FreeKARL
The business plan needs a way to get a lot of users trying out KARL
for real work. Then, when their needs advance to a certain level of
commitment, they have a different engagement with KARL.
This FreeKARL proposal provides this. With FreeKARL, there is a KARL
site running where users can (with limits) make communities and invite
colleagues, without paying.
Proposal
- Run a KARL site as part of MultiKARL which is branded as a
one-big-KARL, not under the name of any particular organization.
- Certain people can get accounts with KarlStaff access, allowing them
to create communities and invite KarlAffiliate users.
- FreeKARL is for people and small teams, not organizational use.
Once KARL becomes important enough to need an organizational
commitment, they are upsold to a for-fee KARL. Some ability to
export information and/or share information from/between FreeKARL
and a real KARL might be required (e.g. common profiles.)
- FreeKARL is also the venue for pan-KARL collaboration and
information sharing (e.g. management of the KARL consortium, user
manual authoring, etc.) As such, it is reasonable to think, once
upsold, users will remain active in FreeKARL.
- If possible, FreeKARL might also have plugins which allow certain
information to be visible to anonymous visitors, thus being used as
a normal internet site.
Specification
- Allow some limits on resources to ensure that FreeKARL doesn’t get
out of hand. For example, each KarlStaff can only create 5
communities, each community can only hold X documents.
- Upsell from FreeKARL to small/medium/large might require an
export/import step to bring along any FreeKARL content which needs
to fly under the new flag.
- Use FreeKARL as the place to stash information that is pan-KARL
(e.g. user manual) or perhaps even anonymous-accessible (marketing
info.)
- Changes in security model.
- No /offices intranets.
- Impact of identity and profiles.
- Don’t leave their FreeKARL behind.
- Flexible restrictions on who is given access.
- Impact on PEOPLE and TAGS tabs. Anybody who is KarlStaff will be
able to see anybody. Does that make sense?
- How do organizations choose a pile of users in FreeKARL when doing
the upsell?