Recently in New Features Category
We recently added Discussion Forums to our Enterprise Wiki product, and we began to get requests in our demos for an explanation of when to use which collaboration tool. So, we wanted to share our take on how each of these valuable collaboration features could be used effectively in an organization.
WIKIS - Wikis are used primarily to capture knowledge and information. Wikis are intended to be living repositories that can be contributed to by everyone, which provides a more complete, accurate, and relevant view of key knowledge. Even though a wiki page should never be considered "complete" (changes happen all the time), they are meant to capture information that can be referenced for longer periods of time. In addition to knowledge management, shared content editing, notification, status reports, data collection, and project management are all excellent uses of a wiki.
BLOGS - Blogs are a great way to broadcast news or get quick feedback. Unlike wiki pages, blog posts are usually very time-sensitive, so they have less relevance as time passes. An example is that someone creates a blog post to comment on an article they found online. If that post was made a year ago and was about the soaring sales of Sport Utility Vehicles, that would have very little relevance today. There is interesting perspective to be found in historical blog posts, however. If someone brings up an idea that was shot down 2 years ago because of the feedback in blog comments, you can go back and see what the reasons were.
FORUMS - Forums organize complex conversations and help you make decisions. Email is terrible for complex conversations. How many times have you gotten an email blast that asks you to comment on 5 different bullet points- only to try to follow the responses from everyone else. And then having the main conversation breaks off into several side conversations- only a few of which you might care about. Forums solve that by following a trial of thought about each point in the discussion. Than, at the end of the conversation, you have a great resource to make decisions that you can be confident in- since everyone can participate and give their perspective.
We do believe that every team, department, and organization is different- so we encourage you to find as many ways to enhance collaboration as you possibly can. If you have specific questions about how to use these tools to improve your organization, just let us know!
We recently released an enhancement to BrainKeeper that allows subscribers to customize their Dashboard (learn more about Custom Dashboards and our Wiki Software here). We have received more positive feedback from this enhancement than we have for any of the ones we have done in the past, which really emphasized two key reasons why organizations decide to use a wiki: 1. People want to know what is new, and what is relevant to them. This is one of the best uses of a wiki, and is one of the driving forces behind our development of BrainKeeper. It doesn't do much good to have a tool for capturing information if you don't give people a way to separate the "nice to know" from the "need to know". This is the reason why so many people are frustrated with their email: everything comes into the same Inbox, so everything must be read to determine if it was actually worth reading- not the best way to spend your day. By taking the few seconds to customize your Dashboard, you will be able to trust that everything you need to know will be ready and waiting for you. And even better, with a wiki, collaborating on that information is only two clicks away. Which brings us to the next reason why people appreciate the Custom Dashboard: 2. Everyone accomplishes tasks in a different way, so the closer you can match your Dashboard to your tasks, the sooner they will be completed. Whether you are an active wiki contributor or someone who is looking for quick answers to questions, you can setup your Dashboard to get you one step closer to accomplishing what you need to do. Many organizations are to the point where they are measuring productivity gains in minutes instead of hours, and having a well layed-out Dashboard can give you quite a boost. By giving some quick thought to the things that you do with your wiki most often, you can make sure those actions are available as front-and-center as possible. Also, hiding the things that are unimportant to you can be just as valuable- the less 'noise' there is, the easier it will be to focus on what you need to do. If you aren't a subscriber, or have not yet seen our Custom Dashboard, we invite you to take a look with a free trial. Information that matters has never been so easy to find.
We have talked about our partnership with Smartsheet.com in the recent past, but we have now completed the integration between our products, and we are thrilled with what we were able to do. Just as when we added Blogs to our Enterprise Wiki, we didn't want the Smartsheet integration to feel like something that had been bolted on to the core interface- we really wanted it to feel like a natural extension of BrainKeeper. With the help of the Smartsheet.com team, we think that we were able to come up with a great solution. We felt like there was a need to keep tasks, lists, and other structured content in the same place as your knowledgebase, idea, and collaboration software. After looking at a number of alternatives, we sought out Smartsheet because of the unique collaborative aspects to their product- which mirrored BrainKeeper in many ways. Smartsheet really is the perfect complement to the BrainKeeper Enterprise Wiki. To give you a better sense for exactly what Smartsheet does, here is an exerpt from the Press Release: "Smartsheet gives you task management features that make it easy to get things done. With Smartsheet, you can easily create custom lists, assign due dates, and identify next steps. Quickly view recent changes made by team members and keep track of where things stand. Additional features including real-time alerts and e-mail based update requests that post directly to your Smartsheet." We are glad to have Smartsheet.com as a trusted BrainKeeper partner, and we hope you enjoy having Smartsheets available from within your BrainKeeper Wiki. As always, please let us know if you have any feedback for us- regarding this or anything else.
