Quora+HN for the Enterprise? Beta testing anyone?
sygitowicz.posterous.com
sygitowicz.posterous.com
Yammer - http://www.yammer.com/
Chatter (SalesForce.com) - http://www.chatter.com/
Jive - http://www.jivesoftware.com/
Also, may be worthy to grab one of the StackOverflow sources, pretty it up and use that!
1. System will be open to external parties (customers and partners) - you can invite people per Topic (see my comment above)
2. Form factor - Facebook layout is not efficient - we are looking at something like much better looking HN
3. Karma and competence profile - we will by (just like HN) building your competence profile counting karma points and average karma per submission. We will also find out which topics you are best at.
This will be a system that is built to retain & share knowledge and experience. We are not building social collaboration (like Yammer).
Social collaboration (quote similar to Chatter but works better) is our other product - you can check http://www.discoursehq.com :)
I have a background working in large tech enterprises. A couple of comments:
> 1. System will be open to external parties (customers and partners) - you can invite people per Topic (see my comment above)
1. This is very dangerous in the enterprise. The strength (traditionally) is it's ability to utilize it's own knowledge and share within it's own teams. Opening up knowledge (and potentially proprietary knowledge) is potentially dangerous from a legal and a strategy standpoint. For example when you leave a company they stick a contract in your hands with words like "all knowledge of business processes, blueprints, etc. cannot be shared"
> 2. Form factor - Facebook layout is not efficient - we are looking at something like much better looking HN
2. I agree Quora/HN has a great UI, but yammer/chatter are both very compelling as well.
> 3. Karma and competence profile - we will by (just like HN) building your competence profile counting karma points and average karma per submission. We will also find out which topics you are best at.
3. I think this is a great feature and adds a bit of meritocracy to the workplace. Unfortunately it also adds some complexity to HR. Let's say I'm a manager and I have a Senior guy who has 1,000,000 less karma points than a junior guy under him. They're both in the same competency, do I promote the Junior guy?
Enterprise ready? Probably not yet, requires a massive culture change. Start-up/SME ready? Possibly. Good luck, sounds like a good challenge!
ad. 2 - Chatter/yammer has problem with the activity stream (we've discovered this while working on Discourse and the next version will get rid of that problem). Activity stream just like in Facebook is ok when you read content you don't care about (like your network updates about what that had for breakfast etc.). If you have customer communication or any other important business communication there is no way that you'll not be frustrated with facebook-like interface after few days.
ad. 3 - Good point - we are thinking of the value prop for the HR dept. I think that karma could be a great tool for HR for people development rather then promotion decisions :)
Pozdrawiam ;)
It would help me a lot! Thanks in advance!