MindTouch Lets Businesses Crowdsource Data Without Giving Away the Store
by Lisa Hoover - Sep. 01, 2009Comments (0)- Related Blog Posts
- MindTouch Launches Cloud-Based Collaboration Platform
- Open Source Execs Name Most Influential People in FOSS
- OStatic Buffer Overflow...
- MindTouch 2009 Released, Now Includes Video Collaboration
- MindTouch Fires a Shot Across the Bow of Corporate Intranets
Imagine a business putting its prized product documentation online, and inviting customers, partners, or anyone who happens by to drop to collaborate on it, then just hope for the best. Such a model may work in the FOSS community but, realistically, that lack of control isn't right for every product or company. In fact, corporate transparency requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act may outright forbid it in some situations. Allowing outsiders to drop into a corporate intranet unaccompanied is preposterous, but building an impenetrable moat around the company isn't the answer either.
Enterprise collaboration software vendor MindTouch added a Collaborative Knowledge Base to its list of offerings this week. It's designed for businesses to let customers and partners access corporate documentation without turning over the keys to the entire store. MindTouch's latest idea combines the ability for people outside a company to collaborate on projects with the security businesses need to maintain order and control.
Calling it "safe crowdsourcing," MindTouch says the Collaborative Knowledge Base "empowers customers and partners to update and contribute information to a company’s knowledge base. The solution allows those outside the organization to collaborate on common support documents, including reference guides, tutorials, FAQs, files, images, or videos. The solution’s advanced authoring tool is designed for ease of use, giving non-technical users the ability to create content."
The Collaborative Knowledge Base has strong security features so sections can be restricted to specific users or groups. It offers word blacklisting, collaborative video editing, IP blocking and banning, and can even overcome language barrier issues with a unique UI localization polyglot.
This is, once again, pretty impressive stuff from a company that has clearly been keeping tabs on the future of collaborative networks for some time now. The Collaborative Knowledge Base is second in a series of packages MindTouch plans to offer to companies that want to harness the collective wisdom of the crowd. MindTouch Collaborative Intranet was launched earlier this summer as a way for businesses to boost productivity among employees and foster communication with customers.
Comments
