Just a quick update for the folks of you who are keeping a very keen eye on the new MOSS 2007 developments.

Atlassian can now be used inside of MOSS. Using a new connector, this has been made possible. This really gives MOSS users the option of working with a new wiki service.

Some of the features as described on their site :

Embed your wiki

Any Confluence wiki page or blog post can be embedded into SharePoint. This allows you to blend enterprise documents and lists with agile wiki content, all on a single SharePoint page.

Wikis aren’t wikis without the “Edit” button — so we made sure to put one in. You can edit embedded Confluence wiki pages directly from SharePoint with a single click.

Beyond wiki pages, you can embed dynamic Confluence page trees into SharePoint, for ease of navigating your wiki content.

Local lists

Any SharePoint list can be easily included in a Confluence wiki page. This enables you to combine contextual wiki content with more structured data such as document lists, calendars and other SharePoint collections.

Search once

With combined search, you’re guaranteed to find what you’re looking for — no matter whether it’s a wiki page, a Word document or a blog post. With the SharePoint Connector for Confluence you can now search enterprise wiki pages and SharePoint documents in one location.

There is no user retraining required! Use the same search box as you do today — in either SharePoint or Confluence — and you’ll find content from both platforms.

Login. Once.

With the SharePoint Connector for Confluence installed, users can seamlessly navigate between SharePoint and Confluence, with no interruptions. SharePoint and Confluence share the same set of users via Microsoft’s Active Directory and Atlassian’s Crowd.

Each user has a single username and password for both applications. Thanks to the single sign-on (SSO) capabilities of Crowd, there’s no more repeatedly logging in. Sign in to one application and you’re signed into both.

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Wiki’s in SharePoint 2007 - Part 2

“My last post introduced you to Wiki’s in Sharepoint 2007 ( MOSS 2007 ). I have since had the time to explore this feature in greater detail, and to be honest was very impressed by what i discovered. I was a little apprehensive about the wiki feature for the simple reason that being part of the Sharepoint platform might have encouraged over-engineering. However aside for the rich text editor ( which makes the process of adding content that much easier ) the basic layout and functionality of the wiki hasn’t changed. So if you are a contributor on Wikipedia you needn’t worry.”

YouTube a KM Platform

“YouTube a KM Platform?? Are you out of your mind? thats probably the first reaction you had when you read the title of this post. Honestly? i don’t blame you , i was having the same thoughts a week ago , but then as you know when an idea takes hold it takes a while to shake off.

So I asked myself this very simple question, What makes a good KM platform? and then started listing the points down one by one. This is what i’ve come up with so far ( this is a very basic list, so bear with me)”

Why is Knowledge Sharing so different in the corporate world?

“Users spend over a hundred hours every month on collaborative sites like Wikipedia. While it seems cruel to call this Knowledge “Management”, it does describe the very foundation of KM. Get people to share their knowledge.

More importantly, this cultural phenomenon has shown long term sustainability of such initiatives without traditional drivers like Rewards and Recognition. ( Read Here ). Which addresses the basic question this post raises : Why is Knowledge Sharing so different in the corporate world? For a lot of you the answer might seem obvious, but with the trend of KM adoption in corporates rising there is a serious need to understand what can be done about this.”

MS Wiki Vs Wiki

“Right, i’ve already put up two prior posts on the wiki functionality thats available on MOSS 2007 ( Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007 ) , You can read them here and here.

Now while it’s a great thing that Microsoft have finally awoken to the wonder that is the wiki, an in-depth look at the functionality would give an average wiki user the shudders.”

Knowledge Mapping in Organizations

“Why is establishing a knowledge map important for your organization? Well, lets look at it this way, unless you had a travel map you wouldn’t know what was out there and more importantly you wouldn’t know how to get there. A knowledge map for a company works in pretty much the same way. It tells the company where their knowledge resides and where the gaps are.

However the most important thing to keep in mind when creating a knowledge map in your organization is to map it in the context of the business processes that you are trying to improve. Otherwise you end up mapping knowledge you have no idea what to do with”

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Having experimented with Sharepoint over the past couple of months i’ve found a number of drawbacks, as I’m sure a number of you have as well.

This post addresses one of the biggest drawbacks Share point 2007 ( MOSS ), the lack of a document rating feature. How Microsoft overlooked a feature as basic as this i do not know, however for those of you out there who feel the same way i do there is hope. A number of companies ( and individuals ) out there have managed to create custom Web Parts that perform this task.

