Ketcheson.net: Eight “social media” questions I’d like answered…

Just point 6. of 8. is worth the clickthrough:

[from Ketcheson.net :: Eight “social media” questions I’d like answered…]

6 - Wikis: Am I the only one who gets frustrated?

Am I the only person who thinks that a behind the firewall wiki seem like a good idea that would just never get adopted? Yes, I know about Wikipatterns.com. But, I still just can’t envision my colleagues ever using a wiki. And, in a bureaucratic and tech-averse work environment, I’d get laughed out of the room for suggesting it.

Other points are also whimiscal and worthwhile. But 6. really nails my feeling about wikis. About which more tomorrow.

tags: ketcheson.net, social+media, wikis

Comments

[Alan Keister]

I don't agree with you on this one mostly because Wikis are taking off at my company. We use them for all types of project and technical documentation. The tech folks brought wikis into the company, of course. But I have seen signs that usage is spreading outside the product development circles.

I do believe that Wikis need to get easier to use before they will be adopted by many non-tech folks. There are still some wacky editing requirements among other things. But once wikis evolve to something like basic Word-style editing on a web page, I think they will be used as simple and cheap groupware products.

[Ian Ketcheson]

Thanks for the hat tip, Stowe. Look forward to your follow-up on this.

[Bill Seitz]

I agree that wiki adoption can be a challenge.

But so can getting people to answer every question in an email.

Some folks are doing some neat stuff with
* GUI editing
* in-line editing (dbl-click on a paragraph to edit just that chunk)

Once you cross those bits, then I find that having a since canvas that can be random-access edited (to change things, or insert new bits in the middle) keeps things much better organized than blog comments, a discussion forum, etc.

And the auto-linking of WikiWords to help build a SharedLanguage is, I think, a big jump forward.

http://webseitz.fluxent.com/wiki/LinkAsYouThink

So I hope to see your more detailed anti-wiki rant sometime soon, so I can learn more about your perspective....