Darlene FichterNorthern Lights Internet Solutions. Ltd.

The Many Forms of E-Collaboration: Blogs, Wikis, Portals,Groupware, Disoussion Boards, and Instant Messaging

[The Web isj an information space through which people can communicate, hut communicate in a special way:communicate by sharing their knowledge in a pool. The idea was not Just that it .'should be a big browsing medium.The idea was that everybody would be putting their ideas in, as welt as taking them out.

—Tim Berners-Lee, in a talk at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS)35th anniversary celebration, April 14, 1999 lwww.w3.org/1999/04/13-tbl.html |

If you haven't

put in a suite

of oollaboration

tools, it's probably

time to do so.

he true blossoming ofTim-Berners-Lee's idea of everyone puttingideas in as well as taking them out took almost a decade. The spe-

cial type of communication he descrihed .strikes right to the heart of col-laboration. Better ways to facilitate online collaboration are definitely onthe minds of most knowledge managers and intranet Webmasters. Somecollaboration initiatives are targeted specifically at communities of prac-tice, helping them find specific information on a topic, share successes, de-velop hest practices, replicate ideas, and identify experts. However, creat-ing successful online collaborative communities isn't necessarily easy—oralways necessary. Just because you can create an "online" dimension of com-munity doesn't mean that you should. Technology should be a supportingplayer in any collahoration effort, not the driver.

Spend time at any intranet or knowledge management conference andyou'll collect dozens of horror stories ahout failed online communities. You'llalso hear about successful initiatives and thriving communities. Each storyhas a nugget of truth about what works or doesn't. Failures usually resultfrom unusable software with overly complex routines, organizational readi-ness, governance, and communicating value to the individuals. Don't letthese stories make you gun shy ahout adding collaborative tools to your in-tranet. Many employees and organizational groups are looking for collaho-ration tools to help support their efforts. If you haven't put in a suite of col-laboration tools, it's prohahly time to do so. Most employees don't have thetime or energy to select, set up, and maintain these tools. Nor do employ-ees want to learn six different tools, one for each project team.

Chances are you will have a number of teams with very similar needs foronline collahoration, while other teams will have unique requirements. Ifyou think back a few years, this will sound familiar—the same situation oc-curred as intranets blossomed from one-size-fits-all to more customized andpersonalized information portals having a diverse range of specialized work-flow applications. Thinking about online collaboration requires thinking be-yond just one application to a suite of tools and solutions. The good news isthat some low-cost, easy-to-install tools have been gaining traction with en-terprises such as wikis, blogs, and instant messaging.

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Online collaboration tools rangefrom the simple to the complex, in-expensive to expensive, locally in-stalled to remotely hosted, commer-cial or open source, large versussmall. Fundamentally, the tools alloffer these basic services:• a way to communicate• a mechanism to share documents• some means to discover other

members ofthe communityOptional services include inte-

grated online calendaring;, exten-sive user profiles and expertise find-ers; recommender systems, sharedwhiteboard; and multiple channels,including instant messaging, Weh,and/or phone conferencing facilities.

WHEN YOU NEED AN ONLINECOLLABORATION TOOL

Are you working coUaborativelywitb people who are not physicallyco-located? Even if they are in thesame location, would online collabo-ration space help the project or workget done faster and more effectively?Often the answer is yes, but not al-ways. Some very successful commu-nities of practice thrive without anyformal online community space.Other communities would not evenexist without it.

Online collaboration tools can helpteams collectively author, edit, andreview materials in a group work-space. This speeds up tbe creatingand review of project materials.These tools can also help move doc-uments through the system faster byallowing all recipients, based onneed, to have direct and secure ac-cess to a central repository.

Online collaboration makes man-aging project and other workflow ex-changes easier. Without online col-laboration spaces, everyone in agroup is bombarded with unneces-sary information and e-mail attach-ments. Group members spend toomuch time creating custom addressbook groups of wbom to notify aboutwhat. Setting up a team or projectarea allows one person to managethe membership for everyone. An on-line collaboration tool can belp youwith the following tasks:• Manage the control and access to

your materials—who can view,edit, and add or delete materialsor posts.

• Track what was posted when andwho has reviewed it.

