Wikis that work

This month Computerworld profiles four organisations that are successfully using wikis to manage a range of tasks including technical training and project management.  It is helpful to see some successful models emerging and also to hear where organisations feel this approach is not serving them (see the comments).

We’re using a wiki successfully to hold, manage and build our methodology around a particular piece of work that we do.  This is giving us massive leverage in terms of how quickly (and cost-effectively) we can deliver this service to our customer.  It also has the effect of our virtual brains parallel processing and the output being recorded.  Thus it is combining, in one place, technical insights, business analysis insights, recordkeeping insights and strategic insights with all searchable in a variety of different ways that can combine each of these usefully. 

A key to success has been that the wiki is essentially where the work happens – that is, people aren’t doing something and then recording it separately in some unrelated system.  Instead the thinking, consulting and reviewing is all happening in the one place.

Hat tip: Bill Ives

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Blogs and wikis – business tools or just another distraction

It seems like the latest trend in enterprise content management (ECM) tenders is to ask for Web 2.0 functionality or collaboration functionality which is usually translated in the fine print into ‘blogs and wikis’.  So how useful are they really in a business setting? 

Clearly there are a range of possibilities – we could use them to have a conversation with customers, communities or amongst ourselves.  All of this sounds very credible.  I’m on the lookout for real examples of where this has succeeded and examples of where this has failed.  Do send me your stories.

On the flipside of this is that maybe they are yet another distraction.  In a world where most people are paid by ‘time served’ regardless of outcome (which is a topic for another day) do businesses want employees reading and posting to blogs when they should be working?  Visits to blogs drop dramatically over the weekends.  Is reading blogs a legitimate business activity or is it a substitute for action?  I read blogs while I eat breakfast before I start work.  Would it be appropriate for me to spend the first hour of my work day perusing blogs?  I subscribe to about 50 blogs and some of them are work related but not all of them.  What do you think?

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