I haven’t had the chance to experiment very much with these Web parts, having decided to approach this problem by developing one in-house. I tasked my development team with coming up with a rating web part that would allow anyone to rate ( and comment on ) any document within the portal.

The advantage of building a feature like this in-house is that you have greater freedom in defining what it can and cannot do. For e.g: Users cannot rate documents they uploaded, they can rate a document only once, users can also comment on documents.

From an administrators point of view information like tracking how many people uploaded documents, how many of them rated different document, what their ratings were and so on can be tracked with great detail if you have complete control over the component ( which we did ).

I have a number of other components in mind that would add tremendous value to the basic MOSS 2007 feature set and will get into details in future posts.

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Communication Strategies for Knowledge Management

“Communication is one of the biggest enablers for knowledge management in any organization. Your people need to know the what, where and why of the KM initiative if you want to ensure its success.

The number of methods of communication strategies have increased in leaps and bounds since we entered the age of information technology. E-mail, RSS feeds, posters, etc are just some of the methods to enable the distribution of information. The extensive use of clever visuals also aids tremendously with getting the message across. Some companies have even gone so far as to create video clips of success stories in their organization. Even something as simple as a screen saver can be a powerful tool when it comes to reaching out to your people.”

Blogs and SharePoint 2007

“In “Its all about the Blog” we discussed how the Blog has gone from being a simple medium of communication to a powerful media tool, and “Blogs and KM” addressed the issue of managing knowledge in an organization through Blogs. Since the last few posts have focused on certain aspects of the Sharepoint 2007 server ( MOSS 2007 ) i decided to do a small article on how Blogs were implemented in this environment.

Microsoft realized that in creating a content authoring platform they couldn’t afford to leave out the one aspect that has revolutionized the method by which content authoring is being tackled today, namely blogs. So in an effort to harness Blogs and promote their use in a corporate setting Microsoft introduced Blogs in their latest version of Sharepoint.”

List of Blogging Tools

“While I’ve focused a considerable portion of this blog to various topics from strategies to best practices in Knowledge Management. I think it’s time i featured a list of technologies / tools that can be used under the KM umbrella.

This first article is dedicated to a list of blogging softwares available in the market, i have however only focused on open source applications/free applications.”

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MS Wiki Vs Wiki
“Right, i’ve already put up two prior posts on the wiki functionality thats available on MOSS 2007 ( Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007 ) , You can read them here and here.

Now while it’s a great thing that Microsoft have finally awoken to the wonder that is the wiki, an in-depth look at the functionality would give an average wiki user the shudders.

While it is true that MS Wiki ( thats what i’m going to call it going forward ) does have a few of the basic features that we’ve come to expect of any wiki, the features it doesn’t have really makes you wonder if this isn’t a 1.0 version that’s been launched on the unsuspecting public.”

Knowledge Management and Technology

“When i started this blog the underlying reason was that there was a huge disparity between what i’ve read about knowledge management and the way its actually implemented in most organizations.

If you ask any KM expert about whether there is a standard method of implementing KM chances are he/she would probably say there isn’t one. It entirely depends on what your goals are and how these processes are received by your audience. At the end of the day, that is what really matters. The greatest KM Framework would still flounder if there isn’t buy-in from the grass roots level.”

Choosing the RIGHT Technology

“This is a question that a lot of you might have battled with at some point in time and if i’m not mistaken continue to do so. Before we get into the “meat” of this post let me sum it up for you , there is NO right technology for KM.

While we all agree KM is more of a cultural initiative, there is no doubting that without a solid technology backbone chances are you’re heading down a dark road.

I’ve reviewed a large number of applications that claim to provide the perfect KM solution, and guess what? they don’t. No surprise there for those of you who’ve spent time trying to find an application that suites your needs. Please feel free to disagree with me, and if you’ve stumbled upon that “Perfect” KM tool do leave a comment. I’m sure the rest of my readers would love to get their hands on that information, as would I.”

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Two of my previous posts , Justifying your WCM investment ( Part 1 & Part 2 ), talk about problems a lot of us face when asked by our CIO’s to justify the cost of a CMS or WCM application. Creating an accurate ROI calculation for KM or an application would seem an uphill task for those of you who don’t know where to start.

