
It Is 2009. Why Is "Groupware" Still So Hard? - ivankirigin
http://continuations.com/post/225843889/it-is-2009-why-is-groupware-still-so-hard
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teeja
"groups come in all forms and as a result have very different requirements....
The response of the service providers has compounded this problem ... they all
seem to want to own the group and lock it in."

I guess the title was a rhetorical question!

It's hard for a small design group to understand the universe; the imagined
'solutions' are limited. And it's hard to design a set of tools that people
can use to evolve their own solutions. But it's a hard problem. Simplistic
'answers' will fail.

I'm reminded of many attempts at educational software. Too often the
programmers clearly had a limited view of what constitutes education. You
can't design your way out of your own limited perspective. Research has to
precede theory; else you wind up with solutions to the wrong problems.

Proprietary solutions tend to be more passionate about making money than at
helping people. Bass-ackwards.

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mrshoe
Since each company has unique needs, I actually think it's a horrible idea to
try to design one piece of software that works for everyone. You'll end up
with SharePoint.

With ShopTalk, we're trying to solve just one (very important) piece of the
puzzle: real-time communication. We don't want to own the group, though, as
the article says. Since most organizations have some sort of LDAP server (MS
Active Directory being the most common), we'll be rolling out LDAP integration
soon, so that you only have to add/remove/update users in one place and they
only have to remember one password. SSO ftw.

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robin_reala
At this point it’s obligatory to link to JWZ’s groupware essay:
<http://www.jwz.org/doc/groupware.html>

Salient point: _If you want to do something that's going to change the world,
build software that people want to use instead of software that managers want
to buy_

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Tawheed
I think Basecamp is pretty good, so is Basecamp, when it comes to GroupWare.
We're also "sort of" building better GroupWare: <http://askmybraintrust.com>

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sjs382
Because everyone's needs and workflows are different.

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joe_the_user
I would expand that to "everyone's needs are different and the domain of
'groupware' is tying the different workflows together globally" - an
inherently hard problem.

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metabrew
Because it's not a sexy problem to work on, so no-one really wants to spend
any time making it better.

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dustingetz
everything is sexy to someone--otherwise we wouldn't have craigslist singles

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thwarted
The existence of craigslist singles doesn't support the assertion that
everything sexy to someone, it supports the assertion that there are a bunch
of people who have not found someone who finds them sexy -- in fact, that it
exists at all and has new postings could almost be proof that there are things
that are globally considered non-sexy. If everyone on craigslist singles,
100%, found a match, that would support that everything is sexy to someone.

