Page 303 -

286 Chapter 8

Box 8.2
An example: Teamware

Teamware Group, a Fujitsu subsidiary, implemented an interactive web community solu-
tion for the city of Kerava in Finland. The solution enhances communication between
and within the city managers, city board, city council, and other elected offi cials, and
offers them facilities to interact and distribute information regardless of time or location.
The objective of the system is to facilitate the daily work of the city administrators by
providing them with a new virtual means of interaction in addition to the traditional
meetings and sessions. “ It has become more and more diffi cult for the city administrators
to take care of their duties within the normal working hours and premises. Therefore,
it is essential to provide them with facilities to communicate and obtain information
without the boundaries of time or location, ” says IT manager Ari Sainio from the city of
Kerava.
The new system was built on the Teamware Pl@za platform and integrated with the
existing Teamware Offi ce groupware solution, which means that now e-mail, city archives,
electronic calendars, and bulletin boards will be available for the city administrators
through a standard web browser. In order to enhance interaction between the city offi cials,
the system is augmented with discussion facilities where individuals can exchange
opinions and discuss different issues. Various archives and fi les are created for content
management purposes. Different user groups are provided with their own virtual work-
spaces that can be accessed only by authorized members. Thanks to Teamware Pl@za ’ s
decentralized and easy-to-use updating functionality, the city offi cials can update the pages
themselves.

for tracking projects and communicating with employees over their in-house
intranets.
An example is Wikipedia (http://en.Wikipedia.org/Wiki/Main_Page), a free ency-
clopedia written by literally thousands of people around the world. Wikis exist for
thousands of topics (http://www.worldwideWiki.et/Wiki/SwitchWiki). If one does not
exist for your favorite subject, you can start one on it and add it to the list.
Wikis support new types of communications by combining Internet applications
and web sites with human voices. That means people can collaborate online more
easily, whether they are working together on a brief or working with a realtor online
to tour offi ces space in another city. Outside the offi ce, it means customer service
representatives can interact with customers more readily, which should advance
e-commerce ( Leuf and Cunningham 2001 ). Cunningham, a programmer, decided to
build the most minimal working database possible and started the fi rst wiki in 1995.
The idea was to provide a simple web site where programmers could quickly and easily