tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6998682208205290772024-02-21T01:08:19.836+00:00Westminster Wiki Business ConsultantsThis Blog provides relevant information about Web 2.0 evolutions. These evolutions form the background on which new ways of communicating together are emerging. Welcome to the Wiki World !Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-84414399271719686452007-10-23T21:52:00.000+01:002007-10-23T22:17:37.485+01:00Wikis & Project Management<div style="border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 0px 10px;"><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Successfully managing a project is often a difficult task. Mixing deadlines, a limited amount of time, money & people to achieve loosely defined stuff make a good recipe for disaster. Here is how a wiki might help you minimize the bill.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Centralizing Helps</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">One of the recurrent problems of having a project spanning various corporate boundaries (between teams & deparments for instance) is that stuff happens in many different places (mailboxes, Enterprise IM, phone, shared drives...). With a wiki, you can have everybody adding their stuff to a central place where it can be organized through links & tags and be made available to all the people involved.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Keep Track of What's Happenin</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">g</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Every business wiki has a built-in notification feature, be it through RSS, email, dedicated pages or many of them at once. You can use this feature to stay up-to-date on who's contributing what & when they're doing it. Thanks to this, you won't have people arguing on whether or not the mail they were supposed to send ever arrived on time: if it's not on the wiki, it isn't there. Productivity seldom accommodates nitpickyness.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Share & Organize</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Wiki pages are a great place to jot down every kind of information, ranging from a PDF or a MS Word file to a plain old scanned paper-note. Most search tools nowadays will be able to search into the content of pages & text attachments and rank the results to provide you with an effective way to access information. Even when loosely classified, the data you need will remain available on your wiki.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">So mastering project management sounds good to you... what are you waiting to try and go wiki</span>? </span></div><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Want more ? Stay tuned.</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>© Guillaume Lerouge for </strong></span><a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>WikiBC</strong></span></a><br /></div>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-9061104332747915552007-07-02T17:06:00.000+01:002007-07-02T17:22:33.668+01:00A Semantic Wiki?<div style="border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 0px 10px;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">It looks like "Semantic Web" is well on its way to become Web 3.0 most serious contender. But what is it all about?</span><br /><br />To make a long story short, semantic web is a revolution currently going through its early stages. An example will make it easier to grasp: imagine you're looking into Wikipedia, willing to search only for XVIIth century French Poets. If nobody took the time to write a list of them, you're in for a long and strenuous time searching through heavy loadsof abstruse web pages.<br /><br />This is where semantics get in. Imagine that, every time one adds a Poet name, he could "label" it with such informations as his birth and death dates, his nationality and the fact that he is a Poet. Or, to put it another way: that on the Poet's Wikipedia page the Poet's birth date was labelled as such and his death date, nationality and status as well. Now you could launch a search saying "I want to search Poets, and their nationality attribute has to be French, and either their birth or death year date must start by 17"<br /><br />Instead of strict categories, you now have a loose yet effective way to enrich information all around the place in your wiki. Combine this with the power of people freely allowed to add the bits of information they know about, and you end up with a naturally organized body of knowledge - yet nobody had to decide how to organize it beforehand.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">This is what Semantic Web is all about, and I must admit it sounds pretty exciting to me.</span><br /></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Want more ? Stay tuned.</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>© Guillaume Lerouge for </strong></span><a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>WikiBC</strong></span></a><br /><br /></div>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-57517198906574018282007-06-18T17:25:00.000+01:002007-06-18T17:44:39.025+01:00What's Your Wiki Bringing?<div style="border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 0px 10px;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">There is too much information around for anyone to read all of it. This is why numerous tools have emerged to help people manage, organize, classify, filter and sort information. RSS has been a great step towards personal information independance, allowing individuals greater freedom as to what heir informations sources could be and how often new data was made available.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Breathing Through</span><br /><br />Even the best RSS reader will not prevent one from feeling overwhelmed by bits of information. Social news rating websites have stepped in to help people go a bit further and order and give meaning to information together. <a href="http://www.digg.com">Digg</a>, <a href="http://www.wikio.com">Wikio</a>, <a href="http://www.newsvine.com">Newsvine</a> are as many examples of ways to sort information. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org">Wikipedia</a> has done a great job to bring the right information to the right place for the people who are looking after it, or at least it does so most of the time.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Going Further</span><br /><br />However, even with the help of those tools irrelevant information keeps popping out most of the time. Could this be avoided? Probably not. Could this be reduced a bit more? Certainly. Interactions between people about blog articles could be centralized for a group in one place to let them discuss and share it more easily. This is exactly what a product like <a href="http://www.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/Solutions/XWikiWatch">XWiki Watch</a> is aiming at doing, providing a team with a place where it will be able to share information and enrich it collaboratively.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Staying Ahead</span><br /><br />The right question however is, why are all those information flows so important? Because, in today's world, information provides you with an advantage over your competitors. It has amways done so, but something changed recentlty: the speed at which relevant data can be exploited. A factory can be built quicker than ever before. Companies have to remain reactive not to get out of touch with their customer bases. A wiki provides a tool to let you communicate with the people who buy your products. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Somehow, in their collective knowledge lies the products you will be offering them tomorrow. Isn't that worth a try?</span><br /></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Want more ? Stay tuned.</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>© Guillaume Lerouge for </strong></span><a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>WikiBC</strong></span></a><br /><br /></div>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-16115317915004393982007-06-03T18:51:00.000+01:002007-06-03T19:10:42.395+01:00A wiki for your sports team?<div style="border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 0px 10px;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Back after some busy times... This afternoon I had the displeasure to find that my hockey team back home had lost a decisive game and was going down next season. This led me to think about how we could improve our performance, and I ended up thinking a wiki could fit the bill. Now I'm surprised I did not start thinking about it before...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Problem</span><br /><br />As a sports team made of people with day jobs, we can only meet for training so many times a week (usually twice for skills and tactic and once to run) notwithstanding a game on Sundays. Since a training session usually lasts about 2 hours, we hardly ever have enough time to study fancy diagrams about our positioning. This also means that we are not spending enough time reflecting about our past performances and how they could be improved. There is a communication problem here, and wiki are really good at solving that kind of problems.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Needs</span><br /><br />If I were to write a requirements specification, I'd say that I would need the following:<br /></span><ul><li><span style="font-family:verdana;">A place where our coach could put diagrams showing how we played during our game compared with how we ought to have played + a page to explain his choices and talk about them.<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-family:verdana;">Personal pages for every player where they could write about their own game and get feedback from others through comments</span></li><li><span style="font-family:verdana;">The ability to embed video shot during games or coming from the internet showing specific skills and situations</span></li></ul><span style="font-family:verdana;">Generally speaking, we would need a place where to add all kinds of relevant information and organize it. This place would also need to be available to every player easily (through internet).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Wiki Way</span><br /><br />All of the components I talked about are common features of most wikis (though I did not talk about the search engine, the tags or RSS notification feeds, all of which are quite useful too). The main advantages would be to make lots of useful resources contributed by the coach and the players available to the rest of their team easily. No need to take a 45 minutes strategy talk in the cold on a Thursday night when you can discuss it at length on a wiki page (during a break at work for instance). What's more, most people can't be bothered to listen to tactical points when they are not involved in the situation described. The wiki would remove this inconvenient too.</span> <br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Want more ? Stay tuned.</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>© Guillaume Lerouge for </strong></span><a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>WikiBC</strong></span></a><br /><br /></div>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-53506532511450388752007-05-08T12:04:00.000+01:002007-05-08T12:46:02.979+01:00The WikiDroit Case-Study<div style="border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 0px 10px;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><a href="http://www.wikidroit.com/">WikiDroit</a> is a website that was launched by a few French law students. Its aim was to create a database (in French) of law-related resources. However, created in October 2006 the website did not take off. Its example shows how and why a wiki may fail - and what to do to prevent this from happening.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Poor Wiki Integration</span><br /><br />The first problem that can be identified is that the wiki does not make one with the rest of the website. Though an important effort has been given to design of the website, the <a href="http://wikidroit.com/wiki//index.php?title=Accueil">wiki</a> customization (based on <a href="http://www.mediawiki.org/">MediaWiki</a>) does not go further than a logo. Combined with the fact that the link to the wiki from the website opens in a new window, this means that the 2 entities are poorly held together. If you take the example of <a href="http://www.curriki.org/">Curriki</a>, the website and the wiki are closely integrated together so as to create a strong identity.