Tags: IBM, Lotus Notes, Lotus Notes 8, Notes 8, Domino, Domino 8, Dennis Howlett, ZDNet, Atlassian, Confluence, Ed Brill, Ben Poole, Alek Lotoczko, OpenNTF, DominoWiki, Integration, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Media, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Innovation, Social Software Adoption, Enterprise Collaboration, Enterprise Social Software
While the news items and further weblog posts keep coming up all over the place on the official launch of Lotus Notes and Domino 8, I thought I would go ahead and share with you one particular weblog post that I thought was rather interesting as well as it touches base on something I have been talking about over here for quite some time now. The weblog post comes from Dennis Howlett, over at ZDNet blogs, with the title: Old meets new: Lotus Domino and Atlassian, and it has also been referenced by Ed Brill, Ben Poole (Part of the story) and Alek Lotoczko (Main protagonist from the story itself)
In that particular weblog post, Dennis gets to detail a previous conversation he had with Alek Lotoczko, where Alek is explaining how he actually made use of the fine OpenNTF DominoWiki application, that Ben Poole put together some time ago, just because of its simplicity to get the job done. From there onwards, things have developed with the deployment of the fully funded Confluence wiki engine (That IBM, by the way, is also making use of both internally and externally) that will be fed by that same DominoWiki engine in such a way that the Confluence wiki would be the main tool used, but still in conjunction with the already existing one, which by the looks of it, it is not even going to disappear any time soon.
This is certainly a great story to catch up with and read some more about it and, from my point of view, it comes to validate something that I have been saying all along about social software tools reaching out to enter the enterprise: The key towards a successful implementation and deployment of social computing tools behind the corporate firewall is not going to be on the substitution of already existing collaborative tools, but in the integration, consolidation and augmentation of what is already available, as I have mentioned over here not so long ago.
That, to me, is where the key on the success of adoption some of these tools is going to be. Forget about finding the way to remove or replace what you already have for something that still has got to prove its value, to some degree, according to what some other folks out there keep saying over and over again. Instead, show that business value by providing different ways on how those same tools would merge and integrate with the collaboration and knowledge sharing flow of what is already available out there. That is what will help on the successful adoption of these tools and not in the continuous struggle that some folks seem to be going through all this time.
And Alek’s story detailed by Dennis is just a living proof of that. Thus thanks much, Dennis, Alek and Ben, for sharing this great story with us and for helping spread the message of how that integration could work out successfully. We really appreciate it and are very grateful for it! It is going to be such a huge time saver!
(Amongst some of the pearls of wisdom that Dennis has shared towards the end of the blog post:
"— Current project success was driven by tools that deliver immediate user value
— Open source can open the door to commercial solutions
— There is no requirement to ditch incumbent applications that continue to deliver value" […])
Luis, hello!
In the context of knowledge management, I thought of integration as modeling principles of practice generalization. Integration is a result of proceeding in an order governed by pattern interdependencies and wholeness of purpose.
Just like “providing different ways on how those same tools would merge and integrate with the collaboration and knowledge sharing flow of what is already available out there”, it has a focus departmental and individual purposes that unites, utilizes, and aligns the practices in the fundamental structure and natural processes of operation; makes clear priorities; and eliminates guessing about next move to achieve results.
Btw, I added you to my blogroll.
Kind regards,
Bong
Thanks Luis for so eloquently wording what must be our shared vision and also for the kind words about my contribution.
Your post prompted me to write more on this topic and even to create a diagram. These can be seen over on my blog http://collectivecurrent.blogspot.com
In order to fully understand what Bong said I am going to have to contemplate it in a dark quiet room. Alek
Thanks a lot, folks, for dropping by and for the feedback comments! Welcome to elsua! Lots of great input! Appreciated.
Bong, I am surely glad you are making the connection with patterns in here while talking about integration, as I feel it is something that plenty of businesses at the moment are underutilising and underestimating. They could well help provide the best background towards putting together those integration efforts based on how different technologies have been used already to promote collaboration and knowledge sharing. What worked, what didn’t, who was involved, etc. etc. That way, it would help providing a much better context for the successful adoption and embracing of emerging technologies. Good stuff! Wish more knowledge workers would be bringing in together more stuff on patterns.
Thanks much for the kind feedback and for dropping by. Your blog has also been added in my blogroll 😉
Alek, what a fantastic weblog post you have put together on the subject. Thanks a bunch for sharing it with us! I will go ahead, for the sake of it, and will comment on it on some other stuff that has been going on in my mind while reading through it. Thanks again for allowing to take this opportunity to learn some more on what you have done and look forward to some further conversations on the topic.