Comments on: MediaWiki limits Enterprise 2.0. http://www.gilyehuda.com/2009/09/25/mediawiki-limits-e20/ Your path to success Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:38:58 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Proposing some sessions for #e2conf | Gil Yehuda's Enterprise 2.0 Blog http://www.gilyehuda.com/2009/09/25/mediawiki-limits-e20/comment-page-1/#comment-3616 Proposing some sessions for #e2conf | Gil Yehuda's Enterprise 2.0 Blog Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:51:15 +0000 http://www.gilyehuda.com/?p=778#comment-3616 [...] scalable (it powers Wikipedia).  And its found in lots of organizations (maybe yours too).  But does it help or hurt?  And what should you do about [...] [...] scalable (it powers Wikipedia).  And its found in lots of organizations (maybe yours too).  But does it help or hurt?  And what should you do about [...]

]]> By: yeysus http://www.gilyehuda.com/2009/09/25/mediawiki-limits-e20/comment-page-1/#comment-3261 yeysus Sat, 28 Nov 2009 08:12:57 +0000 http://www.gilyehuda.com/?p=778#comment-3261 Hi. I think there are 2 aspects to this, one is the business case, the other is the technology. If you want to have only one single-point-of-web2.0 software for your enterprise, you are after technology, and should buy one of the clones that don't match with real life outside of a company, like Confluence and the likes. Think of it, you don't have only one software suite for everything you need. Even MS Office has still, many years later, one Word, one Excel, one Access, one PowerPoint and one Outlook. I believe on the philosophy of openness that promotes MediaWiki, so I see MediaWiki at the top of the information road on an enterprise. Like the white pages, you search for something, you find a description, an address, a contact person and so on. Still, you need a second click to actually go to the website of your search term. Or somebody needs to open you a door and authorize you to go inside your searched address. This is the way I see it: MediaWiki on top as an open, informal, way of collecting not only "what" (btw including how-tos), but also "where is the information", so you link from MediaWiki to your intranet, to your tons of specialised software, databases and portals (I work for an enterprise a few times bigger than Fidelity and much more diverse, I do have many pockets of information with many authorization schemas) and so on. Resuming: Non-regulated MediaWiki on top as a quick and informal Where to find What, below intranet (official communication channel of the corporate) and whatever information you want to link with read/write access control, including closed wiki systems like the ones from SharePoint and Confluence. Hi. I think there are 2 aspects to this, one is the business case, the other is the technology. If you want to have only one single-point-of-web2.0 software for your enterprise, you are after technology, and should buy one of the clones that don’t match with real life outside of a company, like Confluence and the likes. Think of it, you don’t have only one software suite for everything you need. Even MS Office has still, many years later, one Word, one Excel, one Access, one PowerPoint and one Outlook. I believe on the philosophy of openness that promotes MediaWiki, so I see MediaWiki at the top of the information road on an enterprise. Like the white pages, you search for something, you find a description, an address, a contact person and so on. Still, you need a second click to actually go to the website of your search term. Or somebody needs to open you a door and authorize you to go inside your searched address. This is the way I see it: MediaWiki on top as an open, informal, way of collecting not only “what” (btw including how-tos), but also “where is the information”, so you link from MediaWiki to your intranet, to your tons of specialised software, databases and portals (I work for an enterprise a few times bigger than Fidelity and much more diverse, I do have many pockets of information with many authorization schemas) and so on. Resuming: Non-regulated MediaWiki on top as a quick and informal Where to find What, below intranet (official communication channel of the corporate) and whatever information you want to link with read/write access control, including closed wiki systems like the ones from SharePoint and Confluence.

]]> By: Gil Yehuda http://www.gilyehuda.com/2009/09/25/mediawiki-limits-e20/comment-page-1/#comment-2769 Gil Yehuda Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:47:37 +0000 http://www.gilyehuda.com/?p=778#comment-2769 Chris, thanks for the comment. Indeed I was stirring things up, so I expect some pushback. Funny thing, this very conversation came up today. I was at a client site, helping with an intranet redesign, and encountered someone who told me that they have a mediawiki instance that they are using for developer FAQs. The problem is that the mediawiki site is not going to be used for the "enterprise" -- it will be used by a team of developers. There's nothing wrong with that per se -- but it's not transforming the enterprise -- just one team. For me "Enterprise" 2.0 must be more than just Department 2.0. Mediawiki (and similar point solutions) enable groups to threaten IT's sluggishness. And they indeed can be very valuable (as I saw at Fidelity with our 15 different active wiki platforms, half of which were on mediawiki) -- but we ran into the "multi-headed chicken syndrome" where we eroded our ability to find stuff because we had too many wikis and no unifying strategy to mange content. So yes, E2.0 can shake up IT a bit (which is OK to do once in a while), but IT is not the enemy of enterprise computing. Moreover, if you are going to use a populist technology, MediaWiki is just too geeky to be useful for non-techies. Considering the commercial options that are available today -- why would anyone use it when they could spend a few bucks and get something that non-techies would use too? And the answer is... because the people who love mediawiki are the techies. I understand this, because I was there too. Chris, thanks for the comment. Indeed I was stirring things up, so I expect some pushback. Funny thing, this very conversation came up today. I was at a client site, helping with an intranet redesign, and encountered someone who told me that they have a mediawiki instance that they are using for developer FAQs. The problem is that the mediawiki site is not going to be used for the “enterprise” — it will be used by a team of developers. There’s nothing wrong with that per se — but it’s not transforming the enterprise — just one team. For me “Enterprise” 2.0 must be more than just Department 2.0.

Mediawiki (and similar point solutions) enable groups to threaten IT’s sluggishness. And they indeed can be very valuable (as I saw at Fidelity with our 15 different active wiki platforms, half of which were on mediawiki) — but we ran into the “multi-headed chicken syndrome” where we eroded our ability to find stuff because we had too many wikis and no unifying strategy to mange content. So yes, E2.0 can shake up IT a bit (which is OK to do once in a while), but IT is not the enemy of enterprise computing. Moreover, if you are going to use a populist technology, MediaWiki is just too geeky to be useful for non-techies. Considering the commercial options that are available today — why would anyone use it when they could spend a few bucks and get something that non-techies would use too? And the answer is… because the people who love mediawiki are the techies. I understand this, because I was there too.

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