The new facilitator, or wiki wacky?
The new facilitator, or wiki wacky?
May 01, 2005: A wiki is a server program that allows users to collaborate in forming the content of a website. Is the wiki about to revolutionise team work, communication and how we collaborate in organisations? Wikis are quick, simple and effective whenever people need to share information, but what exactly makes the wiki such a good collaborative tool and should mature IT applications, platforms and architectures be thrown out in favour of the new kid on the block? James Dellow, principal consultant of information and knowledge management consultants Chief Technology Solutions, reports on the advantages and disadvantages of getting down to business with corporate wikis.
The relationship between knowledge management and information technology is an uncomfortable one. Their association has been plagued but what is seen by some as a hijacking of the knowledge management agenda by software vendors. In some instances they were perceived to be simply rebadging old solutions and marketing them as knowledge management applications with little consideration for how they would be used in practice. But so far the wiki (and also blogging) has escaped the negative baggage associated with other knowledge support tools such as search engines, portals, groupware and document management systems. Now even consultants who firmly stand on the human-side of knowledge management can be heard talking in awe of the wiki and blogging phenomenon. They will tell you that these tools can create the collaborative nirvana in organisations that we have all been looking for, and even better it will all be fuelled by free software and open standards such as RSS.
So what exactly makes a wiki different from other types of collaborative software or Web content management systems? In part, it is the convergence of both these functions that makes the wiki such an interesting and pervasive tool. The essence of the wiki is self-evident in the origin of the name that comes from the Hawaiian word for "quick", reflecting the desire to make it fast and easy for people to share information. Wikis are collaborative because they provide a shared content management workspace that anyone can edit. So a wiki provides an effective way for people to share the creation of content on a shared web space. What wikis do not provide is the full functionality we would expect in traditional groupware or all the features we might find in a comprehensive content management system. On the other hand, it is the under-engineering of the open source wiki that make it such a popular technology.
At this point it is important to make a distinction between public, academic or community based wikis on the Internet and the wikis we might find used within a corporate environment. There is no dispute that the emergence of Internet-based social software is an amazing development in the way people use technology. It is also true to say that this innovation is feeding from the outside into organisations, rather than outwards into the broader community as we have seen with other information technologies in the past. Even so, the needs of the enterprise environment will always be different because of commercial and human resource management issues. Depending on how and where it will be used, key features for an enterprise wiki include user authentication, access control, auditing, content rollback, spam protection and content filtering for bad language.
Examples of corporate grade wiki software include Social Text (http://www.socialtext.com/), Twiki (http://www.twiki.org/) and Xwiki (http://www.xwiki.org and http://www.xwiki.com/). Each of these examples provide an open source version of their offering, but if you need advanced features, support or customisation it may come at a cost where your organisation lacks the appropriate skills or resources in-house.
< p>If you want to stick with a mainstream platform such as Microsoft ASP .Net or IBM Domino, a couple of open source solutions do exist in the form of FlexWiki (http://www.flexwiki.com/) and a template from the OpenNTF project (http://www.openntf.org/) respectively. Essentially the same considerations that apply to other types of open source software also apply to open source wiki.
The fit of an open source wiki with the existing IT infrastructure needs to be assessed on a case by case basis for each organisation. For this reason, hosted options are particularly attractive where the internal IT architecture is built around Microsoft at the core, but unauthorised deployment of such a solution into an enterprise can also be a source of pain for HR, IT, marketing and legal departments.
Unfortunately it is these challenges and the lack of integration with main stream corporate applications that may be one of the main reasons that enterprises choose to stick with existing commercial solutions like Documentum eRoom, IBM Domino, Microsoft Sharepoint and Groove. For example, Sharepoint offers tight integration with Microsoft Office that is simply not available in a wiki, while IBM's Lotus Team Workplace (also known as QuickPlace) can be combined with Sametime to provide awareness, chat and real-time meetings.
I asked fellow consultant Angus McDonald, principal of IT consulting firm Cattle Dog to share his thoughts on why organisations will continue to prefer solutions such as Sharepoint over wikis. McDonald believes that "If the collaboration centres on business documents, structured lists or online meetings, then Sharepoint is likely the better choice."
In all fairness, the wiki was never intended to provide a structured environment for content, but the lack of metadata and hierarchy is a common criticism of the wiki approach. McDonald suggests "In that sense a wiki might suit a community of practice, but it is a less appropriate way to develop new marketing collateral, or present event schedules."
On the other hand, Steven Layer, managing director of Australian-based knowledge management software company Weblogics, is more direct in warning that while companies want ease of use, they also "do not want to create yet another island of information within the organisation."
Layer argues that the Weblogics solutions provides enterprises with a fully integrated solution out of the box but includes all the benefits of a wiki, including low cost, ease of use and strong collaboration. He comments that "Whatever solution they implement, it must be integrated and fit the business requirements, platform and strategy of the company."
Another consideration when using corporate wikis is one that applies to all types of groupware and collaborative tools - this is the intrinsic risk of user-driven software. Most business users are unaware of software related risk and how to mitigate them, since this knowledge has typically existed in the domain of the IT department or software development houses. For example, one of the earliest user-driven software tools is the spreadsheet.
Research studies completed by universities and industry over the past decade or so consistently show that the ad hoc development of complex spreadsheets results in a high frequency of error and these mistakes can have real consequences. Similarly, simply building enterprise grade user management and security features into a wiki does not mean organisations can avoid these risks altogether. End-users need to understand how and why they should use these features, as well as how the wiki philosophy fits the business culture. And of course, no piece of technology can overcome fundamental management issues that prevent people from collaborating in the first place.
Back at the technology level, perhaps the real challenge for the corporate environment is that the simple wiki has revealed an emerging need for people in organisations to quickly come together and share information with minimal effort. However, neither wikis, other collaborative applications or content management systems provide the single perfect solution for all requirements and circumstances. Evidence of attempts to reconcile enterprise needs with the wiki concept can be seen in solutions such as Jotspot, a hosted wiki solution currently in beta stage (http://www.jotspot.com/) that combines features of groupware with the ease of publishing and group editing associated with the wiki. But this begs the question of when does a wiki stop being a wiki?
Overall, there is no denying that the wiki introduces a new and exciting collaborative paradigm to the corporate world. But probably the function of the wiki is more important that the form of the application. In other words, users have seen what they want in the functionality of a wiki; now organisations need to select the right platforms and applications that will enable them to most effectively bridge this gap.
For some organisations, the classic wiki as we know it will be the right choice, but for others, existing tools or new hybrid solutions may fit better when we consider the whole of the problem. The key lesson is to understand what your users really need, be aware of the different options available in the marketplace and then pick the solution that fits best.
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