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Lack of Original Content<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span>The wiki could have survived this first mistake. However, the wiki itself was designed without an aim. Its stated mission is far too wide: "generalization and vulgarization of Law topics aiming at everyone". <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/">Wikipedia</a> already exists! A wiki cannot work if it does not reach a breaking point in terms of contributors. In this case, the content added by the first contributors was not sufficient to bring in new ones. The general public already have enough Law-related information available on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law">Wikipedia (Law Article)</a> and Law students have a huge number of relevant textbooks available in any library. Thus there was no incentive for new members to come in and add content.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />The Lessons From WikiDroit<br /><br /></span>How could have <a href="http://www.wikidroit.com/">WikiDroit</a> been successful? If the website had brought something original and relevant to its target audience. Think about this: every year, Law students go through exam papers and new questions. Would one not like a place where, on top of previous exam papers they would find their fellow students works, made available with the mark they received and tutors corrections? This would bring value to them and give them an incentive to contribute content. What's more, the content they could contribute would be readily available to each of them - but at the same time different for every of them, therefore increasing the interest of every single contribution. This could be linked to the <a href="http://www.wikipatterns.com/display/wikipatterns/Magnet">Magnet Pattern:</a> make the wiki a place for exclusive and attracting content.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />To be successful, a wiki must bring something to its target audience. It must be an ease rather than a pain. Find a lack of data or ineffective communication: here a wiki might fit the bill.<br /></span></span><br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Want more ? Stay tuned.</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>© Guillaume Lerouge for </strong></span><a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>WikiBC</strong></span></a><br /><br /></div>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-18062064169832102542007-04-26T00:31:00.000+01:002007-04-26T01:39:53.210+01:00A Wiki For Desktop Tower Defense?<div style="border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 0px 10px;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">A few weeks ago I discovered the <a href="http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/">Tower Desktop Defense</a> through a link I got from a post I received in my <a href="http://www.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/Blog/XWikiForCompetitiveWatch">XWiki Watch</a> feed reader. I tried it and quickly became an addict, experimenting with new strategies and playing styles. The next step was to try and take advantage of the resources available on the website to improve my gameplay.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Current Situation</span><br /><br />To do so, I have access to different kind of resources: the <a href="http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/Instructions.asp">quick start guide</a>, which spells the basic rules and behaviour of the game; <a href="http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/Scoreboard.asp">players top scores</a> (I'll let you guess what that page does); <a href="http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/Maps.asp"> players ' mazes </a>which shows what other players mazes look like and which score they achieved using it; and lastly a <a href="http://handdrawngames.sencerd.co.uk/">forum</a> broken down in categories such as <a href="http://handdrawngames.sencerd.co.uk/index.php?PHPSESSID=ec8e095f5579109e88439e8c9a213c30&board=2.0">general chit-chat</a> and <a href="http://handdrawngames.sencerd.co.uk/index.php?PHPSESSID=ec8e095f5579109e88439e8c9a213c30&board=3.0">tips and tricks</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What's Good And What's Less Good With This</span><br /><br />There is a lot of info available to improve the way you play, which is cool. But the point is, going through all of it is somewhat painful. For instance, along with basic rules I'd like a page showing me examples of good and poor mazes with an explanation of why they are so. I'd like the knowledgeable calculus explaining why this kind of tower is better than that one clearly spelled out on a page rather than on 3 different forum threads. And so on...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">A Wiki Solution?</span><br /><br />A wiki would bring some underlying structure to all this available data while in the same time tapping into and reinforcing the involvment of the players' community. It would be easir for fans of the game to improve the overall documentation and discuss about various potential strategic moves. An user could record its own progression and its best mazes on its user page. The stories behind great scores could be told by those who achieved them.<br /><br />In short, a wiki would give an expression space to members of the community which would be both more effective and more rewarding than the current system.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Flexible structure, community power, effectiveness through collaboration... <a href="http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/">DesktopTD</a>, will you embrace the Wiki Way?<br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Want more ? Stay tuned.</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>© Guillaume Lerouge for </strong></span><a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>WikiBC</strong></span></a><br /><br /></div>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-9702056681322586962007-04-06T00:57:00.000+01:002007-04-06T01:24:54.078+01:00Wikis and Strategic Mindmapping<div style="padding: 0px 10px 0px 10px; border: 1px solid #000000;"><br /><br />What if your company's top management started throwing its ideas on how your company stands compared with its competitors, how well it performs with its clients and what are its potential strategic choices on a mindmap? I started playing with the idea after giving a try to <a href="http://www.mindmeister.com/">MindMeister, </a>a collaborative, online, shared mindmapping tool. What could it look like?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Collaborative Mindmapping</span><br /><br />The idea of a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindmap">mindmap</a> is somehow as old as human brains themselves. Mindmaps offer a great way to throw ideas around, keep track and organize them in a flexible yet powerful way. Mindmapping software has been around for some time now, with good <a href="http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page">Open-Source solutions</a> available amongst others. These softwares have traditionally been thought to be used by one single user who could then share his thoughts with other. The possibility of real-time collaborative mindmapping brings in a whole new area of potential in the way people collaborate together.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Wiki Connection</span><br /><br />Take this example: imagine your top management board sharing ideas about how your company is run, what are the main issues facing it, which strategic path it should adopt and so on. Now imagine the resulting mindmap being turned into a <a href="http://wikibc.blogspot.com/2006/10/are-you-wiki.html">wiki</a>, with one page for every node on the map. Last stage, open this wiki to all of your company's employees and see what could happen.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Effects Of Collaborative Intelligence</span><br /><br />I <a href="http://wikibc.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-can-wiki-help-you-build-blue-ocean.html">already argued</a> that there is a strong chance that the people who have the best insights about your competitors and your field of activity are the people working on the front-line, those who are in touch on a daily basis with your suppliers and customers. Retrieving their ideas thanks to a wiki built along the lines of your company top strategic thinking and making an analysis of them could prove an invaluable communication and information gathering for the people who run your business.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Wikis and Mindmaps share a lot of properties. Using them in coordination could create amazing collaboration tools. What if?</span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Want more ? Stay tuned.</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>© Guillaume Lerouge for </strong></span><a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>WikiBC</strong></span></a><br /><br /></div>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com256tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-72875539619758300752007-03-29T17:24:00.000+01:002007-03-29T17:50:02.082+01:00Wikis and e-learning<div style="padding: 0px 10px 0px 10px; border: 1px solid #000000;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Thought to become a revolution in the way we teach and learn, e-learning has not yet achieved its full potential. This is due to a lack of understanding of the way people do actually learn. Using a wiki instead of traditional e-learning tools does make a difference. Not convinced yet?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">How we do not learn</span><br /><br />We (assuming that here "we" refers to us all human beings) do not learn by staring blankly at blackboards. We did not do at school, and we do not either while staring blankly at webpages. We do not learn either by reading ill-written content served in an ill-conceived fashion by a Flash applet. Last but not least, we do not learn while interacting with silly pre-programmed answers offered by a computer, however clever its programmer think they have been.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />How we do learn</span><br /><br />We learn through our active interaction with people and problems. We learn while we experience interest in the subject of which mastering we are pursuing. We learn when an emotional transfer occurs during the studying process. Which part of your physics 101 course do you remember today: the textbook readings or the fuzzy chemical reactions in the labs? This is what learning is all about: interest for the topic and self-involvement in the learning process.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Learning through a wiki</span><br /><br />A wiki offers a platform for clever learning together. The interaction with other people (human beings, not machines) provides us with feedback and new insights. There is additional motivation too, created as a byproduct from the involvement within a community of peers and of area of interest. You do not feel the same emotional bonds for a computer than for other people (At the very least I assume most people do not). There is an acknowledgment of oneself as an human being worth of being talked, discussed and spent time with in the process too.<br /><br />The core issue? The structure of contemporary e-learning does not match the way we do learn. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Inversely, a wiki goes in the right direction since it promotes learning through interaction.</span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><strong>Want more ? Stay tuned.