Dec 07
Scuttle Bookmarks is another extension to MediaWiki software and provides a key piece of functionality to achieve a single, integrated content repository. It is a twin extension to OMBookmarks, which I have released a couple of weeks earlier. While OM Bookmarks is focused on retrieving and displaying bookmarks from the Open Methodology Bookmarks website (which is part of the MIKE2.0 collaborative environment) in your MediaWiki installation, Scuttle Bookmarks allows you to do the same but from a local installation of Scuttle.
The two extensions also follow two different architectural design patterns. The Scuttle Bookmarks extension is designed to be installed in the same domain (or server) which is hosting both your MediaWiki site and your Scuttle site. The extension uses client side JavaScript calls to query the Scuttle site for relevant bookmarks and then displays the result on the MediaWiki article page.
The OM Bookmarks extension will always be installed in domain different from the Openmethodology.org website which is hosting OM Bookmarks. If it were to follow the same architecture as Scuttle Bookmarks, a user would access his MediaWiki site (e.g. www.mycollaborationsite.com), which would provide a JavaScript that retrieves information from a third party (i.e.openmethodology.org). Sounds like malicious code, doesn’t it? This is called cross-domain scripting and is blocked by default by most modern browsers. Therefore, this extension was implemented with a server side http call which performs all the magic. And the user only sees the final result.
You might ask yourself now why all the fuss about JavaScript when the server side http call could be used for both extensions? Well, the simple answer is that part of us creating and improving the MIKE2.0 collaboration site, is to develop an open source software based solution to deliver enterprise 2.0 collaboration to customers. And JavaScript http and PHP http are just two more guns we now have in our toolkit that we can offer clients.
Nov 19
2 projects, 20 flights and 4 cities later here I am back at the keyboard. Work has been a little crazy over the last couple months. This doesn’t mean, that I haven’t been working on cool stuff for MIKE2.0 with MediaWiki. It’s just that I haven’t had any time yet to tell you guys about it! Over the next couple of weeks I will make time to release some of my work to the open source community again.
One vision with building a standard around MIKE2.0, the open source Information Management standard, is to enable us (BearingPoint) but also the community to hook into the open source standard. Nowadays you would probably call this a “standard mashup”. For MIKE2.0 we termed it “Integrated Content Repository“. Last year, we did about 1,600 projects in Information Management and we are trying hard, to link all of our assets (templates, tools, standards etc.) into the MIKE2.0 standard to prove to ourselves and also to our customers that we can deliver complex IM projects, across many topical areas under one common standard. And that common standard shall be maintained and extended by on open source community. In order for that community to benefit from the standard the same way we do, we need to provide a framework and the tools to link their internal and private efforts into the open standard.
The API Query Extension allows users to query the API of another Mediawiki. In version 1, we focus on retrieving all articles that are part of a certain category and displaying this list within another wiki page. The below screenshot shows how we can include a simple box with a blogroll view of articles within a wiki page. This allows us publish and edit internal, private content on our internal wiki, but at the same time make the user aware that there is open source content (solutions, standards, best practices etc.) available as well.
The parameters of the extension allow you to specify the type of query and to restrict the query with search terms. The Mediawiki API is still in its infancy, but already provides some great opportunities for integrating multiple wikis based on loose coupling (web services or http queries). As the Mediawiki API will grow in functionality, so I hope that the community will help to build out the API Query Extension to provide better and greater results.
The new API Query Extension is the first mosaic stone in the set of tools we need to make this integrated content repository work. More will follow in the near future…hold tight!
Jul 06
50 (!) people showed up at the last London Wiki Wednesday that Sean and I hosted at BearingPoint’s offices in London. The sign-up sheet gave us a little bit of a scare because we didn’t expect more than 25-30 people, but in the end it was a great success. Check out what happened. The format of the event has slightly evolved over the last couple of months. The early ones were marked by a series of speed presentations on various topics (software demos, website demos, business pitches, project experiences etc.). Last evening we had a couple of longer discussions. I think that this might be the way to go forward as it really raised the bar in terms of depth and value of the discussions.
One of the key topics discussed was the security and contribution model of Wikis. Wikis have been popping up all over the place because of the inherent need of online collaborative authoring. A Wiki is a place for open collaboration with many users contributing content or making changes to existing content. However, out of my experience in deploying Wikis in corporations, this notion of open Wikis for the enterprise requires some extra thoughts. For MIKE2.0, the open source Enterprise Information Management methodology, we have developed and having been discussing for quite a while now four alternative release models:
- Open Model (minimal protection only against vandalism)
- Hierarchy Model (a governance body controls the changes and release cycles to the core content)
- Federated Model (domain leads ‘own’ their sections of the content)
- Branch Model (create an alternative page when a protected core page is edited)
The discussion during the event got heated when we suggested that Enterprise 2.0 requires control of content beyond what we have seen in familiar web Wiki communities. Adopting anything else than an open model brought up the question whether this would diminish the value of using Wiki technology altogether and whether alternative technologies (like content management systems) wouldn’t be better suited. The discussion moved on to specific examples from the corporate world (HR policies, employee handbooks etc.) where Wiki technologies are a great enabler for online collaborative authoring but where access controls (read for many, write only for a select group) needed to be in place.
MIKE2.0 is currently set up with the hierarchy model. We believe that in order for MIKE2.0 to be successfully adopted by organisations to run large scale Enterprise Information Management projects, there needs to be a certain level of trust that the underlying methodology is not going to change every other week. We will establish a governance body selected from a community of active contributors and experts that is meritocracy based. We will continue to monitor how effective it is and whether we need to adapt it.
Anyone considering to deploy Enterprise 2.0 technologies (be it Wikis, blogs, forums, IM etc.) needs to give extra thought on what can be gained by adding extra layers of security on top of basic requirements and what will be lost in regards to contributions, community and culture. This requires a case by case decision based on experience and based on the culture that exists within your corporation.
Jun 29
I have started working on BearingPoint’s collaboration environment for our new Information Management (IM) Solution Suite. IM is one of our two global solution messages for 2007 (Risk and Compliance being the other). It encompasses all of our information and data management focused solutions including:
- Business Intelligence
- Information Asset Management
- Access, Search and Delivery
- Enterprise Data Management
- Enterprise Content Management
- Information Architecture, Strategy and Governance
In order to support the collaboration on more than 100 solutions in this solution suite, we are deploying Enterprise 2.0 technologies (including Wikis and social bookmarking tools). I am working with a team of smart and energetic people (Jeremy Thomas, Sean McClowry and many more) on developing an innovative approach for knowledge management and collaboration. The vision of this project is not only to deliver an effective collaboration environment in support of our solutions, but also to develop an innovative approach to Enterprise 2.0 and collaboration itself, by virtue of solving the key issues of deploying Enterprise 2.0 technologies in a large corporation.
BearingPoint’s front page to IM is called MIKE2.0, an open source methododology for delivering Information Management projects. Follow our progress on the site over the next couple of months. And if you are an Information Management Professional, please contribute.
The journey begins…
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