7 effective wiki uses and the companies that benefit from them

7 effective wiki uses and the companies that benefit from them

from:grow your wiki

In CIO magazine, Thomas Wailgum writes, “CIOs really need to listen to their business users and peers, especially when it comes to knowledge-worker productivity issues… they shouldn’t just try to force a generic solution (”Here’s your BlackBerry,” or “Take this laptop”) out to business users before sitting down and listening to them. In many cases, a user won’t know what the solution is, but by being able to explain the problem to IT, a joint, appropriate solution can be discovered. That thinking will ultimately enable more productivity for the user and offer a greater chance of ROI for the technology.”

I meet with a lot of organizations to help guide their wiki adoption, and one common trend I see is this:

When they decide to centrally support an enterprise wiki deployment, it’s because they’ve found that they already have wikis scattered throughout groups, teams, and departments. Wikis were brought into organizations under the radar by people that saw the value and couldn’t wait for the usual bureaucratic process for bringing in new tools.

Wikis have gone from those initial small scale pilots and scattered uses - with perhaps a dozen users here or there - to broader communities of hundreds or thousands of users. In the software development world, some of the most common uses include:

How about some examples?

IBM, SAP, and Sony Ericsson all use wikis as part of their developer networks. Others, like Pixar, Carbon Five, and Red Ant use wikis for collaboration with clients and managing production on major projects.

SAP
On the SAP Developer Network Wikithe, “main criteria for choosing to put content in the wiki is its volatility and dynamics, extendability and/or collaborative character. Ask yourself the question, if you want others to be able to change, extend, regroup, add, etc. your contribution.” That’s an excellent question to ask, especially for content that’s going on a public wiki.

Pixar
Pixar, the iconic producer of animated films that have won seven Academy Awards, uses a wiki internally to manage film production. A recent Wall Street Journal article says the company is using a wiki, “to help coordinate new computerized animation tools for the studio’s planned 2008 release of a film called “WALL-E.”

Sun Microsystems
I recently talked with Linda Skrocki, Sr. Engineering Program Manager: Blogs, Forums, Planets, Wikis at Sun Microsystems, about how people at Sun use the recently launched wikis.sun.com: “Collaboratively created documentation is a primary use for the wiki, with many spaces for specific initiatives dedicated to building and maintaining community created content. Not all spaces are entirely Sun-centric, and that’s as it should be. For the wiki to be successful, information should be on topics of interest to all participants.”

Red Ant
Red Ant, a Sydney, Australia based web design and development firm, uses a wiki as the main collaboration hub for employees and customers. I asked Ben Still, managing director, how they use wikis: “Say, for instance, we’ve created a design and need to show it to our client. First, a designer makes a page, attaches an image, and they’re done with their part. But then I might look at it and realize that it needs a bit more explanation, or a link to a wireframe diagram to give context. One of our developers might have also mocked up how a menu works, and so they stick in a link to that. Our client might email the link around, and then add some comments on the page. This kind of collaborative workflow is one of our strengths, and it is really important for us to be able to add these various types of content easily.”

Read more on wiki use at Sun and RedAnt in my new book: Wikipatterns. The book contains 8 case studies on wiki use in a range of organizations, and how-to guide for growing a successful wiki in your organization.

Sony Ericsson
The Sony Ericsson Developer World Wiki is a place for people developing applications using the Java ME application platform and Symbian/UIQ3 pen based interface to get information on how these technologies are used in Sony Ericsson phones and share ideas & information. The home page includes five “house rules” that are excellent guidelines for community members:

1. Respect the views of others - reminds people to be constructive, cite sources, keep calm if editing gets heated, and offer contributions that benefit the whole community and take into account the contributions of others.
2. Take responsibility - this guideline lets users know that it’s okay to create new articles, move content when necessary, and make changes that improve the wiki. For example, if a discussion moves away from the initial topic on a page, it’s best to create a new page for the new topic, so that multiple topics can be easily distinguished.
3. Stay on-topic - this guideline reminds users not to use slanderous, racist, offensive, or unsolicited commercial content on the wiki, as it will be removed.
4. Use common sense- reminds people that the wiki is a work in progress, and information in it should not be taken as an official Sony Ericsson policy or stance on any issue.
5. Use English - Sony Ericsson uses English as the official language for the wiki, and uses this guideline to remind contributors.

Carbon Five
Carbon Fiveis a small San Francisco and Los Angeles based company that develops enterprise web applications for clients. They rely heavily on a wiki as well, for both internal use and as an extranet for collaboration with customers. According to Don Thompson, “Each client gets their own “space,” an area that they can collaborate on projects with the team at Carbon Five.”

IBM
IBM DeveloperWorks Wikis cover topics like:

• Lotus Quickr Best Practices,
• J2EE Systems Management,
• WebSphere Instructor Wiki,

and a series of Web 2.0 Goes to Work conferences held in Raleigh, North Carolina and Austin, Texas. The space for those conferences has links to video posted on YouTube, a conference podcast, and a resources page for anything demoed at the conferences.

Looking to grow your own wiki use?

If you’re looking to grow your own wiki use, Wikipatterns.comis a toolbox of patterns & anti-patterns, and a guide to the stages of wiki adoption that’s intended to give anyone, anywhere, using any wiki software, a collection of strategies for successfully growing wiki use. It’s also a wiki, which means you can help build the information based on your experiences!Since its launch in January 2007, Wikipatterns.com has grown from 29 to 78 patterns, and most of those have been contributed by the 900 registered users that make up the community as of today. Check out the newly published Wikipatterns book- a how-to guide for growing wiki use in organizations with practical advice from a wiki expert. (That’s me!)

Here’s what people are saying about the book:

• “Create an idea-sharing environment where incomplete can be linked together and from this, solutions emerge.” - From the book’s Foreword, by Ward Cunningham
• “I’m going to recommend this without even reading it! Should be an e2.0 must-read top-shelfer…” - Susan Scrupski
• “Just pre-ordered this from Amazon. Looks to be a good read and an essential tool in any E2.0 evangelist’s tool kit.” - Scott Gavin
• “I love it when this happens, a blog I’ve read for ages (devoured some would say) gets published in book format. Needless to say my copy is already ordered.” - Gordon McLean

Have you started a wiki recently? Thinking of starting one? What are your plans for it?

Related Posts:

• More Buzz for 21 Days of Wiki Adoption: from Germany, New Zealand, & US
• Day 18: WikiCharter - community ‘house rules’
• Newsflash: If you read only one wiki how-to book, read this one!
• Why using a wiki instead of email or documents will multiply your collaboration effectiveness
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