[australia] Wikis in organisations

[Matthew Moore]

>From what I have seen of wikis they are suitable for small-scale, light-weight collaborative authoring activities. Whilst Wikipedia is good, it should not be taken as the model for most enterprise content management needs.

I also saw them used in IBM as a kind of content management "glue" - where groups could actively manage navigation links to relevant materials in many different content repositories.

On several occasions, I have heard wikis described as "self-managing". This is complete rubbish. As Melanie says, they need an owner to keep and eye on structure & champion use - while not choking off the initiative of individuals.

-----Original Message-----
From: australia-bounces at lists.cmprofessionals.org
[mailto:australia-bounces at lists.cmprofessionals.org]On Behalf Of Melanie
Kendell
Sent: Thursday, 12 October 2006 11:33 AM
To: White, David
Cc: australia at lists.cmprofessionals.org
Subject: Re: [australia] Wikis in organisations


On 12/10/06, White, David <David.White at railcorp.nsw.gov.au> wrote:
> I'd like to second Brad's request for info on how people are using
> wikis.

We are using a wiki for our group with branches for each project that
we're involved in. The main effort is a data warehousing project but
that is being driven by several business projects that want to use the
data and reporting framework - so they are quite heavily linked.

> They seem to be a potentially useful tool for the development of
> knowledge and perhaps content within an organisation.

Huge potential, not always realised.

> Is anyone here using a wiki within a business unit or whole of
> organisation?

I believe most intranets could benefit from being built on wiki lines.

> What are the important standards and online/offline
> processes required to make the wiki work well? (alliteration intentional

I think the most important thing is to give it air - don't stiffle it
with restrictions on who can edit what (malicious editing is rare,
especially when changes are tracked against users).

The hardest thing is to get people to actually put stuff on it. It's
worth having a wiki "editor" who seeks out content that should be
there and tidies up both content and structure. This creates a
positive cycle - wiki becomes more valuable > more people will use it
> more people contribute > wiki becomes more valuable.

Unfortunately, it's mostly left to the wiki advocates to squeeze in as
much as they can around they're normal jobs so wikis rarely fulfil
their potential as the fount of all current and correct knowledge.

-Melanie
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