How Wikipedia Works (Or Doesn’t) | Can Corporations Use Wikis?

My methods of technology adoption and selection caused me to closely examine desktop search engines five years ago, prior to Google coming out with their version. It also is why I was so interested in RoboHelp ten years ago. What is there past the usual Help Authoring Tool that can top this?

When it comes to refining a Knowledge Management workflow, I’ve been researching into collaboration tool adoption. I tend to look towards the internet for what the free market economy brings up.

There’s a sweet spot between the user familiarity of an email and the openness and collaboration capabilities of a wiki; I tend to use a DevBlog instead. DevBlogs, or development-based blogging, has an adoption rate of about 60% of my client base and allow remote collaboration and concept review.

Hence the DevBlog concept, and my adoption of the WordPress standard for Blogging. Most people can use the web-based Comments area because they have already adopted the technology by viewing or interacting on other people’s blogs.

I believe this is because of the subject structure, and most importantly, the ability to collate the information by relativism; nesting a family of knowledge within Workflow Collaboration such as this post falls into, allows me to communicate effectively with each part of my team since everyone knows where the related posts are.

Knowledge management could use wikis as a dream tool, however repurposing the content tends to be cumbersome. I expect that the Web 2.0 focus of MadCap Software’s Flare v3.0 addresses this issue nicely.

So the question comes down to whether there a better free tool - in this case a wiki - that can provide what the corporation needs to collaborate and collate information effectively?

Corporate Wikis - Ready For Prime Time?

I’m torn on the issue of wiki usage within a company. Rivalry remains the top killer of corporate thought, IMHO.

I think it depends a lot on the type of corporate structure; to be blunt about it a hostile work environment rewards innovative and individual thought destructively and can jeopardize someone’s position. Having a wiki, which tracks good ideas openly, may endanger those free-thinking people without them even realizing it.

If the company is based on collaboration from the get-go, wikis would be enormously effective. Learning / Training departments who use a departmental approach might be able to gain incredibly from the ability to change information as it is gathered from the instructors in the field, however email may work just as well.

Flare, with the Feedback Server, allows two-way interaction which is recommended for use within the secure firewall, in the form of a ‘beta’ site during product development.

[Flare 3.0 and the Feedback Server have] Web 2.0 community capabilities, allowing readers to add their own comments and provide feedback on your documentation… …providing the ability to allow readers to rank the quality of the topics and content using a simple star system. — MadCap Software

The ‘beta’ site then has the help file with open comments allowed by the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and the Product Managers (PMs) can determine what content they want included in their deliverable for the product release. Related topics are managed using ‘See Also’ or A-links which update relatively to the content placement. Add to that the simple methods of including and excluding content based on the Conditional Tags (Build Tags for RoboHelp users) and you’re laughing.

The final product is either a self-hosted help file, or a web-based help file that has had many more eyes on it and has had more input through comments by the SMEs than was earlier available with just a hardshelled help file and email.

All in all, I think wikis are a technology to track, but for most knowledge management and software help authoring, I would recommend spending the up-front money on the Flare/Feedback combination. That way the content can be provided in Word, XML, HTML, or PDFs and assembled by a professional Technical Communicator.

Wikis in Game Development

One exception to this would be within the world of Game Development. Having a multiple author environment is critical for ‘blue-sky’ thinking in game development, and refining the game concepts down into brainstorming requires documentation. Because the concepts have to flow freely, the initial phase is very important not to stifle. Creativity which is then recorded is critical.

When it comes to the narrower and more defined area of taking those ideas and placing them into the requirements documentation, having something in an XML framework makes life easier also.

Wikis in Pinstripes - Wikipedias In Corporations

Here’s a great article I’ve discovered about wikis in business, found on the Harvard Business School ‘Working Knowledge’ site. My experience with Harvard MBAs has not left me impressed but this is a very well reading article, with a great question and answer session at the end. Quoted from http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5605.html :

Harvard Business School professor Andy McAfee has his doubts that a corporate encyclopedia would have much value. But the underlying wiki technology—basically an electronic document and repository where participants can throw out ideas, comment on the work of others, and share documents—has more promise.

HBS Cases: How Wikipedia Works (or Doesn’t) — HBS Working Knowledge

What Wikipedia has shown is that self-selection is critical. Peer review is critical. So there is a challenge for firms that are used to managing employees and allocating the resources in a very top-down kind of way. Now we have a technology that enables self-selection, transparency, openness—how does a manager or management deal with the technology? Do they implement it in a way that’s true to the spirit, or is it top-down? And, again, there are some very successful examples and some not so successful examples.

Some people wonder about collaboration and how effective this form of communication is - are wikis just a fad, or are they the focus on the future?

The new generation of students, the MySpace and Facebook generation, will be hitting the HBS campus soon; they are already here to some degree. They are so used to collaboration and sharing in a distributed fashion, for instance, going to a friend’s page and leaving a note. They have these asynchronous ways of coordinating and collaborating.

Q: If you were to counsel companies that need more cross-collaboration and need to break down silos, what technologies would you recommend?

What I usually tell companies is, “Look, if you want to activate this Web 2.0-style energy inside your company, management is going to make all the difference. And if you manage it the old-fashioned way, or if you don’t manage it and you just have the if-we-build-it-they-will-come philosophy, you’re probably going to be disappointed.”

You need to be actively involved—I’m going to fall back on buzzwords—in coaching to get desired behaviors and leading by example, and not shooting people when they step a little bit out of line. The organization is going to be watching what happens, and you’re going to send very, very strong signals one way or another that are going to be picked up very quickly.

Corporate Wiki Success Depends On Leadership

Even with the right tools, successful corporate communication comes down inevitably to quality leadership.

All in all, I think wikis are a technology to track, but for most knowledge management and software help authoring, I still would recommend spending the up-front money on the Flare/Feedback combination.

That way the content can be provided in Word, and assembled by a professional Technical Communicator, and with a limited ability to speak too much out of turn, it should keep anyone from sticking their foot in their mouth in print in front of the Executive team.

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