</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;"><strong>© Guillaume Lerouge for </strong></span><a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><strong>WikiBC</strong></span></a><br /><br /></div>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-84807982052686672232007-03-19T01:51:00.000+00:002007-03-29T17:14:47.025+01:00Wikis: The Next Step In Information Sharing<div style="padding: 0px 10px 0px 10px; border: 1px solid #000000;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Contemporary education works around knowledge itself. Knowledge is often valued for itself rather than as a mean of achieving a given aim. In the same time, modern technologies give us access to more knowledge than one could ever have dreamt of decades ago. The shift is happening right now: knowledge is not the key, but rather access to the right information at the right time.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">A Clever Database</span><br /><br />A wiki is written by the very people who will be using it. A page about a given topic has many chances to contain all the relevant information about that topic since potential associations have been created by visitors to that article with the available body of knowledge. A wiki transforms raw information into a richer, more readily available and structured body of knowledge. It is an extensive and evolutive source of information. Specialised individuals can collaborate together better than ever before.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Coupled With Clever People</span><br /><br />A wiki provides the structural through which users can collaborate and coordinate themselves easily. What is then the "perfect" user mindset? In this view, an user should be able to go and search for the information he is looking for in the rigths places rather than knowing everything by himself. Say, knowing how to access the right bookshelf rather than learning the full transcript of a book. Wikis push this trend to its limit. The relevant point is no longer in detaining knowledge itself, but in being able to draw the right connections. Individual specialization can be harnessed while minimizing its collateral negative effects.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Perfect collaboration?</span><br /><br />The combination between intelligent users and a system that provides them with the structural basis through which tehy can interact and share together effectively open new perspectives for enterprise collaboration. The examples of Intelpedia or Pfizerpedia show how a seemingly hazardous move initiatedthe by an individual employee can bring value to the whole company. The viral nature of a wiki implies it spreading quickly. A wiki let us unleash the way we naturally tend to learn. Working together has at least found a meaning. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Are you ready for this?</span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Want more ? Stay tuned.</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>© Guillaume Lerouge for </strong></span><a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>WikiBC</strong></span></a><br /><br /></div>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-16418630289614097442007-03-06T16:29:00.000+00:002007-03-29T17:13:30.503+01:00Why Wikis Will Revolutionize The Way We Think About Education<div style="padding: 0px 10px 0px 10px; border: 1px solid #000000;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">I realized a few days ago that the way education is currently provided to students around the world is becoming increasingly inefficient day after day. I read some time ago a paper that stated that the only thing that has remained still for the past 100 years is the classroom. This is true and really surprising.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Classroom Concept</span><br /><br />What are the main benefits of getting in a classroom? Obviously, grouping people in a place where they can be taught by someone with a specific experience in one field, that this person will try to communicate to his / her audience. Another feature of current formal education is the fact that the majority of it takes place before you are 25, and then abruptly stops. Does it means that you stop learning when you quit school? Or even that you are properly equipped for the tasks you have to do? No. The education you received was not personalized either, which means that in the bundle of knowledges you had to absorb a wide part will neither be of any use to you. Why should we go toschool and Uni for years without even learning things that are of direct interest to us? Wikis change this.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Lifelong learning?</span><br /><br />Should lifelong learning take place in classrooms? Taken broadly, we are learning at every second of our lives. Learning how to do something specific, making connexions with what we already know, thinking baout new ways of doing things... Now with a wiki all those thoughts could not only be recorded easily, but at the same time be shared in a relevant space with people who could enrich their contents and their scope significantly. You do not need to be in the same place, at the same time anylonger to share with others. Now you can create communities of people interested in the same topic and start learning from one another in minutes. Boundaries are not a necessity. Free your knowledge!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Making intangible tangible</span><br /><br />Most learning processes take place through interactions between people, not necessarily in a formalized manner. A wiki gives a place for the fruit of these interactions to be expressed and discussed with others. Little contributions from many end up in amazing results. You can teach yourself what you are interested in with the help of others who share your passion. Rating can take place through a pari assessment that understands comprehensively what you are trying to achieve and whether you succeeded at it. Within companies, it means that constant learning and formation concerns can be addresses much more effectivelly than ever before. Information flows and you have access to it.<br /><br /><span>Education and the ability to learn continuously are currently one of the most regarded assets in business life. A wiki will give your organization the power to pursue this objective effectively. </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Remember the World without Wikipedia ?<br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Want more ? Stay tuned.</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>© Guillaume Lerouge for </strong></span><a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>WikiBC</strong></span></a><br /><br /></div>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-2232820970123197772007-02-23T18:23:00.000+00:002007-03-29T17:18:07.780+01:00A Wiki As An Open Point Of View On The World<div style="padding: 0px 10px 0px 10px; border: 1px solid #000000;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">A wiki lets people collectively transform a high amount of raw data into a useable and organized corpus of information. Most people have their own point of view about the world around us. Some of us even have more than one, depending on circumstances. But up to now there were no systematic way to transform those points of view into a coherent total.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Why Wikis Change This</span><br /><br />A wiki gives a space for collaboration. Now you can get in one place all the content relevant to a given topic. With the help of Widgets you can now integrate content coming from various places and put it one one page. Our brain work by making associations between neurons. Now on a wiki we can all create relationships between bits of content and enrich them by linking them together easily, tagging them and retrieving their up-to-date content via RSS Syndication.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Quest For Meaning</span><br /><br />When searching on the internet, we are most of the time looking for an answer. Search engines are great, but sometimes do not turn up with the right answer. The same is true to a greater extent within companies: intranet are not meant to be easily searchable. The likes of <a href="http://www.google.com/enterprise/mini/">Google Mini</a> are starting to changing this, but even them cannot do more than automated search. The greatest benefit of a wiki in this context is that it lets people group relevant informaion together on one page (or set of pages).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Being Relevant</span><br /><br />On a wiki, you can decide to give one page to every topic. This page will be enriched will all the content related to this topic. It will retrieve information from various different sources and be available at anytime, from anywhere. More than a reference sheet, the page will also be coherent: the content you will find on it is directly related to its title. Other potential meanings are listed and given pages on their own. How is that different from internet ? A wiki provides a place where information is classified following the needs of its very own users, where they can have a direct influence on every page. <span style="font-weight: bold;">This is what 2-ways interaction means.<br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Want more ? Stay tuned.</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>© Guillaume Lerouge for </strong></span><a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>WikiBC</strong></span></a><br /><br /></div>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-66622160002858458962007-02-12T00:30:00.000+00:002007-03-29T17:18:51.590+01:009 Corporate Wiki Starting Tips<div style="padding: 0px 10px 0px 10px; border: 1px solid #000000;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">There has been some buzz running lately on various tech blogs, regarding the best ways to get "social-enterprise" tools adopted faster and more easily. When it comes to wikis, various tips and tricks are suggested (amongst which my favourite is "if you don not want to end up disappointed, do not start") but there is room left for another list. At least this is what I will be arguing by doing in the following. </span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Get Things Off To A Good Start</strong></span><br /><ul><li><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong><em>Give your wiki a soul: </em></strong>this may look like an odd advice, particularly in a corporate setting, but it is maybe the most important one could ever give you. Think about any successful project you lead: which one did not include the strong sense of a shared purpose? Starting a wiki makes no exception.</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong><em>Refer to the wiki:</em></strong> if you actually expect your people to go and use the wiki, make is as well known as possible. Encourage its adoption through an intensive internal referral campaign. Clearly stating that you will not read any attachment which has not been uploaded on a wiki page is a good idea to begin with.</span></li><li><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong><em>Do not start from scrap:</em></strong> asking people to actually edit pages instead of only reading them is a concept weird enough to get to grasp with, do not add the burden of having to create your own pages (at least at the beginning). Think about putting most of the currently available material on the wiki and even start <a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stub">stubs</a> for pages you feel like they deserve one.</span></li></ul><p><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong>Help Your People</strong></span></p><ul><li><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong><em>Train them</em>: </strong>there is some hype going around, which basically says "one should be able to use any piece of software without training". ... How many hours have you spent figuring out how to use less than 10% of MS Excel potential? A wiki is not complicated to use, but one should always remember this does not mean that everybody was born knowing what to do with one. In fact, most people were not.</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong><em>Provide fast and relevant help:</em></strong> the one thing more annoying that a software that you cannot get to work properly is a software that you cannot get to work properly without knowing why. Whenever something does not go as well as expected, provide a resourceful help center. One that actually knows what your wiki software is, for example.