Software as a Service continues to gain momentum in the area of collaboration and knowledge management as decision-makers become more comfortable with the ideas of having their information stored offsite, not having to worry about security or accessibility, and entrusting others with the overall performance of their mission-critical systems. In this post we'll address that last one: performance.
A major problem with installed software when comparing it to hosted software is that it takes quite a while to develop new releases, and so new technologies, methodologies, and simple (yet brilliant) ideas may wait for two of those long release cycles (since the current release is already set) before they end up in the product. Releases for hosted software can be days, rather than months.
Case in point, we are working on a few new features that are aimed at improving the overall performance of the BrainKeeper application. By forging a partnership with the IT teams of our subscribers, we were able to focus on the areas that we wanted to target- and we have seen some great preliminary results.
Another point along these lines is that we were only able to develop these improvements quickly and get the desired performance boost because we developed our application from scratch. Building an enterprise wiki on top of an open-source platform can work, but knowing every function has a number of great advantages.
This is why Software as a Service works as well as it does; by being a partner with your clients, having an environment where you can release enhancements when clients need them- not when it is convenient, and having improvements made by the same people who developed the core architecture- you are served much better than with traditional software. Especially with a Web 2.0 application like an enterprise wiki, such as BrainKeeper.
In another step toward making BrainKeeper an even better fit for subscribers with a larger user base, we have released a few new features that have been requested by those who want to have a bit more control over the content in their Page Notes and Blog Comments. BrainKeeper already has full Page and Blog Post content approval workflow, so that one or many people can ensure that changes made within a Workspace are accurate and thorough. With our latest release, we have added moderation for Notes and Comments, so that these can be held to the same standard as other content in BrainKeeper.
We have also centralized the documents within a Workspace so that they can be accessed easily from the Workspace Dashboard. We will have more document management enhancements coming soon as well.
In addition, we have made enhancements to our Online Help, our Workspace Export, and a number of little features that make BrainKeeper an easy application to use- but powerful enough for any organization.
The next set of enhancements will be coming soon, and will include some items that we are all very excited about. We are looking to continue building upon our collaboration features to facilitate more (and better) communication.
We are very excited to announce the addition of integrated Blogs to the BrainKeeper Enterprise Wiki! You can now capture key thoughts and ideas from everyone in your company, and start dialogues about a wide range of topics. We went through a number of designs before settling on the one that we released, and we have received very positive feedback from everyone who has used the blogging features so far.
One of the key initiatives for us when developing our Blog was to make sure it was integrated with our existing features. We believe very strongly that major feature sets should work together tightly to get the most benefit out of an integrated system, so we made sure that tags, search, alerts, permissions, and workflow are all available in Blogs, the same way they are available for the Wiki.
There were a number of little modifications that were made to the wiki as well- we aimed to have those changes be subtle enough that they will not distract from how you use BrainKeeper, but they will be nice to have when you need them. Among these new features is a content export capability, remote and embedded flash content integration, and some general design improvements.
We hope you find these enhancements valuable, and if you don't already have an account, we invite you to signup for a free trial to see our new Blogs for yourself.
It has been awhile since our last post, but trust us- there is a good reason for it: we have been working nonstop on the features you have been asking for. These enhancements have already been well received by our subscribers. For an example, look no further than the Law Office Technology Blog.
If you have never seen BrainKeeper, we hope we can convince you to give us a look. If you have tried BrainKeeper before- these new features certainly warrant another free trial...
Corporate Identity Package
We have combined all of our Enterprise Wiki look and feel customization features together to create a complete branding solution. This obviously appeals to the Marketing folks, but if you work with partners, contractors, etc.- you now have a way to promote yourself with your BrainKeeper Enterprise Wiki. The features in the Corporate Identity Package include: a custom login page, a custom 'landing' page after login, complete CSS customization, custom logos, and a fully customizable domain (so that you can point http://wiki.yourCompany.com to your BrainKeeper Enterprise Wiki). We will even help you with your design if you need it!
Enhanced Tagging
We have expanded the number of items you can tag, and provided a number of new ways to view tagged content. There are tag clouds on a number of levels- personal tags, company tags, workspace tags, etc. We have more tagging options than any other wiki, and wait until you see what is coming next...
Usability
We hate the phrase "bells and whistles" when it comes to our software, because we carefully develop each "bell" and "whistle" to make sure it is useful for you- nothing is developed just for the sake of developing it. That being said, we have added a number of little things that will make your use of BrainKeeper that much more streamlined and intuitive.
Stay tuned for some truly exciting features that we will be rolling out in the coming weeks and months. To learn more about the features we already have, please visit our website: www.brainkeeper.com.
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