ThoughtFarmer has been cranking out the news lately, this one caught my attention since I helped build, rebuild, and throw my hands up in frustration several Intranets in the past:

Recently, IDEO embarked on a new project to empower their internal communities to create and manage their own online collaborative spaces. With more than 500 employees in eight offices around the world, they sought better ways to share knowledge and collaborate across physical distances.

“We knew that wikis promised much of what we were after,” says Gentry Underwood, project lead for the initiative. “But most of the tools on the market are too difficult to use. We wanted something intuitive and straightforward, that our communities could pick up and start using without training.” Source: ThoughtFarmer Blog » ThoughtFarmer an integral component of IDEO’s intranet

Yep the easy and yet powerful Intranet.  Seems like a fools errand.  Okay seemed like a fools errand back in the late nineties when I was looking at such tools as Peachtree and Livelink.  Now, the tools are better, the computers and connections faster so this isn’t a fools errand.  Okay shouldn’t be.

IDEO must know good design and usability when they see it.  Is this the kudo for ThoughtFarmer?  Maybe.  One thing I do like to see is that Canadian technology is still on the leading edge of the industry.

ThoughtFarmer has been on my radar since Office 2.0 last summer.  I haven’t been a huge fan of wikis, but the ThoughtFarmer system isn’t really a wiki.  It is, well, a sophisticated, easy-to-use Intranet system.

This week ThoughtFarmer has released v 2.5 of their Intranet system, which focuses on using drag-n-drop for user control giving you the information you want when you want it.

You might think that the era of the Intranet is over, but actually it’s only beginning.  When SarbOx hit the scene user control and document management became a high priority item for public companies.  Now having tight control over users, content, and revisions is key to just keeping your doors open.

The problem with a lot of “Intranet systems” has been that they aren’t great at meshing into existing systems and not the more easy buggers to use.  Believe me, back in the day I had to deal with a lot of them.

This is one thing that impressed me about ThoughtFarmer (beyond wikis is just selling them short).  It makes sense.  You can “get it” at the first look.

Even with the screen shots on their blog post I can get what I’d need to do on each screen.  Nice job guys.

Now, maybe I can get a chance to try it out live…

For more info on the new release: ThoughtFarmer Blog » ThoughtFarmer 2.5: The ultimate intranet

Dabble DB continues to help their users use Dabble DB better with all their applications.  Today’s tip/tutorial is–Checking the right boxes–more on getting your UI just right in your application.

Might be simple, but if your users can’t use the application–then everyone’s time has been wasted.

While I’ve been catching up this week Strutta came out of stealth and Techvibes got the first post/scoop on this new online video-based game:

Strutta is an arena, a platform for video competitions, called “games”. A game is created with a theme, such as “Best George W. Bush Impression” or “Best Surprise Wedding Dance”. Users can submit videos for that theme, watch others, and vote which they think is the best.  A key rule is that a user must submit their own video: either they appear in it or are holding the camera. A broad set of categories makes space for almost any video. Leaderboards and graphs provide comprehensive statistics. I was impressed with the clean and functional interface design. Users can start using the site right away and register later.

The site incorporates Web 2.0 features well: videos can be recording from within a browser, uploaded, and embedded from YouTube. Contacts can be added from Facebook and LinkedIn. Its built on Drupal, and powered by Amazon’s EC2 and S3 services, ready to scale. Source: Strutta comes out of stealth: a different kind of “video game” | Techvibes Blog

I don’t have an invite in, yet, and I didn’t see a way to request one on the homepage.  No matter, I’m sure I’ll be able to get a look at it soon enough.

This takes YouTube and Seesmic to the next level.  Who can be the most creative on a given theme?  Who has a great video stashed somewhere to share?  This, to me, is a sign that computers and connections are ready for online video as a solid source of entertainment.  Or is it?

Have computers and connections really caught up?
I hang out with a lot of non-geeks (shocking, I know) and it seems to me that there are a lot of computers out there that can’t really handle this kind of video.  Believe me I’ve tried to help (though I’m starting to play dumb when people ask about their computers), but sometimes an older machine with barely enough RAM and a basic or “lite” Net connection just can’t have a decent experience with online video.

So geeks might be ready…but the rest of the world?  I don’t know.