</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong><em>Listen to your users:</em></strong> elementary? Yes. Done? ... When it comes to a new technology adoption, providing more support than necessary is a necessity. Feedback is always useful: it tells you what actually does not not work and makes user feel they are listened to. Tip: if you decide to take action from these premises, it is even better.</span></li></ul><p><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong>Keep The Wiki Going</strong></span></p><ul><li><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong><em>Go through the "start effect":</em> </strong>after the buzz and enthusiasm following the launch of your corporate wiki, an after-shock state is likely to happen some way or another. This includes the 3-days period when no ones writes anything and the "what's new" page looks like your fridge. Do not be afraid to wait a little, things need time to get on the right track.</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><em><strong>Hire a "wiki gardener":</strong> </em>during the beginning, information will be added in places seemingly chosen randomly on the wiki. To sort things out and give coherence to the whole, consider assigning this task as a mission to somebody. It will make a huge difference if the wiki can be browsed easily.</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong><em>Find out why this generic checklist did not work for your company: </em></strong>this would be my last reminder: every company is different, and implementing a coprporate wiki will hence trigger problems that are quite different too (depending on your enterprise culture, work habits and management staff...). <strong>Find out how a wiki could work for</strong> <strong>you, not how it ought to work for somebody else.</strong></span></li></ul><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Want more ? Stay tuned.</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>© Guillaume Lerouge for </strong></span><a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>WikiBC</strong></span></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">PS: For those of you who wonder why I stopped at 9 rather than going all the way to 10, it is mostly because I felt like 10 was too short to provide enough advice on the topic.</span><br /><br /></div>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-36731027720294311062007-01-30T01:15:00.000+00:002007-03-29T17:19:19.340+01:00My Desktop Is My Wiki<div style="padding: 0px 10px 0px 10px; border: 1px solid #000000;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Wondering about what my next post would be about, I realized that I was using my wiki in a way that could be worth testing by some other people. Basically, it is about gathering all my sources of information in one place, creating links between them and tagging pages, too. There is a blog to keep my customers up-to-date about market news. Add the fact that I can access my hosted wiki from anywhere and it looks pretty much like the perfect solution for a consultant.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:verdana;">Gathering Information</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">On of the most important aspects when you are an independant consultant is to be able to process loads of information coming from a great number of places and transform it into valuable pieces of advice. In order to do so, I use a RSS feed reader embedded in one of the pages of my wiki. My three other e-mail accounts have their pages, too and I can access them directly through wiki pages. Whenever I find something interesting, I can add it to an existing page or create a page specifically for it (eg, I have a specific page for every key corporate wiki company). Somewhat like a private Wikipedia...</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong>Creating Relationships</strong> </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Then the next step is all about creating relevant links between the various topics I may have encountered. I link people to the companies they work for, I assess trends on pages and link to the individuals that took a prominent part in them. I create tags to label all the pieces of information I will have to use in order to carry out one of my projects properly. The wiki backlinks feature always lets me know where I come from while the integrated search engine makes the retrieval of information obvious. Then, once information is stored, broken in manageable chunks and classified, I use the calendar to keep a track of what I have to do and whether I made progress.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong>Communicating With My Partners</strong></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">While I am working on a given project, I open its dedicated space to my clients so that we can work collaboratively and exchange information easily through attached files. I discovered recently that I could display MS Office documents (such as PowerPoint Presentations) directly in wiki pages after saving them in html, and this is simply great. My clients do not have to open attached files any longer to find out what they deal with since their contents are displayed direclty on the page. I can export wiki pages in PDF too, and this is often useful to send bits of data in e-mails. Last but not least: I get a RSS feed from any tag I want, which is quite useful when it comes to following specific projects.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Basically, I can get all my information from wherever I am, provided an internet access is available. And guess what? I have not forgotten a file for a long time by now...</strong></span><br /><strong></strong><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Want more ? Stay tuned.</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>© Guillaume Lerouge for </strong><a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188"><strong>WikiBC</strong></a></span><br /><br /></div>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-59547675022378375632007-01-21T23:53:00.000+00:002007-03-29T17:19:48.867+01:00Wikis And Contemporay Trends In Human Resources Development<div style="padding: 0px 10px 0px 10px; border: 1px solid #000000;"><br /><br />About all of the world highly-developed countries boast a service-based economy. This means that western companies' most valuable asset is their skilled worforce. Investing in people's talent is maybe the soundest strategy ever - yet few enterprises are actually doing so. How could wikis help reverse the trend ?<br /><br /><strong>The Wiki Way Of Doing</strong> <strong>Thing<br /></strong><br />The central tenet in the way wikis work can be summed-up in one word: collaboration. Wikis encourage people's participation through their mechanism of easy page edition. They foster collective creativity by letting people create a coherent result from many small, individual additions. By the very way they work, using wikis in your company is a testimonial to your staff that you believe in their potential.<br /><br /><strong>Empowering People</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />One of the most tricky issues enterprises are faced with is the matter of life-long learning. How do you get your staff to keep itself up-to-date and aware of a constantly-moving business environment ? A wiki offers an elegant solution to this question : first, it provides a place where information that would have otherwise disappeared can be stored. Working in a Wikipedia-like manner, inside your company, a wiki can offer a base for shared knowledge amongst workers. Second, a wiki is user-enriched; from this follows that all the little bits of knowledge that are spread amongst employees can at last find a place to be expressed. More information available for a responsabilized staff: this is what wikis can do.<br /><br /><strong>Providing Flexibility And Freedom</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />Another important evolution taking place inside the corporate world is the shift towards an increased place given to part-time and remote working. Wikis provide a useful and easy to use tool when it comes to coordinating the work of people working from different places, at different times. By providing a durable place where information can be added and structured, a wiki allow your company to provide its staff with more opportunities. Let them work when it is easier for thel to and see the global productivity of your company boosted.<br /><br /><strong>What should you remember ? It is, basically</strong><br /><strong>That modern HR trends are going through wiki.</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>Want more ? Stay tuned.</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>© Guillaume Lerouge for </strong><a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188"><strong>WikiBC</strong></a><br /><br /></div>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-41611727832318184772007-01-09T21:00:00.000+00:002007-03-29T17:20:14.915+01:00A Wiki To Get Customer Feedback<div style="padding: 0px 10px 0px 10px; border: 1px solid #000000;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Ever dreamt of a place where the people who buy your products could tell you what they actually think about them ? A place that would help you increase customer satisfaction, enlighten consumer needs and give the market what it is looking for ?</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><strong>How could that work ?</strong><br /><br />The rationale behind such a wiki goes as follow : first, a wiki is a place where people can easily share and discuss information. What's more, people are always lookig for a place where they could tell brands what they think about what they are doing - and find out what others say, too. A wiki would provide your brand with an interactive place of reference for customers looking for more than usual corporate websites.<br /><br /><strong>Ever thought a FAQ was not enough ?</strong><br /><br />Most users of your products do not know that they could use it for much more than what they currently do. Just think about iTunes : how many interesting features are you not using ? A wiki would let you create an interactive FAQ wher people could share tips about what can be done with your products, and give your company more space to build clever FAQ and how-to. The era of the notice silent about the very point you are wondering about just vanished.<br /><br /><strong>Collaborative Product Design<br /></strong><br />The last part of this evolution could take the form of a wiki where engineers could suggest new products and instantly get feedback from potential clients. Designing specifications with the help of actual end-users : what better way to keep in touch with the market requirements ? <strong>Your customers could be your greatest fans, just let them express themselves !</strong></span><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:verdana;">Want more ? Stay tuned.</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:verdana;">© Guillaume Lerouge for </span></strong><a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188"><strong><span style="font-family:verdana;">WikiBC</span></strong></a><br /><br /></div>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-51183298629868106572006-12-29T10:06:00.000+00:002007-01-03T00:23:28.492+00:00Wikis And Clusters Of CompetitivenessClusters of competitiveness are growing in popularity all around the world as a way to organize industrial actors in an effective way. They allow the creation of pool where resources are available for companies to pursue their operations in a driving environment. In order to make the most out of clusters, using a wiki to share information and knowledge between members is more than a sound idea : it is the next move on your agenda.<br /><br /><strong>A cluster is a men's adventure</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />Rather than anything else, a successful cluster is a geographic zone where like-minded people can share, exchange and interact. A cluster by itself provides no more than an environment for business contacts, a pool of skilled workers, good communication structures... It's up to its members to make it live up to a successful venture rather than a failed attempt. To sustain human interactions in the context of a cluster, using a wiki is more than relevant.