Opening up the Mesh? what do you think?

[Niels van der Zeyst]

Hi Mesh Members. We're thinking of opening up the Mesh; i.e. removing the "invitation only" entry barrier. This will allow us to grow the network and make use of features such as RSS to monitor updates etc...

What do you think? Good idea? bad idea? Buts and ifs? Please not we can still create private groups for sensitive topics. This will also allow us to create groups for exmplae for client teams etc...

Let us know what you think!

[Rick Mans]

We are not amongst colleagues. Most of the people who joined the Mesh are from Capgemini, however there are quite a few that are not from Capgemini.

Rik Laurens said:

Niels, not a good idea. I think one of the nice things about The Mesh is that we are amongst colleagues. Colleagues that i would not have met without it. If i want to blog on the WWW, i have loads of blog sites to chose from; i do not need a new one.

What do you think yourself?

R.

[Rik Laurens]

Oh... ok. Was not aware of that. Anyway: this is not a problem for me, but the case that most of the people are Capgemini staff makes The Mesh special for me.

R.

Rick Mans said:

We are not amongst colleagues. Most of the people who joined the Mesh are from Capgemini, however there are quite a few that are not from Capgemini.

Rik Laurens said:

Niels, not a good idea. I think one of the nice things about The Mesh is that we are amongst colleagues. Colleagues that i would not have met without it. If i want to blog on the WWW, i have loads of blog sites to chose from; i do not need a new one.

What do you think yourself?

R.

[Nikhil Nulkar]

I think I tend to agree a little with Rik and a little with others!

I feel if we are looking at a closed Capgemini only platform then KM2.0 is good (behind the firewalls) though its still not matured and we all probably would expect a lot more features and functionalities.

As far as Mesh is concerned we can have it as a platform for connecting with our clients/partners etc who should not access KM2.0 kind of systems. Mesh will allow us (Capgemini) to collaborate with all of us internally as well as with folks outside Capgemini who work closely with us. However I still feel we must keep Mesh closed, rather give access to only those who we think we work with. I guess thats the state when we started this. Who governs it and other things we may have to think of.

So use Mesh for all the things that we cant do internally which involves externals and thus avoid any duplication of effort from KM2.0 or the likes.

[Niels van der Zeyst]

Thanks very much for all your feedback! Its great to see that the Mesh has stirred up som many interesting discussions.

As a conclusion of this thread: the general message is that we should open up but with a more clearly defined mission. The current idea behind the Mesh is a thinktank / dicsussion formum around "all topics 2.0"; which is somewhat broad and vague. A refinement of this into discsussions around "Business technology"; From a broad societal context to more specific topics such as delivery (through, for example, RDV), Architecture, trends and news, Innovation etc... across all disciplines, should be implemented before opening up. So, discussion around specific topics on
Business Technology with a focus on networking, learning, connecting and sharing with a broader stakeholder group!

Rick, indeed, keeping the discussion behind closed bars will have its advantages, however, this was not the intention from the onset... we were looking for a forum to interact with stakeholders in a broader sense. Please note KM2.0 will be changing drastically in the future. And I think you will still find the topics interesting enough to participate; we will make sure proper moderation is in place to guarantee this.

We will be opening up next week, I hereby ask all of you (and will also do so via mail) to help identify information which should be removed; please let me know. You will receive a message on progress.

Lets make this Mesh a Succes!

[Pete Franklin]

I think I should state first that I am in principle opposed to keeping any collaboration platform closed - but I recognise that in some specific circumstances such restrictions can encourage/permit a type of discussion that could not otherwise occur. Disclaimer over.
The Mesh, Yammer, Twitter, Chatterous, Google Apps/Sites/Gtalk, Facebook (& chat), GIMS and external IM, Teamrooms, KM2.0, http://wiki.capgemini.com, http://nl-wiki-01.capgemini.nl/blog/, Blogger etc...
We are not exactly short of collaboration opportunities, but if you analyse the active communities on most of the above you see the same names again and again. So any platform needs a clear sense of purpose if it is to add value. The Mesh used to have the unique feature that it was a closed community with a mixed (Capgemini and non-Capgemini) population (although I think that many of the Capgemini members had not noticed the non-Capgemini contingent). If you open it up, it has no unique feature and is arguably competing for an audience with several of the above. Since the thing that any collaborative platform needs more than anything else is a critical mass of contributors, it is at least possible that opening up the Mesh would be dilutive and hence damaging to social networking and collaboration within Capgemini.

[York Earwaker]

Excellent. Wish I had more time to participate. But I'm still missing the core purpose. What is its primary purpose?

I'd like to see a vision statement, goals supporting vision and objects to achieve goals. Or a list of principles. Or both. To help me better tailor my participation.

[York Earwaker]

So I agree with Pete's comments above. It's main distinguishing feature is it's being a closed community. Weather or not we open it up a definition of what it exists for would be helpful. Otherwise it is just a talking shop and difficult to understanding how to make meaningful contributions towards it's reson detra.

It sometimes appears to me that, as a result of a lack of a core vision for the Mesh, some of contributions are made for promotional purposes. I hope that does not appear negative. To mix metaphors wearing my hart on my sleeve I have probably shot my self in the foot. And have probably elected myself into the category Chris Yapp had mentioned as needing moderating out of the community. Hope that's not the case.

Happy 2009. ;-)

All the best,
York

York Earwaker said:

Excellent. Wish I had more time to participate. But I'm still missing the core purpose. What is its primary purpose?

I'd like to see a vision statement, goals supporting vision and objects to achieve goals. Or a list of principles. Or both. To help me better tailor my participation.