A combination of a web page and a Word document, a wiki is a tool that’s simple like email but powerful enough to reduce your cluttered inbox and busy meeting schedule. Wikipatterns will help you learn how to build a 21st-century tool for collaboration, whether your team is in the same office or split among offices around the world. Wikis can transform business collaboration, and you’ll learn the ins and outs of making the most of this enduring collaboration tool. This book answers questions like:
What is a wiki?
How does an organization’s wiki differ from Wikipedia?
How do I make a case for using a wiki?
What’s the best way to get started?
How do wikis change an organization’s culture?
How do wikis “fit” with other collaboration tools?
What are the patterns of use and behavior that positively and negatively affect the wiki?
How do I encourage participation and make the wiki “stick” as an idea and a tool?
About wikipatterns.com
Wikipatterns.com is a toolbox of ideas and strategies for anyone looking to build a successful wiki. It’s also a wiki, which means you can help build the information based on your experiences!
Webinar Video: Improve Business Productivity Using Wikis - If you weren' t able to attend yesterday' s webinar on Using Wikis to Improve Productivity, or would like to see it again, here' s a video of the session. Jason Rothbart of GroupSwim and I hosted around 40 people, and fielded a number of great questions. Thanks to everyone who attended!
The Costly & Inefficient Procedure that Wikis can Improve - The complex trade of documents over email, especially among members of a team, is one of the most time-consuming, confusing, and error-prone processes in organizations today. Everybody has been part of this at some point, and the more people involved, the more chaotic it gets. People have to keep track of the rapid flow of emails [...]
Wikis at Work - Defining Requirements in a New Way - This is from Jason Rothbart of GroupSwim. Be sure to check out their on-demand collaboration tool. It includes a wiki, groups, discussions, and file sharing, and will help you better organize and manage projects, streamline collaboration, and inform involve your team. - Stewart Projects of all kinds usually involve writing requirements or designs of some [...]
5 Effective Wiki Uses - my latest article, in Website Magazine - The August issue of Website Magazine is out, and it includes an article I wrote: 5 Effective Wiki Uses and How Companies Benefit From Them. Here' s a brief excerpt: A wiki can be especially useful for commonly needed information, like FAQ, guidelines, HR or purchasing policies. Editing permissions can be set so those responsible for [...]
Creating Mozart: Enterprise Wikis at Chevron Richmond - This is from guest author Camille Goksever. She is an amenable risk taker and an entrepreneur at heart. She has run the gamet from working for Fortune 500 companies to Start-Ups, and from owning her own restaurant in the San Francisco Bay Area to a wine exporting business in Istanbul, Turkey. Wikis were a central [...]
“Grow Your Wiki” Grows into Specialist Consultancy - Today, I' m taking the wraps off something I' ve been working on for a long time. Grow Your Wiki is growing - into a specialist consultancy focused on organizational wiki adoption. This is as much a launch of something new, as the continuation of something I' ve been doing for a long time. I built my first wiki in [...]
5 Differences between Wikipedia & Enterprise Wikis - Enterprise wikis and Internet wikis (of which Wikipedia is an example) provide the same basic function - the ability to edit content through a web browser, but they differ in several significant ways: 1. Spaces Internet wikis often have all content housed in one place, so that any user can see the entirety of the site' s content [...]
New York Times: Is Barack Obama the first “Wiki-Candidate”? - In The Wiki-Way to the Nomination, New York Times writer Noam Cohen writes that the grassroots, bottom-up style of organization that Barack Obama' s campaign - and the candidate himself - have embraced may make him the first wiki-candidate . What sets him apart is his openness to contributions from those working outside the campaign organization. As [...]
Wiki ROI #2: Tacit Knowledge is Key to Improving Efficiency - Organizations have an immense amount of extremely valuable knowledge that' s walking out the door every day. Every day! Why? There isn' t an easily accessible, easily update-able place to put it. That' s where a wiki can help, and it' s the subject of the latest article in my series on the Wikinomics Blog: A wiki is more participatory [...]
In the beginning, we are building an encyclopedia for our field. While on that journey, someone gave me a copy of wikipatterns and my mind has been Blown! However, we do want that encyclopedia and FAQ format first
Accenture 123,000 employees with 54,000 wiki users
Deutsche Bank 270,000 employees (80,000 online) with 15,000 wiki users
IBM 387,000 employees with 100,000 wiki users
Smart companies are encouraging, rather than fighting, the heaving growth of massive online communities—many of which emerged from the fringes of the Web to attract tens of millions of participants overnight. Even ardent competitors are collaborating on path-breaking science initiatives that accelerate discovery in their industries. Indeed, as a growing number of firms see the benefits of mass collaboration, this new way of organizing will eventually displace the traditional corporate structures as the economy’s primary engine of wealth creation.
Billions of connected individuals can now actively participate in innovation, wealth creation, and social development in ways we once only dreamed of. And when these masses of people collaborate they can collectively advance the arts, culture, science, education, government, and the economy in surprising but ultimately profitable ways. Companies that engage with these exploding Web-enabled communities are already discovering the true dividends of collective capability and genius.