<br /><br /><strong>How a Wiki could help Your Cluster</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />The fact is, most spoken information is lost on the rather short term. Even piles of e-mail do not end up in organized, searchable chunks of information. Using a wiki would allow companies to put all the untold information in one place and interact with it. Imagine an evolutive repository of companies, people, projects where information is kept up to date by those who have to rely on it to get things done : members. Then add a layer of collaborative tools and feeds to keep in touch with what is happening and you get a good idea of what a wiki could bring your cluster.<br /><br /><strong>Does this really make sense ?</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />Just think about all the stuff you think about in one given day that could lead to great ventures, but is lost for it lacks a place to be expressed. Then think about what would happen if you could share this with the people who fit best your own profile : the other guys from your cluster. This place could exist, if only you took the step of creating a wiki. You could start one for a groupwork, an then extend it to see what is happening. <strong>But beware : if you taste it, you will never feel the same.</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>Want more ? Stay tuned.</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>© Guillaume Lerouge for <a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188">WikiBC</a></strong>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-79108094207428184682006-12-07T23:30:00.001+00:002007-01-03T00:24:04.443+00:00The Bottle In The Sea Model<span style="font-family:verdana;">Some companies have decided to fight against the Paper-Plane Model (described below). They took a brave step : they decided to implement a Content Management System (CMS) ! This allowed them to switch from a system where e-mails are everywhere to another where information is centralized ... but no one actually goes through it.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>The Model</strong><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">In the Bottle-In-The-Sea Model, people put their files and documents in a centralized space where they are supposedly able to access and work on it easily. In practice however, most of this content is sunk somewhere and not seen by anyone. Although one may keep track of the last 10 documents, he is soon lost in version revision history. Content is there but ease of use nowhere.<br /></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:verdana;">Why does it work this way ?<br /></span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">The problem with CMS systems is that information is in a raw format, without structure. Although you can find about anything somewhere, you will not understand what are the connexions between the pieces of information you will find. This is due to the fact that CMS are built as repositories, not as user-friendly softwares. </span><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family:verdana;">Let me guess ... A wiki ?</span></strong><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">The main advantage of a wiki over a CMS is that it allows you to give added value to the content you enter in the system. People can work directly on the page to which a document is attached. You know what your document is, in what context it should be understood. Research results are better too. Now you know what the data you found relates to. Not only do you have data, now you have meaning too.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:verdana;">Want more ? Stay tuned.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">© Guillaume Lerouge for </span></strong><a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>WikiBC</strong></span></a>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-39511884059583047802006-12-07T19:30:00.000+00:002006-12-07T20:02:02.078+00:00The Paper - Plane Model<span style="font-family:verdana;">Communication in contemporary enterprises often looks like a darts game : I throw mine, and hope it will reach its target. The matter is, you hit the center only from times to times and all the remaining darts are quite unuseful. How does this relates to communication inside enterprises ? Just think about the way you are using e-mail. How many of those you receive are direclty relevant to you ?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:verdana;">The Paper-Plane Model</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">This model summarizes the point made before. It describes how, in companies, communication solutions (and specifically e-mail) are used to throw paper -planes containing data in many directions, hoping that something will come back from all these efforts. Paper is everywhere, information nowhere. Requests for contents are not organized in any coherent way as every individual tries to creates its own database with sent and received planes. The question is, why does this happen ?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Underlying Factors</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">All this has to do with the way people share texts and documents through e-mail. The ease of use of the application let everybody free to add copied recipients, to send uninformative messages, and so on. Every request generates a new message, even though the query may have been previously answered somewhere. Ever had this feeling of déjà-vu when you received a "new" question ? There is no central repository for the contents already created that could be browsed to retrieve information. But then, does a solution exist to solve this problem ?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong>A Solution Through Wikis</strong></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">A wiki offers a good way of escaping the paper-plane model. It provides a centralized space where information can be added and modified easily by users. What's more, this space can be easily browsed through an integrated search engine. All your information is in the same place, always available and up to date. The number of planes is highly reduced, and the ones still in use carry more relevant information. Their content is progressively integrated into a database of all available knowledge in your company. </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong>Move on from the paper - plane model, go Wiki !</strong></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Want more ? Stay tuned.</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;">© Guillaume Lerouge for <a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188">WikiBC</a></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-27273098097412416592006-12-02T01:57:00.000+00:002006-12-02T02:42:24.409+00:00A Wiki as an integrated communication solution<span style="font-family:verdana;">So you would like to start getting the most of what Internet offers in terms of communication potential, both inside your company and with your customers ? New wiki solutions can help you achieve this goal. Featuring a classic website as well as a blog and a wiki interface, they will give you the flexibility and strength you're after.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;">A classic website</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">If you want to build a powerful and flexible website but lack technical knowledge, you may consider a wiki to this end. A wiki would allow you to create a website from scrap with a few pictures and written material. Then you could add new pages and features (such as a calendar or a photo album) if required. The architecture is flexible and let you create new section as your business grow. And all this cost effectively.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;">A Blog</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Blogs are increasingly being used for corporates purposes. They give your company a space to publish updates and product news as well as insight in its field of activity. A blog is easy to update and require nothing else but an ability to write (which hopefully you have). Their spread and skyrocketing utilization in various enterprise contexts (communication on a project, on an initiative...) are a testimonial of their efficiency in this setting.</span><br /><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;">A space for collaborative work</span></strong></p><p><span style="font-family:verdana;">Modern organigrams require more and more teamworking to be conducted. Classice-mail solutions do not meet the requirements induced by this evolution. Group initiatives are often impaired by</span> <span style="font-family:verdana;">a lack of structure to sustain the coordination of individual work. A wiki-based solution allows a quick flows of information as well as easy document management. Your team can coordinate itself and get its members to work rather than losing time in unhelpful meetings. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Your business could gain access to huge resources if it was using a wiki-based solution to integrate its various online communication processes. <strong>Take a step into the future of online communication, try a wiki solution !</strong></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong>Want more ? Stay tuned.</strong></span></p><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong>© Guillaume Lerouge for </strong><a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188"><strong>WikiBC</strong></a></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><em><span style="font-family:Verdana;">If this article interested you, you might like <a href="http://www.xwiki.com">XWiki</a>. The company provides integrated wiki-based solutions to companies all over the world and is the most advanced on its market.</span></em>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-27949829206794791592006-11-21T22:15:00.000+00:002006-11-26T23:19:10.886+00:00Wiki solutions for SMEs<span style="font-family:verdana;">In small businesses more than anywhere else, time means money. What does this have to do with wikis ?</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:verdana;">Wikis ease coordination problems</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">As a small business, you have to handle work with multiple partners. Let's say that you are an architect : you have to work with your clients, subcontractors, builders, and so on. In order to do that you will have to send dozen of e-mails to them, often including attachments and forwarded through akward channels to people that should not receive them. Or you could choose to centralize all the relevant information in a virtual space that the people you are working with can access at any time, edit to add / correct informations and stay up to date with what is happening. This is what a wiki can do for you.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Wikis are a multidimensionnal solution</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">For your small business, a website is indispensable. A website ... or a blog ? How do you choose ? A wiki is an effective answer to this dilemma. Most wikis include a blog function, which mean that you will have a space to communicate quickly and easily on your company. Access Rights Management features let you choose who may have access to selected pages of your site. Here is a quick picture of what you can do : A few pages that everybody can see but only you edit, where you present your company and its products (you can even allow customers to buy online), another part where pages can be accessed and edited by your customers, your partners and you in order to manage specific projects, and a blog to post information about your business sector and additional updates about what's happening in your company.</span><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Wikis are cheaper than supposedly "custom-designed" solutions</span></strong><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">As a small business, your monetary resources are limited and you don't want to waste them. A wiki provides you with a preexisting interface that you can organize your way, and let you focus on what truly matters : write content relevant to your business and update it easily, without technical concerns. You will not have the flash animations that annoys your readers anyway, but rather an effective website that will cost you only a fraction of what a webdesigner would have asked. And you won't be bothered with the fact that you cannot add content when your webmaster is on holiday.