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Weblogs in the Enterprise?

Lushmore asks: "Some of our firmware teams have asked for a discussion forum tool similar to the many web bulletin boards or weblogs on the Internet. One missing feature common to most of the boards I've seen is, understandably, lack of finely grained security--the user/group structure is not sufficient for the enterprise. Is there a bulletin board/weblog tool out where users can be part of multiple groups and each group can have their own administrators?" I think the issue of Weblogs in the Enterprise extends far beyond the type of software used, so as an aside for this question, I'd like folks to think about one other issue: can the usual culture found in most firms support the type of open discourse common to successful weblogs? What extra advantages would weblogs provide over the already tried and true technologies like email, instant messaging and cellphones?

24 comments

  1. Just what is needed (not) by kruetz · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Great! Yet another way to DECREASE employee productivity by jumping on the technological bandwagon. Surely they could come up with a better idea than that?

    Hang on ... no they cant! Dumb bastards!

    --

    This sig intentionally left bla... dammit!
    Who's got the whiteout?
  2. Enterprise blogging whitepaper by prostoalex · · Score: 4, Informative

    People from TechDirt, who earn their living by creating corporate blogs, have a white paper on enterprise blogging available. And then there is this InfoWorld article.

  3. PHPbb Allows for that kind of Admin.... by thecampbeln · · Score: 3, Informative

    Check out PHPbb, it allows for multiple admins and groups, not sure if it's exactly what you need, but if not I'm sure with a few extra lines of PHP you could get it to do what you need! Good luck!

    --
    "1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
  4. Not a good Idea. by mageben · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'm gonna call this one now. No enterprise can endure the openness that weblogs usually have. The closest thing that you can have and get your discussion and security is either a plain old web message board, or a mailing list of some sort. But security is still an issue.

    -Code

    --

    ---PRESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE---
    "Now, where's the damn 'any' key?"

  5. Very ture, but all you need to do is... by thecampbeln · · Score: 3, Informative

    ...have it under a password protected directory or only available to an Intranet. Then the users can still use it as they wish/need and the ass end of the company is at least mostly covered =)

    --
    "1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
  6. Enterprise-wide Freedom of Speech by eibhear · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Some organisations in some companies could have a reasonable policy about what can or cannot be said in an internal web log environment. I would be interesting to see what boundaries can be stretched and by how much. It's one thing to disagree lucidly with your manager, another altogether to flamebait the LOB director who was thinking of promoting you. (The Beware-The-Voices ad campaign from Monster springs to mind.)

    On security, can a slashcode administrator restrict the sections a user can (read) access?

    Éibhear

  7. Possible Option by McCarrum · · Score: 2, Informative

    Currently, tikiwiki could be a good option. Wiki, CMS, blogs, and more. Quite a nice user/group security layer also.

  8. y It's called NNTP by DrSkwid · · Score: 3, Insightful

    and a web based interface.

    get an NNTP server that can be configured to control posting via authentication and you are away

    of course no-one thinks IRC and NNTP are cool enough these days. They need to have shmancy names.

    --
    There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
    1. Re:y It's called NNTP by Big+Sean+O · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That's right...

      In 1996 my company ran a news server the entire firm (with over 50 offices nationwide).

      Sheesh, has it been over six years already!

      Anyhow, it worked like a champ.

      --
      My father is a blogger.
  9. Tiki by DamienMcKenna · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Tiki (http://tikiwki.sf.net/) has an extremely flexible permissions system, the most flexible that I've found and I've tested most of the open-source content management systems out there. Tiki also has a shipload of cool features - image galleries, file galleries, weblogs, wiki, etc, etc.

    1. Re:Tiki by Incongruity · · Score: 1
      FYI, the link in the above post seems to be broken because of a typo...

      Even though it's posted previously in this discussion, here it is again.

      -tcp

    2. Re:Tiki by DamienMcKenna · · Score: 1

      Here's a snippet from the release info on the current beta release:

      "Lot of new features: Surveys, Trackers, Newsletters, Webmail. Many security improvements and settings including challenge response authentication. Improvements to the wiki batch uploads for file galleries and others."

      Tiki has a flexible user groups system that allows for finely tuned permissions. Every function of Tiki has its own set of permissions that can be granted on a system wide basis or a per object basis, eg you can deny access to blogs by default and give individual user groups their own blog that only they can write to but that their subordinates could read.

      And going forward Tiki just seems set to keep growing and improving in time!

      Damien

  10. (OT) Enterprise... make that e lower case by erpbridge · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you make the E for Enterprise upper case, you'll get people asking why Patrick Stewart (Picard) and Jonathan Frakes (Riker) aren't making weblogs in the Enterprise.

    Then again, the only one who I know of who does one on a semi-regular basis is wilwheaton.net (Wesley). (Yes, CleverNickName, I know you're reading this).

    If anyone else would be doing one, I'd think maybe Levar Burton (LaForge) would, but I don't know their off-screen personalities very well. Levar just seems like the kind of person who would do a weblog, if he had the time. Maybe Robert Picardo (Voyager HoloDoc), as well.

  11. Easy by RedWolves2 · · Score: 1

    Build your own.

  12. Groupware plus forums by mosabua · · Score: 2, Informative

    Another alternative is to implement PHProjekt. This is a web based groupware system running in a LAMP type scenario.

    It allows you to set up different groups separately and includes a forum system

    It also includes timecard, contact, project management, chat and so on. I set it up at work for our company and it works very well.

  13. True Story, re: not getting it by dmorin · · Score: 3, Funny

    I was once in a meeting where I watched 2 managers agree that when a post was made to a team newsgroup (this was years ago before blog was the popular buzzword), the posting person would be expected to send an email to everybody he thought would be interested in his post letting them know that he had posted something.

  14. Captains log, Stardate -320053.09950 by cyberkreiger · · Score: 1

    What's wrong with storing the logs in the ships computer?

    --
    Stumbling in the dark
    I hear slavering of jaws
    Eaten by a grue.
  15. CLO by batemanm · · Score: 2, Informative

    CLO might do what you want. It provides groups of users which can be admin'd by different people, as well as a few other things such as group based file shares. To have alook at it just create yourself a new user. Thier isn't a downloadable package yet (I'm lazy) but just send a message to the admin (Bach) to get it.

  16. You could always create your own. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A very powerful generic ACL library exists which I'm sure wouldn't be too difficult to incorporate in to some sort of forum software yourself.

    http://phpgacl.sourceforge.net

  17. Twiki by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Twiki ( http://www.twiki.org/ ) should fit the bill.

    Its another wiki like Tiki, but I've used it personally.

    Its got many good features for a corporate environment, including revision control, ACL, etc.

  18. Geeklog by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    checkout geeklog at http://www.geeklog.net it has all the features you search for and more

  19. You could try usenet/nntp or ms exchange by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i think sun/netscape have a solution, there are TONS of options - even web-based/java ones. i can't believe someone actually asked this.

  20. try pmachine... by zonker · · Score: 0

    pmachine is an inexpensive and powerful system for this kind of stuff. well worth the money i think.

  21. Weblogs in the Enterprise by redtail1 · · Score: 3, Funny
    6:04 pm
    Scotty took my name off the warp drive's list of cool captains. That's it. I'm taking him off my list of favorite Scottish engineers.

    6:28 pm
    What type of tribble are you? I'm a fluffy one. (link snarfed from the Klingons)

    7:12 pm
    Had dream where I was in bed with Spock. What do you think that means?
    Comments (245)