Social Media Strategy - JenniferVanGrove.com

I’ve almost been fired for blogging a little too openly about my battles with IT guys at corporations, so when it comes to understanding the fear and control issues that are omnipresent behind the firewall, I get it. IT wants ultimate control; community types (and now Marketing) want the latest and greatest web-based applications; there’s a constant struggle to determine, “Is This Good For The COMPANY?”

If you’re anything like I was, you, as the innovative person you are, break the almighty corporate sanctions because you know IT is behind the times and the most useful of resources are out there for the taking, and they’re free. I’m a little sad to know that all the while I was breaking the rules there was an awesome and innovative company, MindTouch, with an enterprise product/platfrom, Deki Wiki, that would have made both my life and IT’s so much easier. I had to get drunk at Happy Hour 2.0 in San Diego before enlightment (and Aaron Fulkerson, CEO of MindTouch) found me.

In case you haven’t heard, Deki Wiki is a free open source wiki that also moonlights as an “application integration platform and an application development platform,” with a complete API for developers. So what does this mean, really…

MindTouch Beats MediaWiki, PBwiki, and even BaseCamp

I’ve used 37 Signals’ products for years and I love them, but now that I’ve found Deki Wiki I’m not sure I’ll ever need them again. Essentially anything I could ever want from BaseCamp is wrapped up in Deki Wiki, but then tack on the API, third-party application integration, and LOSE the wiki mark-up language and replace it with a WYSIWYG editor, and you’ve got a winner.

A former boss and the frustration with using wiki mark-up language (for both MediaWiki and Basecamp) comes to mind. “Jenn, I can’t use this, you do it.” How can you expect to accomplish anything meaningful and get people actively using wikis and project collaboration tools when there’s a learning curve? You can’t. The company divides itself, information is lost, and the wiki gets thrown at IT or the geeks to keep current, and of course it never stays current.

When it comes to the value Deki Wiki offers to the enterprise, InformationWeek said it best when it stated…

Deki Wiki downloads on Sourceforge.net number more than [60% of the] 3,000 [total downloads] a day; something he [Fulkerson] says plays a big part in driving the “mad adoption” rates. But don’t discount MindTouch as a fluffy Web 2.0 open source play. Companies like FedEx (NYSE: FDX), Siemens, Gannett, and other Fortune 500 clients have adopted its platform to deliver mashups, tie together applications, and deploy new collaborative capabilities across broad user bases.

So how is MindTouch making friends with both business and IT? For IT, the pitch is simple; make their lives easier by empowering them to add governance not just over the wiki, but over all of their applications

In Aaron Fulkerson’s own words…

clipped from www.mindtouch.com

A very large percentage of MindTouch Deki Wiki users are using it to connect teams, enterprise systems, and Web 2.0 applications. Their doing this with dynamic report templates, situational applications and by providing alternative interfaces to a variety of legacy systems that are inherently difficult to use. In these cases the wiki is more of a canvas to a distributed application platform or a kind of enterprise connective tissue.

blog it

On a personal level (as a web worker), Deki Wiki wins because I’m paying a monthly fee to use Backpack, when I can use Deki Wiki for free — I’m switching for sure. I’ll miss the cute little to-do lists, but who knows maybe MindTouch has this in the works?

Talk to Aaron

Aaron Fulkerson is probably one of the coolest CEO’s I’ve ever met. He’s the work hard, party hard type, but he’s also a genius. I always feel like I’m absorbing too much information whenever I’m around him. Plus he blogs everywhere (MindTouch, O (B Log) N, TechZulu), which I think is wicked cool. If you’re at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco this week, you can meet him and the MindTouch guys; there at Booth 243, and they’re all a hoot.

Disclaimer: I do love the MindTouch boys (Steve Bjorg and Damien Howley included). Although I don’t work for them, I am partial to their company because they make a product that’s open source and it rocks, they’re actively working with StartupSD to grow and connect the San Diego web/tech community, and they helped me get to the Web 2.0 Expo this year.


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  • http://www.infomap.ca Richard

    Apart from agreeing with everything you said, we are finding that Deki Wiki is an ideal platform for structured writing, and for reusing content DITA-style (and I do not mean Von Teese).
    - It stores content as XHTML, not in wiki markup.
    - Any page or section of a page can be included in any other page.
    - It organizes pages hierarchically.

  • edoys

    waw your blog is OK

  • Jane

    I don’t think that free products are good. How do guys who develop them get their pay check? It’s most probably just their hobby, which means that’s one day it might all disappear. I’ve never liked Basecamp and I use Wrike.com for the same thing. They charge only $4 per user. I don’t mind paying this money to keep my data safe.

  • Jenn

    Jane, I couldn’t disagree with you more. Our society is demanding free products and services, and the web space I hang in prides itself on being open and giving users something of value for free. In relation to MindTouch, they’re actually doing really well financially, and their revenue model comes through the enterprise support agreements.

  • http://declan.net Declan

    Hi – not so much about DekiWiki, but I think your core beliefs that IT wants control and is always behind the times is a bit naive. IT has to ask “IS IT BAD FOR THE COMPANY” especially in terms of security. So, IT is put in the role of service provider AND traffic cop – not an easy place to be.

    So, most responsible IT departments default to a deny first policy because who knows what kind of havoc might result from a change. Just today I was asked if a use could install Xobni – a very neat looking inbox search app. I (I’m an IT Dir) had to say no because I have no idea what this app actually does. What if it ships all of the user’s content back to their servers for faster indexing? Would a normal user even be able to know what that means, or the exposure they have just opened up to the company?

    Now, I could divert someone from whatever project or service they are working on to devote time to investigating the product, or I could add it to the long list of possible things to look at when we have time, which means probably-never.

    I think fighting with IT over neat new tools is not productive. Look above at where IT takes it’s priority list and see if you can justify the effort to IT’s bosses.

    And have a little respect for the IT folks who keep all the boring stuff running so you have time to find new stuff. You’re a rare marketing/community person who also has the ability/desire to absorb tech. Have an IT person show you the logs of infiltrators just trying to get into open SSH or HTTP ports and you might run screaming. :)

    D

  • http://oblogn.com Roebot

    WOW! I just read this post. Thanks Jenn for the kind words about MindTouch and me.

    @Declan. 90% of the time it’s IT who is installing MindTouch Deki Wiki. These are the guys (IT) who are pushing it into the biz units. Biz guys love it because they get to use a highly usable tool and if it’s installed, configured correctly, and the IT person allows it the biz users can use the Web 2.0 apps and services they know, love, and have been using in conjunction with data that was locked away in enterprise systems that they couldn’t (or weren’t capable of) interfacing previously.

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