</span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Wikis are a good solution for many small businesses needs when it comes to creating a website and managing projects with numerous actors involved. <strong>Now your Small Business can go Web 2.0 easily, just try a wiki !</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Want more ? Stay tuned.</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;">© Guillaume Lerouge for <a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188">WikiBC</a></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></strong>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-44770660990740767412006-11-19T23:51:00.000+00:002006-11-26T23:19:48.200+00:00Pump your Intranet Up ! using a Wiki<span style="font-family:verdana;">So your company have been using an intranet for years, without any tangible result ? Looking forwarg to getting a system easy to install and that really works ? Here is what you can do !</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;">A wiki is user-centered</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Unlike your current system, where everything has to go through a webmaster before reaching the intranet, a wiki-powered system allows selected users to contribute and add content easily. Your out-of-date intranet will become a souvenir as soon as you will allow your employees to use it in order to communicate on what really matters for their job. Information stays current and can be shared among teams more efficiently. Now business needs rule, not the poor structure of your software !</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Access Rights Management is easy</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Stop wondering for years wether Mr Smith has access to the B-Zone that requires him to get a pass from the IT department ... in 3 weeks of time. You can tune access rights efficiently, with any level of detail (from the whole site to a single page, from all users to a given one). This means that you can easily control who sees/edit/comment on what and keep confidential information ... confidential. But also that you can provide access to a workspace to the new member of your team, who has been detached to work with you for those 3 weeks. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;">You can share documents (at last !)</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">The matter with e-mail is that one hardly (never?) knows wether he received the last version of this PowerPoint presentation he is supposed to present with his team on Monday. But the Content-Management System supposedly designed to handle this task is too obscure for anyone to actually use it. With a wiki, you can easily add any document to a given page, get it, modify it and put it back there, so that others know that they always get the current version to work on. No more "I though this version was the right one" when your more important slide is missing on Monday...</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Using a wiki as an intranet fosters communication between employees and boosts productivity. <strong>Get rid of the skeleton that hangs on your server, it's time to go wiki !</strong></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Want more ? Stay tuned.</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;">© Guillaume Lerouge for <a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188">WikiBC</a></span></strong>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-42206999881981781052006-11-07T11:15:00.000+00:002006-11-26T23:20:12.504+00:00How a Wiki may help reduce stress in your companyStress at work is becoming an increasingly important problem for many companies (unsurprisingly : it costs UK industry £3.7 billion each year). This has led to many solutions being proposed by various consultants firms, often at an expensive cost. However, recent surveys show that basic organizational and training issues are playing a role in a large number of stressful situations. This article will argue that some of these issues can be successfully tackled by using a corporate wiki.<br /><br /><strong>Why stress ?</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />Basically, stress is as much a physical as en emotional problem. Facing a high level of demand or a feeling that your workload is getting out of control weakens your body's resources and leaves you more vulnerable to other illnesses. It may occur in the form of headaches or stomach pains. Conversely, emotional fragility means that you are likely to react to situations in ways that will surprise others, either because you are concerned too much with minor problems - or the opposite.<br />Stress occurs most of the time when individuals are faced with situations they fell they cannot handle although they should be able to, or when the level of personal investment in the success / failure of a project is high. A typical stress - provoking situation occurs wherever a bundle of complex information has to be dealt with in a limited amount of time, without proper support.<br />It is a real concern for companies because it may affect as much as one in five persons in a given workplace and is the principal responsible factor for sickness absences.<br /><br /><strong>What can you do ?</strong><br /><br /><br /><p>In a recent Guardian article, you can find an outline of a broader research that has been conducted on stress-causing situations and how to relieve workers. The study found out that one of the most important purveyor of stress where poor management practices. This comes as no surprise given the lack of specific training of most people that get access to management responsibilities. A few best practices have been identified, and this is where I think wikis have a role to play (You can find out what a wiki is <a href="http://wikibc.blogspot.com/2006/10/are-you-wiki.html">there</a>). By providing organization with a lightweight virtual structure, wikis allow staff empowering at a low cost and boost work effectiveness by cutting on coordination costs. Here is a list of the practices and the way wikis can help implement them :</p><ol><li>Better management of employees workflow. Managers tend to give their employees important amount of work without considering their current workload. A wiki would allow people to contribute to project in a common place they can access at any time, from everywhere. This means that instead of assigning one project to one person, you may name a coordinator that will administrate the project working space, where staff can log-in at any time when they are able to and contribute. Hence people with less workload than others would have more time to go there, have a look and get things done. Even though this does not suppress work involvement problems, it leads people into managing their rhythm of work and give them back control, which is important to avoid stressful situations which course we feel we cannot influence .</li><li>Engaging employees in decision-making. This is a direct correlate of the previous point. If people can regain control on their workload, they will be more willing to participate and take their share of what has to be done. We tend to be more involved in projects we can effectively influence. A wiki helps building a structure where everyone can contribute and add his own brick to the whole building.</li><li>Effective communication. "Why am I asked to do this ? What is all this for in the end ?" are common questions popping into our brains when asked to perform tasks which purpose we do not understand at first. The answer to this set of issues lies in communication. Telling people why they are asked to do things, asking them whether they could be done in a more efficient manner, reviewing their attitude towards their current work is really important. A wiki offers a space that all of them can edit to make suggestions, build a common idea, reflect on their practices and how to improve them. Most important, if read and contributed to by managers, it shows people you care about them and you feel interested in what they are doing. </li><li>Considering people as full-scale human beings. We do not need to go back to Kant and his theory that people have to be considered as ends by themselves, not only means to accomplish things to understand the validity of this point. We are working with people who experience feelings, who have ideas, and so on. Valuing their contribution to the community, working in collaboration with them on the space wikis provide to tap into their knowledge and potential are opportunities a company has to consider.</li><li>Last but not least : Show empathy ! This is what this article is all about, and this is what a wiki may contribute to. Interact with people, work collaboratively, value their contribution, show them why what they do is important for the company are things a manager should not forget to do. Getting the best out of people is a really thrilling experience, and this is what a wiki can do. By centralizing information, having all people to contribute to, taking into account eeveryone views and transforming them in a useful piece of work, wikis offer a real solution to a real problem.</li></ol><p>These solutions are aiming at reducing the occurence of stressing situations and helping corporate environment running more smoothly by increasing the level of awareness between members of staff. As a collective entity, a company contains much more useful information than any of its members. The core issue lies in getting all the dots to connect. Stressful situations happen when this connecting process is understood as a matter of hierarchical relations, orders and lack of concern for people. Using a wiki provides a way towars the acknowledgement of the importance of everyone place in a company.</p><p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p><p>The hardest part of this schedule is likely lying in the fact that, given they lack specialized training, many managers still fail to acknowledge these core issues in people management. A good way to have them realize how the abilities of people can be used by using a tool that allow them to interact in a flexible way, build strong work-related documents, communicate effectively and coordinate their tasks. By giving back some control to the base, wikis helps getting people involved in their jobs. And, in the end, reduce the global level of stress. <strong>There is no perfect solution to stress problems. But there is interesting ways to try to reduce them.</strong></p><br /><br /><strong>Want more ? Stay tuned.<br /><br />© Guillaume Lerouge for <a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188">WikiBC</a></strong><br /><strong><em></em></strong><br /><strong><em>References</em><br /><br /></strong>Frost, Vicky (2006), "Can your manager manage ?", Saturday Guardian, Work 2 Section, 21/10/2006, pp. 1&2Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-74695598583789122642006-10-31T12:02:00.000+00:002006-11-26T23:20:42.223+00:00How can a wiki help you build a "Blue Ocean Strategy" ?The book "Blue Ocean Strategy", (Harvard Business School Press, February 3, 2005) by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne has exerted a great impact on the recent reflections on strategy. To get a sense of its influence, the following data is enough : it ranks #115 in Books in Amazon.com Sales Rank.<br /><br />This article will try to assess what this strategy is all about and how it can be successfully implemented at a relatively low cost by using a wiki. It will argue why wikis and "Blue-Ocean Strategy" seems to fit perfectly each other. In fact, it will show how these two concepts share inextricable links and therefore how their complementary use creates more value than when they are set to work separately.<br /><br /><strong>"Blue Ocean Strategy" ?</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><em>(You may want to skip this part of the article if you are already familiar with Chan and Mauborgne book and/or ideas.)</em><br /><br />Basically, pursuing a blue ocean strategy means focusing on the creation of new, unknown markets instead of operating only in the realm of current competitors on a given market. It is not only about valuing innovation (for this would be a quite common suggestion), but also about how to pack it into a coherent price/value/target offer, in a customer-centered way. Blue ocean are defined as markets that has not yet come into existence, as opposed to red ocean markets that owe their color to the "cut-throat competition" that takes place in them.