I know, I know, in my last post I promised to start answering the 100+ questions from the recent webinar I did on SharePoint. I will keep that promise - but it is going to take a bit more time getting started. I weeded through the 100+ questions today, combining similar ones,removing ones that were answered already and those that were webinar logistics-based. After that - there are still over 100 questions to answer. Yikes. So stay tuned, I'll be strating that next week.
But before I get chin-deep in SharePoint Q and A, I wanted to sneak in another blog post. After all there is still way more going on in the world of ECM than just SharePoint.
Many of you probably noticed the attention paid to Wikipedia lately regarding the increase in "just plain bad and false content." It came to a head with a positing that Ted Kennedy had died. (And in case you haven't heard - NO HE DIDN'T).
As a result, Wikipedia is going to institute an editing/screening system. What, how can this be? Isn't Web 2.0 all about free-form open, organic growth and rule by the masses? Yeah yeah, - as I have been preaching since my first argument on this topic at FastForward 2007, there is a big difference between open and free-form, and just downright irresponsible and chaotic.
I have especially pushed this point concerning the inside the firewall version of Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0. Unlike the free social world of Facebook, business collaboration needs some control. Rules,
outlines, templates, and last but not least records management and governance. These are not an effort to stifle collaboration or suppress free thought, only an attempt to maintain quality and reliability. In fact, my work in many organizations has found that consuming Enterprise 2.0 content becomes more efficient as well with just a few rules and structure imposed.
Well, it seems as if Web 2.0 has caught up with Enterprise 2.0. This is not the first time such an incident has occurred. But this one is rather significant. Wikipedia has often been used as the poster child for the power of open collaborative content. This change did not come easy. The Wikipedia folk ran an online survey asking if users supported ‘Flagged Revisions’( submissions from an anonymous source would not be posted until approved by a "trusted" user. Control and editing - blasphemy. Well, flagged revisions won the support of users by a 60-40 margin.
By the way, in case it was lost on some of you, a many of the links used here to provide background and definitions are to - that's right, you guessed it - Wikipedia. I couldn't resist the irony. But it also hopefully illustrates that I am indeed a big supporter of Enterprise and Web 2.0, but as a sesoned knowledge management practitioner do believe that just a little structrue can go a long and positive way.
