Twitter in the enterprise
Microblogging vs. microsharing
First experiences. Live demo.
Dirk Röhrborn
Barcamp Berlin 3, 19.10.2008

Who we are ?
© Communardo Software GmbH · Fon +49 (0) 351 833820 · info@communardo.de · www.communardo.de
Seite 2

Instead of an intro …

© Communardo Software GmbH · Fon +49 (0) 351 833820 · info@communardo.de · www.communardo.de
Seite 4

© Communardo Software GmbH · Fon +49 (0) 351 833820 · info@communardo.de · www.communardo.de
Seite 5

… that„s been around for long!
• Note books
• „Kladden“
• Taking notes in text files
• Instant Messages
• E-Mail
• Etc. ..

We„ve got a problem! Where is it?
• What we„ve got…
• Direct team communication
• E-Mail and document archives
• Sound business processes
• Structured documentation (e,g. Sharepoint)
• Knowledge Management (e.g.. Atlassian
Confluence Wiki)
• However …
• We loose many important pieces of
information…
• Some important stuff ist inaccessible…
• Lessons learned are not captured…
© Communardo Software GmbH · Fon +49 (0) 351 833820 · info@communardo.de · www.communardo.de
Seite 7

The question for us …
How can this „best practice“
be transferred to the
enterprise 2.0?
How can we share this ?

Why don„t we just use Twitter?
• Topics vs. people?
• Openness vs.
confidentiality?
• Are 140 chars really
enough?
• Where is the structure ?
• Are 1000 tweets history
enough? (2 days)
Twitter and its clones won„t
do the enterprise job. • Security concerns?
At least for us.
© Communardo Software GmbH · Fon +49 (0) 351 833820 · info@communardo.de · www.communardo.de
Seite 9

What others say….
Seite 10

What do we need?
• Focus on our topics and tasks….
• Stay up-to-date …
• Write a couple of sentences…
• Sharing or confidentiality
depending on the topic…
• Long time archiving….
• Secure operations and data
protection….
…microsharing rather than
micromessaging
© Communardo Software GmbH · Fon +49 (0) 351 833820 · info@communardo.de · www.communardo.de
Seite 11

Trial No. 1 – Exchange Folders
• Structure?
• Overview?
• Not at all!
E-Mail is not suitable for masses of short messages!
© Communardo Software GmbH · Fon +49 (0) 351 833820 · info@communardo.de · www.communardo.de
Seite 12

Trial No. 2 – Wordpress / Prologue
• 1 Blog = 1 topic
• Tags
• Filter by person or
tag
• Search
• RSS
• Platform?
Prologue is a simple microblogging tool for projects,
but not suitable for enterprise roll-out.
© Communardo Software GmbH · Fon +49 (0) 351 833820 · info@communardo.de · www.communardo.de
Seite 13

Trial No. 3 – Communote
• Blogs
• Notes
• Tags
• RSS
• Search
• Security
• Export
• Platform !
We decided to do our own microblogging tool.
© Communardo Software GmbH · Fon +49 (0) 351 833820 · info@communardo.de · www.communardo.de
Seite 14

Communote.com
• Live-Demo
• www.communote.com
• Currently „Closed
Beta“
• „Public Beta“ from
11/2008

Example # 1/3 – Project blog
• Distribute project new
in microblog and not
by e-mail or IM
• Regular status
updates in the
microblog
• Stay up-to-date by
following your project
blog
• Detailed project
records beeing
created as a side
effect
© Communardo Software GmbH · Fon +49 (0) 351 833820 · info@communardo.de · www.communardo.de
Seite 16

Example # 2/3 – Sales blog
• Tracking sales
activities
• Collect data for
contract definition
• Transfer sales
records easily to
project team
© Communardo Software GmbH · Fon +49 (0) 351 833820 · info@communardo.de · www.communardo.de
Seite 17

Example # 3/3 – Systems log
• System admins
are documenting
all changes to a
blog
• Results beeing
documented
• All changes can be
tracked
• “Schichtleiterblog”
(FAZ.NET)
© Communardo Software GmbH · Fon +49 (0) 351 833820 · info@communardo.de · www.communardo.de
Seite 18

Microlearnings from microsharing
• Your team knows even before you tell them.
• You may get unexpected help.
• You may find out things you really didn‟t want
to know.
• … there will be more …
• There is a learning curve: Where to put things
down? How often should I check? etc.

Outlook
• We are rolling out Communote internally.
• We are developing enterprise features, e.g. mobile
access, desktop widgets, LDAP integration, tag
management
• Public Beta of www.communote.com from 11/08
• Professional SaaS offering for enterprises from 01/08
• Questions !
© Communardo Software GmbH · Fon +49 (0) 351 833820 · info@communardo.de · www.communardo.de
Seite 20

Recent tweets

Questions …
• Interesting questions:
• Where to use microblogs inside a
company?
• When do I use a microblog instead of
email, wiki, weblog, doc-files ?
• What about information overload?
• What about tag management?
• What can I learn from tag
management?
• Any cultural aspects to look at?

Thank you for your attention !
Dirk Röhrborn
Communardo Software GmbH
E-Mail: dirk.roehrborn@communardo.de
Blog: http://www.humannetworkcompetence.de
http://www.communote.com
XING: http://www.xing.com/profile/dirk_roehrborn
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dirk_roehrborn
http://www.twitter.com/communote