<br /><br />This approach puts a resolute emphasis on the importance of using "strategic moves" as the conceptual unit to interpret business and industries successes and failures :<br /><br />"The strategic move that matters most to both an industry's long run profitable growth and that of individual companies is that repeated creation over time of new market space that captured a mass of buyers." (Chan and Mauborgne, 2005)<br /><br />The problem then shifts to the question of the creation of such a strategy.<br /><br /><strong>Learn to swim in a blue ocean : how to dig your own pool </strong><br /><br /><br /><p>Although this is too often ignored or simply forgotten, genuine strategy is a matter of long-term, consistently put into practice decisions. This implies that creating your own blue ocean strategy is not only an operational problem, but necessitates a specific underlying structure to be built. Wikis are the kind of tools meant to play this role. The real nature of the blue ocean theory has to be mastered to understand why. Indeed, most of the time, blue oceans are waiting right next to you in every industry. The basic example is of the Ford model T, of which very existence was enough to create the market of affordable cars. The new field did not lie outside the automobile market, but in its very heart. </p><p>The next step to consider is that, in a company, the people that are the most likely to be aware of where a new market could be searched for are almost ... everyone. Be it a salesperson in direct contact with buyers, an engineer or even a bubbling employee : all those who are implicated in your company potentially have ideas or information that could be used consistently in order to point towards new markets. This may first seem absurd : how may laypeople be more informed than a R&D team, for example ? What you should remember here is that your employees represent a great number of people that deal on a daily basis and come across all the aspects of your current business. Even though it means shifting usual assumptions on their heads, if you think about it, it makes sense : if an opportunity lies somewhere, you can guess that someone may have spotted it. The matter becomes, how do you get to know it ?</p><p>As you may have already guess, an answer lies in the power of wikis. By allowing people to communicate and participate on a global platform, and motivating them to do so, you will quickly see how unexpected knowledge pops out and builds itself. An insight can be complemented by another, and free editing means freedom for everyone to make its contribution, whatever its size. You have a tool that allows you to tap into the pool of knowledge of one of the most knowledgeable sets of people on a particular topic : those who work on it. Exploring and creating new land can be conducted much more efficiently by coordinating the efforts of a crowd than by asking a small team to do it. Give a quick glance at Wikipedia : do you imagine even 500 individuals writing more than 1,500,000 entries ? The best part is yet to come : first, this will not cost you a huge amount of money for you can ask your IT department to do it or buy it for less than $2,000 a month from a specialized company, and last, it can be put in place without modifying current organigrams, just by providing employees with an account and a guide on how to share their knowledge. Ask your questions, they will answer. Collectively, they know.</p><p>Once a potential new market has been identified, you will have to decide whether to "expand existing boundaries" or not. Chosing to do so, you will have to take care of some core features.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><strong>What are the main characteristics of a blue ocean strategy ?</strong><br /><br /><br /><p>The fundamental originality of the blue ocean approach will appear here. Indeed, a company should not focus only on innovation, but on a global offer. This offer is built on a relationship between consumer's utility level, price, costs and innovation. It is not only giving something new, it is giving something new that creates its own market through the advantages it offers to consumers at given price that in turn determines costs, rather than the classical cost-plus way. It is opening new perspectives, starting from different assumptions about the people that could constitute a market, and so on. A good blue ocean strategy should be rated positively when the following questions are asked : Does it have focus ? a good tagline ? Does it diverge from other players ? Important insights in all those areas can be gained from throwing the debate on the common floor. This is the best way to find out which aspects have to be dealt with and in what order of priority.</p><p>The authors suggest the use of a "strategic canvas" to diagnose the situation in an industry and subsequent opportunities. They recommend going through the following "four actions framework" :</p><ul><li>Which of the factors that the industry takes for granted should be eliminated ?</li><li>Which of the factors that the industry takes for granted should be reduced below the industry's standard ?</li><li>Which of the factors that the industry takes for granted should be raised above the industry's standard ?</li><li>Which of the factors that the industry takes for granted should be created, that the industry never offered ?</li></ul><p>This helps you figuring out what is the current situation and where an unsatisfied demand exists. At this stage of the implementation, on of the most important aspects to bear in mind is the need of a strong coordination in the determination of a potential alternative offer between different departments : marketing (finds an utility, chooses a price), production and accountancy (determine a cost). Here wikis act as interfaces between department that are not organically linked but still have to work closely together. They offer a flexible way of sharing and exchanging up-to-date information on a given project.</p><p>By now you came out with an offer that no one could ignore (or at least not enough people so that the market you expect to appear neglects to do so). The last stage may prove particularly tricky, but options to make it more secure do exist.</p><p><strong>Getting things done, or dealing with execution as the keystone of the whole edifice</strong></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Now that your blue ocean strategy has been designed, you are likely to want to put it at work. This is maybe the more perilous part, for it implies a commitment from the whole organization to get things done properly. On your way to execute your strategy, you may be faced with two distinct sets of problems, and this is what this section deals with.<br /><br /><ol><li>Organizational hurdles : your company currently operates with a given hierarchical framework, and to move towards your new strategy you may have to reconfigure it. To do so smoothly, a good thing to think about is using your wiki to get people at work on some kind of a parallel way to their usual job. Business as usual, but everybody can spend 30 minutes or one hour a day to explore the ideas, contribute, discuss, assess, interact with others without having to move from their desks. Instead of holding long and useless meetings, you can use this virtual environment to structure the contributions on the definition and important points of your strategy. Instead of turning your whole organigram topsy-turvy, get things done through the network.</li><li>Management hurdles : how do you get people to embrace change ? The best way to attain this is by having them contributing to the process of change, and this is precisely what I recommend that you should have been doing from the start. Your new strategy will produce results only if supported by your staff, and if they actively contributed to it this is much more likely to happen. People don't like to be left behind, hence you should not do so when pushing change forward. If you followed the previous steps, your staff is likely to be pushing you in order to find out what the outcome will be. Given human capital is the biggest resource of enterprises in an era of service-focused economy, this is simply great.</li><li>Cost : I said 2, and this is a third point, but it is worth mention. The whole solution I've been putting forward throughout this article will not cost you more than $1000 a month in terms of the technical solution, to which some formation cost (presentation seminar) have to be added. Think about what it would have mean to restructure whole departments and build your point of view on the question ...</li></ol><p><strong>Some drawbacks may exist and have to be considered</strong></p><p>Once again, shortcomings of two king may arise :</p><ol><li>Those commonly associated with the use of wikis that I deal with in my previous article.</li><li>Information sharing. Clearly, you have to rely on the fact that all the information that is dealt with on your corporate wiki will not end up in the wrong hands. This problem exists in all companies as soon as a new strategy is to be put forward. Think about it this way : if you try to hide and retain information and a leak happens, you will never know what exactly has been leaked, who did it, and so on. If all your information is in the same place (this is reliable for the technical security of wikis is quite good, especially when behind your company's firewall), you are immediately able to compare what is known and what is not. You have a clear view of the situation and are able to react effectively and quickly. Balance this with the numerous advantages of using a wiki, and make your choice. But the shift towards free flows of information inside an enterprise clearly require an evolution f current mindsets and is a challenge to the use of wikis - a challenge worth tackling.</li></ol><p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p><p>I hope that I have enlightened some of the interesting aspects of shifting to a wiki-backed blue ocean strategy. Even though this creates specific sets of issues to be dealt with, it is definitely a winning approach. <strong>The question is, will you choose to sail your corporate wiki towards further blue oceans ?</strong></p><p><strong>Want more ? Stay tuned.</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>© Guillaume Lerouge for </strong><a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188"><strong>WikiBC</a><strong><br /></strong><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p></strong><em></em>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-89343982418815713352006-10-30T13:56:00.000+00:002006-11-26T23:21:03.631+00:00How do I implement my own corporate wiki ?First of all, <a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188">contact us</a> !<br /><br />What are the main outcomes you should be aware of when thinking about building and starting using your own corporate wiki ? In order to set up a corporate wiki, you will have to deal with some core issues. Here they are :<br /><br /><strong>Evaluating your needs and expectations</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />This is the key, the point from where everything else proceeds. The main reasons for that are, first, that when you will evaluate the effectiveness of your internal wiki, you will assess it by comparing what you have with what you would have liked to got and, second, that you have to map the current situation before setting your corporate wiki up.<br /><br />What should you come through at this stage ?<br /><br /><ul><li>What is currently done with others applications (E-mail, Content Management System, Intranet, etc...) and presents shortcomings in their present way of being used ?</li><li>What would I like to see wiki doing as regards the ineffectiveness of these applications ?</li><li>What do wikis really have to offer given the way my society is currently structured ? </li><li>Is my company's culture open enough to embrace an employees-powered information system ?</li><li>Are they able to matches the specific requirements it faces (e.g., security or regulatory) ?</li><li>Is it worth it ? Does the will to get things done exists at the moment or should I wait until a more favourable period (i.e., not three days after the budget for next year is sharply planned and closed) ?