There is an answer to your problems, ROI calculators for such application have been created after doing in-depth studies of the benefits of using such applications within organizations. These benefits were then given dollar values and grouped together in a rather complex looking worksheet that allows you to roughly estimate your applications ROI after keying in certain information.

One such ROI calculator i came across was from Alinean i have toyed around with their Microsoft Sharepoint 2007 ROI calculator and found that it’s actually pretty good. So if you are looking to get a rough idea on how much your new application might end up saving you I’d advise you to check this out…

ROI calculator on Sharepoint 2007

Do leave a comment here if you found this tool useful, and if not, what you didn’t like about it.

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If you have ever been part of a team tasked with the responsibility of choosing a CMS application for your KM ( or otherwise ) initiative you probably know the effort involved in trying to identify an application suited to your needs.

For the record I’d like to say, ideally, it would be in the initiatives best interests to design a KM application from the ground up ( using existing components where available ) . The list below is just a break up of CMS solutions as they exist in the market. Open source is grouped in a separate category to ensure there isn’t any complications.

• Enterprise
  • Documentum (ECM)
  • Vignette VCM
  • IBM (WWCM)
  • Interwoven
  • Open Text / Red Dot
  • Oracle / Stellent
• Upper-tier
  • Percussion
  • CoreMedia
  • Day
  • FatWire
  • Mediasurface
  • Tridion
• Mid-Market Mainstream
  • Serena
  • Ektron
  • Escenic
  • Ingeniux
  • Microsoft MOSS 2007
  • Paperthin
  • Sitecore
• Mid-Market Challengers
  • e-Spirit
  • Hannon Hill
  • Refresh
  • Terminal Four
  • Enonic
  • EPiServer
  • GOSS
  • Immediacy
  • Hot Bannana
  • Synkron
• Hosted Services
  • CrownPeak
  • iUpload
  • WebSideStory
  • Clickability
• Low Cost
  • Macromedia
  • Idetix
• Open Source
  • Alfresco
  • Bricolage
  • Drupal
  • eZ Systems
  • Joomla!
  • Midgard
  • OpenCms
  • Plone
  • TYPO3

There is a more exhaustive list hosted at CMS Wire if you are interested in taking a look at some of the other CMS Tools.

There is no doubt you’ll need to do some serious ground-work before you decide on which application is right for you. I’ll try putting up individual posts on the various applications as and when i get the chance.

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In “Its all about the Blog” we discussed how the Blog has gone from being a simple medium of communication to a powerful media tool, and “Blogs and KM” addressed the issue of managing knowledge in an organization through Blogs. Since the last few posts have focused on certain aspects of the Sharepoint 2007 server ( MOSS 2007 ) i decided to do a small article on how Blogs were implemented in this environment.

Microsoft realized that in creating a content authoring platform they couldn’t afford to leave out the one aspect that has revolutionized the method by which content authoring is being tackled today, namely blogs. So in an effort to harness Blogs and promote their use in a corporate setting Microsoft introduced Blogs in their latest version of Sharepoint.

Being true to Blogs Microsoft hasnt tampered too much with the basic layout, which means there is a seamless transition to corporate blogging for people who are already familiar with the concept of personal blogs.

They’ve incorporated a complete gamut of features that we’ve come to expect from any Blog.

Some of these are :

• Comments
• Categories
• Blogroll
• Search
• Permalink
• RSS feeds
• Calendar

Using the Sharepoint platform allows for certain additional features to be incorporated into the Blog. You can now publish information on your blog via e-mail’s, this includes sending documents as attachments ( something most blogs dont support ). API support for word 2007 actually allows you to directly interface with your blog and submit content through a word document on your desktop. Advanced features like Sharepoint permissions can be inherited and used throughout the Blog.

Multiple Authors can contribute to the same blog, and since the Blog ( like most of the features on Sharepoint ) is built on Webparts it really allows an amazing level of customization. Mobile View allows users to access blogs on Sharepoint via their mobile phones, a very useful feature as the percentage of people living on their Blackberry’s and Treo’s seem to be growing at an alarming pace.

Perhaps the biggest advantage of using the Sharepoint Platform to host your Blog is the fact that you can get details like user contact info and such as the application interfaces directly with the organizations exchange server. A feature that most corporate would definitely find very useful.

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