Making Wikis Work - Part 1

The problem with wikis is that they are only as good as the content created and the use made of that content. Of course this sounds obvious, but it must be understood that a good wiki does not happen by simply putting it into an organisation and seeing what happens.

Here’s the rub… A truly powerful wiki comes from enthusiastic participation of all the users in a wiki community. The diverse nature of that community, however, means that participation by all almost never happens! At best, a handful of contributors populate and manage the wiki content. If you are lucky, the rest of the community uses it. Even if a wiki is seen as a useful forum for information sharing, it will probably fall short of the potential value it can deliver.

A friend of mine who is a talented software engineer used a wonderful little trick to solve the problem in a beautifully simple way. Whenever he was asked to explain something, or to provide help or advice, he would trade that advice for the other person’s participation in creating wiki content. In other words, “I’ll help you if you write it up in the wiki”.

An organisation is full of tacit knowledge which exists in the minds of its people. This know-how has been traditionally shared through asking, through conversation, through mimicry and other forms of on-the-job training – all very inefficient and highly risky to an organisation where key individuals are concerned. By creating a genuine reason to capture this information, by making it valuable enough for someone to put into a wiki, everyone will participate for their own self interest and the greater good of the entire wiki community.

My software engineering friend found a simple way to engage an entire wiki community in his organisation. Before long, their wiki become a treasure trove of tacit know-how and a significant asset to both productivity and to managing the business risk of key people’s knowledge.

Robert Rath – http://www.innovation-mentor.com