• Make your project debriefing meet-ing based on a record of what hap-pened during the project life cycleCollaboration tools also increase

the efficiency and productivity oftheteam. You can save teams time byhaving one place to look for informa-tion on a project. You'll encourage andfoster better decision making whenaccess to all project-related work—planning documents, budgets,progress reports, discussions, andprototypes— resides in one place. Youcan also reduce the time spent in un-necessary meetings by allowingminor matters to be handled onlineand background preparatory workand information to be circulated be-fore virtual or face-to-face meetings.

FLAVORS OF ONLINECOLLABORATION

Remember tbat cboice is good anddiversity sparks new ideas and ap-proaches. Such is tbe case with onlinecollaboration. Communities and theirrequirements will be diverse. Thereare many different tools to consider.

Some tools have existed a longtime—their strengths and weakness-es are well-known. Despite its manydrawbacks, e-mail is still a major com-munication channel for online asyn-chronous collaboration. It's often thefirst tool people learn to use. In fact,one of our challenges as intranet Web-masters is to wean people away frome-mail by making them aware of moreeffective collaboration tools.

Many communities and teams mi-grated from personal e-mail distri-bution lists to mailing lists. With theright software, mailing lists can bearchived online, providing a thread-ed and/or sequential listing of postsand full-text searching. Vital com-munities develop and flourisharound well-managed maihng lists.Many of us belong to lists for pro-fessional development; these are aneasy first step for many distributedorganizations to take.

Some teams and groups requiremore than just a mailing list—theyneed more focused discussions. Theability to bave several forums, regu-larly monitor a few, and occasional-ly see others can be advantageous.Often onhne discussion boards ofTer

more advanced security for levels ofviewing, and the centralized man-agement of user accounts reducesthe burden of list management. Par-ticipants can upload documents tothe board, reducing tbe burden ofthe e-mail system sending large filesto everyone on the list. Bulletinhoard systems offer the option ofcompleting an online profile, whichcan include employee photos, con-tact information, and research in-terests. This helps members ofthegroup get to know each other anddiscover others of like minds andsimilar interests. Depending on therichness of the entered profiles,forum software can also be an ex-pertise finder, especially when cou-pled with the ability to fmd forummembers who post frequently on aparticular topic.

IM, GROUPWARE, AND PDRTAL5Depending on your organization,

instant messaging (IM) may be thetool used for synchronous collabora-tion or it may be completely bannedinside the firewall. Instant messag-ing offers immediate gratification byproviding real-time, instantaneouscommunication. Minor matters canbe cleared up instantly. Group dis-cussions can be easily initiated withthree, four, or more participants. In-stant messaging also facilitates doc-ument sharing. Perhaps one ofthemost useful features ofthe softwareis the concept of "presence"—theavailability ofthe recipient beingright "here," right now. You can tellif a colleague is in, available for in-coming calls, or busy.

Groupware and portals often offera rich suite of tools for collaboration,including team areas with memberprofiles, online discussion areas,document and file-sharing areas, in-tegrated calendaring, and collabora-tive autboring tools. The collabora-tive team spaces will notify you ofnew or revised documents on a per-sonal page and offer content man-agement functions such as trackingdocuments through an approvalprocess as well as version control.Some portal suites also integrateRSS channels as the means of track-ing team updates, instant messag-ing, and "presence" indicators. Thesesuites can be powerful, but are often

July/August 9CD5 ONLINE 49

costly. Portal suites are usually "bet-the-farm" endeavors, requiringheavy, upfront investment beforeyou see whetber people will effec-tively use tbe collaboration areas. Ifyou work in an enterprise tbat hasrolled out one of tbese suites of tools,you 'Will often have several choiceson hand for collaborating online.

BLOGS AND WIKISUsing Weblogs for online collabo-

ration has garnered a lot of attentionin tbe past 2 years. Initially, the focuson Weblogs was on tbe Internet, buttheir widespread adoption and suc-cess of Weblogs at spreading ideasquickly, as well as connecting looselyjoined communities, was noticed bymany as valuable inside the firewall.Some organizations encouraged sen-ior executives to start hlogs and in-dividuals witb specialized expertiseto start posting preliminary thoughtsand ideas in order to foster discussingand information sharing both insideand outside firewalls. Companies in-cluding Sun, Microsoft, IBM, Disney,GM, Ford, Weatberhug, Salon, andtbe Guardian use Weblogs. One indi-vidual usually publishes a Weblog,hut teams and groups can createWeblogs for information sharing. Tbeadded user benefit is an RSS feed tonotify them of new posts.

