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Web 2.0 technologies are often finding a place in the business world, and wiki is the latest tool that’s causing a sensation and pleasing companies to no end. Wikis can adapt to the requirements of many organizations and give teams the ability to share knowledge in a collaborative manner. However, as any IT department knows, you just might have a riot on your hands if a new technology is not implemented in the right manner. Organizations, no matter how innovative and creative, are slow to adapt to changes in process and reluctant to learn new skills. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to combat this attitude and make an enterprise wiki successful.

A wiki, as defined by the most successful of them all (Wikipedia), is “a type of computer software that allows users to easily create, edit and link web pages.” It is essentially an online database in the form of web pages that can be explored, edited, and shared by a number of people. Wikipedia, for better or worse, is increasingly the first source we turn to for knowledge of any sort, be it the birth date of a celebrity or an explanation of a Walt Whitman poem. Users of the site can write content and add details to pages within the database to increase the usefulness of the articles. The same principle is beginning to be adopted by companies looking to simplify their means of information-sharing within their intranet. Users could turn to an internal wiki to learn how to upgrade their software, access information about past projects, find human resources policies and forms, or suggest changes to procedures that will benefit multiple units within the enterprise.

Many well-known organizations have turned to wiki for information sharing. Discovery Communications, which is the parent company for Discovery Channel and its affiliates, created a wiki where viewers could provide feedback on programs, discuss shows with other viewers, upload videos, and even recommend new content to producers and executives. Boston College’s Gerald School of Information Management has also created a wiki for classes where students post ideas, essays, and suggest exam questions. Students have the opportunity to collaborate and learn from their peers in a manner which does not increase the workload for professors.

There are two major types of wikis that can be applied in a business setting, depending on an organization’s needs: suites generally include enterprise bookmarking, blogging, and tagging programs, while stand-alone wikis are stripped down to provide basic service. The need for suites depend on the type, size, and resources of the organization. The end-user or audience for the wiki must be the determining factor when you make a decision. Is this a group that is familiar with Web 2.0 technologies, or will the wiki be their first experience of this type? What are likely to be their goals in creating a wiki? If your audience is active, eager, and motivated, you’ll have an easier time implementing a wiki, and potentially an entire suite Web 2.0 tools. Regardless of what type of software is chosen, it’s very important that organizations keep the implementation simple, organic, and rewarding to contributors.

While it’s easy for a college professor to provide incentives to participate in a wiki (class credit could depend on the number and quality of posts), there are still ways to encourage participation within an enterprise. First, think about a tiered release, with high-level users such as IT professionals and managers acting as the “front line”. These users can get the ball rolling and supply the wiki with a solid foundation of information, forms, and documentation that other users will come to appreciate. Once a foundation is in place, other users can be incorporated into the wiki and they should be encouraged to modify and add to existing pages. Next, participation in the wiki could be added as a regular task to employee schedules or as a part of a performance evaluation. Negative consequences are always less effective than positive reinforcement.

Some popular wiki packages include BEA Systems’ AquaLogic, and Microsoft’s SharePoint, both of which fall into the “suite” category, and include other Enterprise 2.0 services. Stand-alone programs include Mediawiki (the software behind Wikipedia), Tikiwiki (which is open source for customization), and Dokuwiki. All have different features, strengths, and capabilities and your best choice depends on the needs of your organization. The benefits of using this type of collaborative technology are many, and more and more creative companies are turning to wikis as an easy and effective way to keep teams up-to-date on in-house knowledge. This is especially useful in high turnover jobs like customer service and support personnel. A wiki can capture the accumulated knowledge of workers and make it easily accessible to new employees. Reps might use the wiki to log particularly successful or challenging support calls, and the company can use this data to train new employees and improve their services. While projects (and even team members) come and go, wikis help prevent knowledge and experience from going with them. A good wiki can act as a giant brain for your organization, helping you learn from the mistakes of the past and allowing every team member to contribute to the successes of the future.

Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 Both comments and pings are currently closed.

By Haley January Eckels