I’ve spent a lot of time in Israel over the years, the vast majority of my relatives live there and I have a soft spot for the place, tortured and torturous though it is. I’m always staggered to see the amount of Hi-Tech IP that a tiny, security-challenged, geographically isolated and resource poor country can produce. From world leading irrigation technologies to a wealth of software and hardware products.
I’m also an evangelist for Web 2.0 as an enabler and somewhat incredulous that enterprise would see it as a threat and ban it from their workplaces.
Put Israel and Web 2.0 for enterprise together and what do you have? WorkLight, an application that allows Facebook functinality with a secure enterprise grade overlay. WorkLight have this to say about their offering;
WorkBook allows employees to securely interact with their peers using the hugely-popular Facebook service. WorkBook combines all the capabilities of Facebook with all the controls of a corporate environment, including integration with existing enterprise security services and information sources. With WorkBook, employees can find and stay in touch with corporate colleagues, publish company-related news, create bookmarks to enterprise application data and securely share the bookmarks with authorized colleagues, update on status change and get general company news. Employees can freely use Facebook, with the WorkBook overlay, with no danger of information leaking outside the organization or access being granted to unauthorized personnel.
Well done WorkLight – Kol Ha Kavod!
Ben said…
I’m always staggered to see the amount of Hi-Tech IP that a tiny, security-challenged, geographically isolated and resource poor country can produce.
Yep, I agree. The amount of publications in technology area such as computing & electronics is huge from what I have seen in the literatures. Israel’s population size is comparable to NZ, but technology research publications that is coming out from Israeli researchers is tremendous. One can open up any journal in computing, and be guaranteed to find an article that was submitted and accepted for publication by authors from Israel. A few years ago, I had implemented a computer-vision-based industrial-inspection software software based on a publication by authors from Technion Institute. Technion Institute is one of the top in the world in technology. I am too is also amazed at the Israeli’s high-tech researches in technology of the high quality.
Ben
This is great – we have been looking for a tool like this – we have lots of people internally using Facebook for personal reasons who would be really keen to use something like this for internal collaboration. Will give it a go and let you know how we get on
Great Miki – Let me know….
Just to add to that, Watson Wyatt Worldwide, a leading global consulting firm predicts that companies will focus on upgrading and integrating their human resources technology in 2008 in an effort to improve administration and better engage employees.Among likely trends are the increased adoption of advanced Web solutions, such as wikis, blogs and social networking, and a focus on making HR technology easier for employees to use.
Bring sexy back in software!
Correct Nina – especially here in New Zealand where the labour resource is hugely constrained and businesses are crying out to gain, and retain, staff
Thanks for the information Ben.
I have to take a closer look to the architecture of the product, but it’s the kind of solution that a lot of employees are looking for : continuing using consumer solution, but with enterprise data and processes.
I like the idea of deploying Web 2.0 applications into enterprise environments. Online social networks in the public domain tend to rely on random serendipity and the return on my time investment is not always clear. Using Web 2.0 inhouse has a greater potential return if implemented and moderated wisely.
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Israel technology tangent: I was recently approached by an Israeli acting on behalf of some American firms who are looking to purchase rights to proprietary I.P. in the ICT area. So if anyone knows anyone with patents for sale…
Hey Ben, working with Miki, how can we progress ?….
to quote my friends at Nike….
Just do it!
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