This isn’t to say that this isn’t cool and great.  In fact the more cool and fun things (okay and useful stuff helps too) there are online, the more people will want faster machines and faster connections.

Other Strutta coverage:

• Strutta - The Game is (Almost) On
• What is a Strutta and is the game on yet? » Miss604’s Vancouver Blog
• Vincent Janelle » Strutta.com launch

David Baines wrote an article in the Vancouver Sun on Saturday about GiveMeaning.  From the quick skim I did and Tom’s response, it sounds like David is raising questions about financial disclosure at GiveMeaning.  This is an excerpt from Tom’s response:

Nevertheless, his main contention is that GiveMeaning Foundation has spent more money building the GiveMeaning brand and service than it has raised money for its projects. This is not only not in dispute but not surprising to anyone that knows anything about a start-up business. GiveMeaning launched its re-vamped website in late September of 05. Prior to that, our web presence was in Beta and very little transactions flowed through. The numbers that Baines is reporting on is our first full year of collecting tax-receipted donations in Canada for the GiveMeaning website. Given that our
average donation through the website is about $40, our first-year tally of money raised for projects is not surprising. It’s also not surprising to anyone that understands the nature of a start-up that in the first few years of operation that start-up costs will exceed revenues. It took eBay eight years to make a profit. Source: The $5 philanthropist: My response to David Baines’ article this past Saturday

I’ve talked with Tom on several occasions and even met him in person.  I find talking with him energizing and inspiring.  I think any organization like GiveMeaning is going to attract scrutiny.  Personally I like Tom’s response, it’s clear and straightforward.  I hope that now this will put any and all questions to rest.

Update Feb 21, 2008:  It’s been almost a month since I wrote this post and as of this moment there are 63 comments on it.  I have a lot of mixed feelings about this post.  At first I thought, wow Tom is getting a bad wrap.  But I’ve been reading the comments with an open mind and well now I don’t know.

A couple weeks ago Tom emailed me privately to express his concern about some of the comments.  He asked that I take down defamatory comments, or he will be forced to take legal action.  I read through all the comments, as did the content and executive team of b5media, and found one that I thought was over the line so I deleted it.  Since then I haven’t been approving all comments.  There have been two in the last couple days that I will not post.

After deleting the one comment, I told Tom and offered that he could be on my BlogTalkRadio show to give his side of the story.  Tom hasn’t replied to that offer.  This week I received a letter from GiveMeaning’s lawyers, which is now in the hands of our lawyers.

I stand by freedom of speech.  I stand for open conversations.  I can’t abide ad hominem attacks though.

I decided to update this post to let you know that I still read all the comments and my offer to Tom is still open.  If Tom accepts I would have callers on the line unless he agrees.

I also still believe the idea of GiveMeaning is great, however I think there are legitimate questions about the site/company/foundation that need to be answered and addressed.

I would like to know if all the questions and criticisms can be answered.  Right now, however, I have my doubts about that as well.

It’s a simple thing, but user interface is so important and when developers care about that it makes a huge difference for users.  The folks at Dabble DB  have a post on their blog about combo boxes that is a good read.  Why?  Because it shows, to me at least, that they are thinking about what users need:

Today’s blog post isn’t about a new feature to Dabble DB, but to me, the user interface designer, it feels just as significant.

Interface design on the web can be both simple and complex. The simple path is often the wisest. Don’t deviate from what everyone else does and people will figure out your interface. That’s why you see blue links everywhere on the web: not because there’s anything special about blue, but because that’s what everyone is used to.

Sometimes though, the norm doesn’t quite cut it. Or worse, there is no norm to do the cutting in the first place. One example is the combo box widget. A “combo box” is what we design nerds call it when a text box has a drop-down menu attached and they interact. (And a “widget” is interface-design-speak for a thing that you interact with, like a text box or a button.) In theory, when you start typing in the text box, a drop-down menu appears below, and shows choices related to what you’ve typed. Ideally, it changes quickly as you type. Source: Dabble DB Blog: Building a better widget

Simple.  Elegant.  Important.  Love it.  Props to them.

I still haven’t used Dabble DB, to be honest, but that’s only because I’m not generally a DB guy.  I’ve talked with Avi a bunch, last time was Office 2.0.  I think I need to touchbase again and see what’s up with Dabble.