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Communication is key and a WIKI is one way for a company to enhance and extend team collaboration from within. A WIKI is a website where content is contributed, edited and organized by its users. Contributing users can quickly create pages and add valuable content and links between them. This type of sharing was available with previous generations of collaborative technology although it did not have the ease of use and creative freedom that WIKIs provide. Groupware, document management and knowledge management systems typically impose more structure and administrative control; whereas WIKIs have more freedom yet still offer the necessary controls to ensure structure.

WIKIs really begin to shine when information needs to be shared in a team atmosphere. A good example of this is a corporate call center or help desk. The ability for phone representatives to build a powerful and fluid knowledge base provides a place where knowledge can be transferred and shared. By nature, WIKIs allow the community of users to keep information up to date, even if they lack technical website knowledge.

A company can take WIKIs to the next level by harnessing this organic knowledge base and syndicating it through RSS feeds, offering information in and out of the company. Imagine your customers accessing the same content through the real time web applications that your help desk or other support team use. RSS and WIKI technology are pretty straight forward. Together, they capture your company’s knowledge and create a distribution model covering other corners of your business where this information is needed.

Why WIKI? It can help your company organize and share information, particularly in areas where information is changing quickly or there is a rapid turnover resulting in a loss of critical knowledge. Add a touch of social networking to the mix and you now have a breeding ground for new ideas that could propel creativity in your company. There is no limit to how you can utilize this type of technology.

Where do you begin? To start, look at open-source options including MediaWiki (the software behind Wikipedia) or Confluence. Established products, such as Microsoft’s SharePoint Sever 2007, are bundling support for WIKIs into their products and are good options if you are using them in your environment today. Having a good understanding of who will use your WIKI, how users might consume the information, and what their challenges are will provide the blueprint for you to start building your own WIKI style knowledge-based system.

Friday, October 19th, 2007 Both comments and pings are currently closed.

By Haley January Eckels