</li></ul><p>All these questions are of particular importance, for they determine whether the solution that you are going to implement really meets needs that you specifically identified or will deceive you in being an useless technological gadget.</p><p>Once you think that the need for a wiki is established, a next step follows.</p><p><strong>Which technical solution do I chose ?</strong></p><p>Now it's decided, you want yours. Great. But how do you get the wikis of your dreams, the application that will solve all you communication and coordination problems (amongst others) ?</p><p>You have to decide between different possibilities, each of which offers advantages and inconveniences.</p><ol><li><strong>Go for it by yourself. </strong>We recommend this solution in only two cases, and you are strongly advised to think it through thoroughly should you decide to select it. Either you are a big company, hence having a strong IT department that should prove able to build the solution you need from an open-source basis and customize it to fit your needs, or, though of a small or medium size, your company includes at least one gifted individual when it comes to programming. The main advantages of this kind of solution are its reduced cost for you do not have to pay a provider, and flexibility for your IT specialists should be able to build what you want them to (although it is acknowledged that you have to master their particular realm of communication to achieve this). The drawbacks are directly linked to the level of skill of your own specialists and may hence be nonexistent, but you will lack the expertise of a specialized firm (don't worry, we are <a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188">here !).</a></li><li><strong>Ask a Provider</strong>. There is a growing amount of them on the market, and counting. Their offer are not yet highly differentiated, though their prices may sometimes differ significantly. When it comes to choosing one, it is as much a question of how you like an interface compared with another, in which aspects is it user friendly, do you get an intuitive grasp of it, do you like the colors ?... Although this may seem quite superficial, these are some of the features that will commend adoption of the wiki by your employees. Once again, we have experienced many of them and can get you through the different philosophies that guided their elaboration and help you chose the one that suits best your company's mindset. Their principal features are quite advanced by now and should be able to fit your company, and providers are adding new ones at an accelerated rhythm, so the one you need will be available soon if it is not already. The last point I ought to mention is the existence of a customer service that knows what technical difficulties you might go through and is able to coordinate the wiki with the other systems used by your company.</li></ol><p>By now you have a wiki operating within your company. The question is, will your users follow ? This raise a last issue, no to be forgotten.</p><p><strong>Formation and Training</strong></p><p>We argue throughout this blog that wikis are easy to use and may help you cut on email overload and tackle many other issues. This is fundamentally true, but so is the case of email though some employees may have experienced difficulties when first having to use that technology. The same can be held of wikis. The other prominent point is that you have to convince people to use it. The two steps are as follows :</p><ol><li><strong>Getting people to use the system. </strong>Given the particular framework of your company, the expectations you have for your wiki, what are the best ways to make people use it ? Different strategies are relevant here, that you can combine as you wish. They include : </li></ol><ul><li>Targetting geeks, which mean identify individuals most likely to play with any innovation and let them discover its features, sooner or later they will spread the word and generate curiosity about the application.</li><li>Relying on the basically open structure of wikis to have people using it : they will be empowered and responsabilized by the fact that <strong>they</strong> are responsible for editing the content<strong> </strong>of pages and are expected to share relevant information. Moreover, this creates a feeling of investment which is a motivation to get information up to date.</li><li>Put an emphasis on the network structure and let people interact together for a while on the structure before actually asking them to perform work-related tasks using it. You will be amazed by the speed at which the use of such a system can spread. (Some further case studies are to be presented and analyzed soon)</li><li>The fact is that people will be more motivated and willing to use it if managers set the example and are asked to assertively encourage the use of the technology.</li></ul><p></p><ol><li><strong>Helping those who don't grasp it.</strong> Working with wikis requires some familiarization with the concept and practice, and some users may feel lost or simply unfamiliar with the system. This is absolutely normal and should be treated as such, by offering quick formations to the people concerned by the change. These formations should be held at three levels : </li></ol><ul><li>Basic presentation : for all the employees concerned with the use of a wiki. This is meant to present the features and potential uses of wikis, give a global idea of what it is and how it works. This is a sufficient start and shall be naturally complemented by a period of free experimentation by the employees. Those could take place in the same day : presentation in the morning, workshops in the afternoon.</li><li>In depth, semi-personalized help : for employees that are strggling with the whole thing. It might take a while to discover the full range of potentialities offered by a wiki, and some peope may start by rejecting the idea. Always remember : an efficiently treated complaint equals a happy customer equals a supporter.</li><li>For the managers : they have to be able to understand how their daily practice can evolve by using wikis. Some challenges are embedded in this shift and they have to be dealt with, for relationships have to be partly rethought in terms of who controls what in terms of information flows.</li></ul><p>We have now dealt with the principal aspects of this last part.</p><p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p><p>When you will come to starting your coporate wiki, remember the three important steps described above : <strong>Analysis of the situation, Technical Implementation, Support of the Staff. </strong>They are the sole determinants of whether your wiki solution will perform or not. <strong>And I'm quite sure that you'd rather see it perform, don't you ?</strong></p><p><strong>Want more ? Stay Tuned.</strong></p><p><strong>© Guillaume Lerouge for <a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188">WikiBC</a></strong></p><p><strong></strong></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699868220820529077.post-26624104318663833892006-10-29T21:11:00.001+00:002006-11-26T23:21:25.133+00:00Focus on TeamworkingIn many modern companies, the matrix has become the norm. It means that, most of the time, an employee will have to be part of a team created for a specific purpose (such as completing a project) to perform his daily work. This creates challenges and opportunities that can both be faced and worked out by using a wiki.<br /><br /><strong>Basics of Teamworking</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />A team is group which members are aware they belong to. It has a definable membership structure (one supposedly knows whether or not he is part of a team) and a shared purpose (in a corporate setting, it will often be a piece of work that has to be completed collectively by members from different departments). This creates a challenge, for it means that a group of people who are unfamiliar with one another will have to behave collectively in a consistent manner in order to build something coherent. And this is why teamworking so often fails, for coordination has to be worked on and does not emerge from parallels behaviours.<br /><br /><strong>Why a wiki makes things easier</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />When it comes to coordination, a wiki is near from a perfect form of answer. Here is a tool that allow people to work together on the same documents (no problems of shared information), at the same time (you do not have to find out who kept the last version of the proposition draft home). If you are tired of members taking excuse of a bad information and coordination system to get away with a low share of real work, using a wiki is a good way to improve situation.<br /><br /><strong>Decide before acting</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />One of the main reasons for which teams fail is for they lacked a clearly defined goal to begin with. In order to be successful, a team has to spend time on chosing what are its objectives and how to pursue them. A wiki provides a space where members can review the last version of their objectives and comment on them. Therefore you will not be faced any longer with complaints that the guidelines were not clearly settled or updated. Once the task is properly defined (which will be quicker than with e-mail forwarding or even a meeting for this requires a high amount of organization time), the team can start working.<br /><br /><strong>Roles in teamworking</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />Most managers met Meredith Belbin's classification of roles in a team at one time or another in their careers. For those who have not came through it yet, Belbin's classification offers a quick orverview of what are the functions that members of a group have to fulfill in order for that group to be succesful. Belbin lists 9 roles :<br /><ul><li>Company worker/implementer : the person who creates system that will produce what the team want</li><li>Chairman/co-ordinator : checks that everyone's point of view has been taken into account</li><li>Shaper : provides drive and impetus to the team, keep things going</li><li>Plant : is a source of creative ideas (sometimes too abstract for the others)</li><li>Resource investigator : he is the networker of the group and is linked to other groups, he can provide the group with what it needs</li><li>Monitor evaluator : the person responsible for questioning unfounded assumptions</li><li>Team worker : take care of relationships within the team</li><li>Completer finisher : the person that keeps an eye on details</li><li>Specialist : brings knowledge to the team</li></ul><p>Now that these roles have been presented, it becomes clear that a collaborative interface where team members can interact and edit each other work is highly useful : the evaluator can immediatly point out in a comment what has to be worked on, the plant can propose ideas in an area where they will be discussed with others, the shaper can evaluate the level of everyone's work and what has to be done... A wiki offers a space for everyone voice to be heard, which facilitates the role of the coordinator. </p><p>Although most of the time individuals have a preference for a particular role, a wiki allows teammembers to play various roles at one time. Peer reviewing is made easier, a space for new ideas is easy to set up, and the strenghts of each member can be tapped into more easily. </p><strong>A platform for more efficient teamworking</strong><br /><br />A wiki is not by itself a perfect solution for teamworking. It should rather be considered as a platform that allows usual teamworking issues to be tackled with more efficiency, more quickly. It eases the role of many members by centralizing information and documents and allowing them to coordinate with others effectively. By cutting on email (sometimes as much as 40%) it speeds up a whole process. Coupled with a blog, it can provide current information and replace a mailing list. RSS feeds make it easy to find out what is new and who has contributed recently. <strong>Try it, and you won't consider teamworking as a punition any longer.</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>Want more ? Stay tuned.</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>© Guillaume Lerouge for <a href="http://beta.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188">WikiBC</a></strong>Guillaume Lerougehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11421813707696466188noreply@blogger.com0