Wikis are also gaining traction, par-ticularly for project teams in organi-zations tbat need to create a knowl-edgebase. Wiki, a term that means"quick" in Hawaiian, was originallydeveloped by Ward Cunningham toallow users to freely add and edit con-tent witb a Web browser Wikipediais a well-known public Web site thatis a collective effort to build an onlineencyclopedia. Wikis are founded onthe notion of open editing—anyonewho has access can click "edit tbispage," and cbange the content and/orthe organization of site.

Wikis are particularly good toolsfor research, information technolo-gy, and customer service areas tbatneed to build a shared knowledgerepository. IT departments and in-tranets often find wikis to be an ex-cellent tool for creating documenta-tion. Inside the firewall, wikis canbe restricted as needed to particularteams, groups, or departments.

KNOW YOUR ENVIRONMENTWhen choosing a collaboration

tool, you need to know your work-place culture and environment.What IT infrastructure is in place al-ready that you can leverage? Arethere financial and human resourcesavailable to purcbase, install, andmaintain an application? You need toknow tbe users and tbeir require-ments. Are they early adopters ofnew tools? Will they take a chanceand invest a hit of time? Are tbeyskeptical and risk-adverse? Do youneed to start witb a leaner, easy-to-use tool to build demand for more ad-vanced features, or is your user com-munity demanding more granulari-ty, security, and workflow options?

Who are the stakeholders and cham-pions? Can tbey communicate thevalue of the new collaboration tool?

DEFINE YOUR REQUIREMENTSThree requirements are paramoiuit

in choosing tbe right collaborationtool for your environment—commu-nication, sharing, and management.

How frequently do people need tocommunicate? Wbat types of com-munication is preferred—asynchro-nous or syncbronous—text, voice, orvideo? What access is needed to pre-vious communications?

How often do groups want to sbaredocuments and otber digital objects?Do they need to do tbis in real time,or can material he shared in a docu-ment repository? Is it a communityof trust? Can everyone see and editall materials, or how granular doyour permissions need to he? Istbere a complex approval process ora simple one? Will documents be cre-ated collahoratively in the onlinespace or with external desktop ap-plications that are added to the sys-tem? Is version control needed?

How many users will be involved inmore tban one group or collaborativespace? What degree of standardiza-tion from group to group is required?

COLLABORATIDIU ANDSOCIAL SOFTWARE

Collaboi'ation tools sucb asWeblogs, wikis, and instant mes-saging open up tbe possibility of al-lowing organic self-supporting andself-organizing to form heyond thefirewall. Many organizations aren't

ready for a bottom-up approach inwbich individuals seek to affiliatewith otbers of similar interests.Think about bow we use IM. We addour buddies, create our own groups,and organize them to meet our per-sonal and work goals.

Your intranet team will need tocarefully assess your workplace cul-ture to find a good match betweenorganization needs and tbe differentcollaboration tools. Sometimes bot-tom-up tools sucb as wikis andWeblogs will work best. In otbercases, a bulletin board or commer-cial product developed to cater to theneeds of communities of practice orportal toolkit is tbe best matcb.Keep in mind that you probably willneed to provide a suite of tools. It'sunlikely that one tool will work forall. Take time to explore new collab-oration tools so you're ready to belpout the next team or group thatwants an online collaborative space.

Darlene Fichter [fichter@Ughts.com] is pres-ident of Northern Lights Internet Solutions, Ltd.

Comments? E-mail letters tu the editor toma rydee@xm ission.com.

MORE RESOURCESMicbelle Delio. "Enterprise Collab-oration witb Blogs and Wikis," In-foworld, March 25, 2005 [www.infoworld.com/article/05/03/25/13FEbIogwiki_2.btml].

Brian Lamb. "Wide Open Spaces:Wikis, Ready or Not," EDUCAUSEReview, vol. 39, no. 5 (September/Oc-tober 2004): 36-48 fwww.educause.edu/puh/er/ermO4/ermO452. aspl.

David Mattison. "Quickiwiki,Swiki, Twiki, Zwiki and the PloneWars: Wiki as a PIM and Collabo-rative Content Tool," Searcher., vol.11, no.4, April 2003 [www.infotoday.com/searcber/apr03/mattison.shtmll.

Jotspot^—The Application WikiIwww.jotspot.com/j.

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