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Lockheed develops open source, social media framework
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Lockheed Martin has announced the release of a proprietary
social media tool, using an open source software license. The platform
is one of a growing number of offerings meant to tap the power of
collaboration between employees, while creating a secure environment to
share content using blogs and wikis.
The new framework, called Eureka Framework, blends different social
media tools to facilitate employee interaction and discuss information
from internal or external sources.
According to Lockheed Martin’s Social Media Program Manager Shawn
Dahlen, “The Eureka Framework is a blend of iGoogle, Facebook, and
Twitter.”
Lockheed has already found a niche to leverage their social media
technology towards employees and government agencies in the aerospace
and defense industry. But according to Mr. Dahlen, the tool can be
easily adopted within the state and local government landscape.
“Governments can use the offering to communicate internally with their
workers and to set up a public facing site to engage citizens,” he said
in an e-mail.
By releasing the tool under an open source license, the company will
allow users to customize the tool for employees and enhances their
ability to track and share information in an increasingly virtual work
environment. “The code will be published under an open source license,
so it will be free for anyone to download, use and extend,” Mr. Dahlen
said.
Lockheed has already made waves in the Web 2.0 world. Earlier this
year, Lockheed’s Information Systems & Global Services group
launched Project Unity. Unity integrates Google enterprise search
appliance (GSA), Microsoft’s Windows Sharepoint Servicess (WSS) and
NewsGator’s Enterprise Server. To view a demonstration of how Newsgator
works with Sharepoint, see a YouTube video by clicking here. Unity also sports discussion forums, a social bookmarking tool called uBookmark and weekly activity reporting.
“[Eureka Framework] actually complements [Unity] by aggregating the
activity within Unity and publishing it to the employee’s channel,” Mr.
Dahlen said.
Lockheed’s open source, social media tool, pits them against similar
industry offerings like Booz Allen Hamilton’s SharePoint-based
enterprise 2.0 tool, hello.bah.com.
Booz Allen’s tool features blogs, podcasts, RSS, and wikis. Its
homepage consists of Communities, People, Forums, Blogs, Wikis, and
Bookmarks. There are over 300 communities around interests such as
Wireless Communications, Emerging Technologies, and Cyber Security,
according to the company.
Similarly, Computer Science Corporation (CSC) has a Facebook-like
application that is in the testing stages, with a pilot underway with
Jive Software. The internal social networking tool enables 91,000
employees to collaborate and share ideas. In a recent interview with Washington Technology
CSC’s corporate vice president and chief technology officer John
Glowacki said, “I think this is going to be another one of those things
that will help define our collaborative environment.”
So far, Booz Allen and CSC have not turned their internal social
media gaze outward. But as for Lockheed’s Eureka Framework, the code
should be available to enterprise and government-use later this year.
To view the original article, click here. Or, go to CivSource to read more on how state and local leaders are leveraging technology.
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