Meine Aufgabe wird es sein, diesen Prozess gemeinsam mit dem Team von factline umzusetzen.
Am Ende wird eine völlig neue Dimensionen einer Enterprise-Lösung stehen. Eine Lösung, die nicht nur die Effizienz und Einfachheit von Web 2.0 repräsentiert, sondern im Besonderen den Bedürfnissen von Unternehmen Rechnung trägt.

Ich, bin seit 2002 fest mit der internationalen Social Software Szene vernetzt, Initiator der Konferenz BlogTalk, Gründer des Social Software Labs, Architekt der Social Software Suite NEXTspace und war davor 8 Jahre Leiter des Zentrums für Neuen Medien an der Donau-Uni Krems. Details zu mir bzw. in meinem Weblog randgaenge.

Hier an dieser Stelle, dem neu geschaffenen Weblog von factline, wird es Einblicke in unsere Werkstatt geben, Kommentare zu Themen, die für unsere Kundinnen und für uns von Interesse sind. Vieles davon wird auf
englisch sein, das ist die Sprache in der die wichtigen Entwicklungen sowohl technologische als auch organisatorisch stattfinden. factlines wird durchaus persönliche Einschätzungen bringen, die zunächst mal die
Meinung des jeweiligen Autors wiedergeben.

Ja, es wird mehrere Autorinnen geben. Ja, wir werden regelmäßig posten. Ja, wir freuen uns über Kommentare und Feedback. Ja, ich werde mein Weblog randgaenge wie bisher betreiben.

In diesem Sinne, willkommen beim factline weblog!