Living by Design

I keep tripping over a fascinating company with an intriguing set of values, processes and services. They are committed to community, to making the world a better place, to taking innovation to a new level, and at the same time are commercially very successful. And no, I don't work for them... yet. Salesforce.com . What's the big deal? CRM as a service, so what? Sourceforge has taken the "R" in CRM seriously, and have nurtured a core competence that's sure to keep them in the lead. We're already seeing these dynamics in play in their ongoing dance with Google . It's refreshing when companies actually do what they believe in. It provides a fundamental driving force that accelerates their success... inspiration . They Care The Salesforce Foundation was set up within a year of the start of the company. The " Power of Us " philosophy is a core value of the company: giving back to the community. 1% of employee time is allocated towards commu...

Photo Credit: 3D Wiki in Second Life - 3pointD.com Almost five years ago, I introduced one of the first wikis into the corporate environment of a large healthcare company. We needed to solve a very simple, pervasive problem. The common challenge for a global team of analysts was twofold: I found something interesting, but there is no obvious place to store it in the project infrastructure or corporate taxonomy. I need to quickly find this stored information when it becomes relevant, even if I forgot about it in the interim. The best solution at the time: a reused server under my desk loaded with SWIKI, a dead-easy Wiki server, all under the radar of corporate IT. Apart from solving the above-mentioned problems, we quickly experienced some of the exciting knowledge flow and work team dynamics that are inherently encouraged by Wiki technology . Five years later, Wikis are the talk of the town. This same company has now purchased an enterprise Wiki that is accelerating interaction and...