I was tossing around the idea of writing a post on this one as well as the conversation got very interesting.
Jake lays down the background pretty well.
"Craig Cmehil, Ethan Jewett and I had an interesting conversation (over Twitter, natch) earlier today about demand for New Web tools like Twitter, social networking, social bookmarking inside the firewall."
(Via Oracle AppsLab » How Do You Do Enterprise 2.0?.)
Short and simple is often best and fits with the platform we used for the conversation. 140 character max messages it's a creative art I tell you.
The whole thing started with having Twitter inside of the Firewall where I responded I was working on a clone, limited version one but enough to capture the same essence of the "quick message" in the passive way like Twitter and not popping up and bother someone's current flow. This is where it went into discuss mode as well...
"But then you start to get feature requests, and this is where our conversation started. Initially, it was about the merits an internal version of Twitter, like a white-label version or a clone inside the firewall. More broadly, the question is which is most successful inside an enterprise:
1. Using the external version, i.e. congregate on Twitter or Facebook. Why reinvent the wheel?
2. Deploying a clone for each web app, either Open Source (e.g. Pligg) or homegrown (e.g. IdeaFactory). This provides intranet security baked into roughly equivalent functionality.
3. Deploying a platform clone and using it to add functionality, e.g. Connect. This allows you to expose a single network to other web apps.
Each method has its advantages. Broadly, we advocated the above methods like so: Ethan 1, Craig 2, me 3. That’s not to say we disapprove of the other methods, it’s just an observation of how it seemed to me. Let’s look at each in a little more detail."
(Via Oracle AppsLab » How Do You Do Enterprise 2.0?.)
Again very accurate but I wanted to expand my thinking a bit more which is why instead of putting a comment on Jake's blog I decided I'd just write it up myself and not take his real estate.
I agree with all 3 above but being in the Enterprise and working on some of the projects I do work on it's just par for the course that you are going to occasionally deal with confidential info that is simply not for external consumption or possible not even for internal wide consumption. In which case option 1 simply does not work at all, which leaves you with option 2 and 3. 3 Is great but often times is either overkill or going to cross so many lines that you might find yourself in the middle of red tape. One reason I prefer option 2.
Now with option 2 if you approach or handle it in the wrong way you'll find yourself in a bit of trouble, you'll have antagonized the IT forces and caused yourself nothing be trouble. However if you handle it properly and with an open mind you'll probably find yourself with a nice little app that is well received and also ready to be integrated with "hopefully" the apps from an option 3 choice.
Perhaps you might still be a bit fuzzy on this so let me give you an example.
You have 20 users very active in http://del.icio.us, a popular bookmarking system and you have about 100 emails from people inside the company sharing links. I use this as an example because I was in this boat and it was one time where option 2 was perfect.
I created an install of a modified version of
Scuttle which is a del.icio.us clone, it's now running inside the firewall for a small but growing group and what started as 90% internal only links has changed to 50% internal links and 50% external links which was interesting in itself but not unexpected because I doubted that those already strong on del.icio.us would be willing to use 2 tools for the same thing. Nice thing, they didn't have to because it's possible to import from del.icio.us many simply do a daily or weekly import from del.icio.us to this clone and occasionally add internal links as well. Some might wonder why it matters with internal links not being in del.icio.us? Well for one some of these links are internal server names and addresses, some are IP based and all of it is noise for the others in your network within del.icio.us.
So now does the same thing apply for Twitter? This was part of the conversation each app is different, mostly the same arguments but each app is different. First thought of course is would I myself use it or would I stick to Twitter itself? I've not written on my internal blog in ages so would that end the same?
Many are wanting "twitter like" stuff in house for project teams but they can't use Twitter as not everyone follows the rule:
I don’t know what Ethan does, but I think Craig and I do similar things, i.e. internally evangelize new web. If I didn’t do that, I’d probably follow this path too. Why would I use an enterprisey version of the consumer original that works for me? I’d collaborate with others who work with me and push others internally to do the same, following the “don’t do anything stupid” rule.
Some may simply not realize that those funny little privacy settings are rather important and should be paid attention to.
James brings that point to bear recently...
Now if I am the one making or promoting this I certainly don't want someone getting nailed because of an oversight or due to ignorance. Is it my problem? No it's not but it's a matter of trust and if I do something that someone gets in trouble for when I need to do something else I might find myself "building it and they never come".
The other thing for folks like me to remember is we have tools, lots of them already so of course be sure you are not duplicating, that is simply worse. Also though be sure if you do build that you can integrate further down the line - the bookmark clone is being looked at by our own Harmony app already which is cool.
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