Wikipedia isn't doing business use of wikis any favours

So, contentious title out of the way, I'll explain...

Wikipedia is the best known example of a wiki. This is the frame of reference many use when thinking "what is a wiki". But a wiki is just a word document, online. That's about it. It doesn't have to be anything other than a place people can write things without having to email the document they wrote them in to one another. So in developing an encyclopedia, Wikipedia has inadvertedly created a mass misunderstanding as to the value and potential usage of wikis.

Wikis can be used for absaloutely anything at all which probably currently happens via email like non-standard agendas, standards, reports, current effective practice, policies, reviews, knowledge assets etc etc etc.

Unfortunately, many companies begin their wiki experiments by trying to create the definitive knowledge asset on, say, knowledge management. This is a big ask for people who've never had their own contributions edited by someone they don't know. It turns people off, and prevents them from recognising the potential in wikis. They need to start with a simple and non-threatening activity like a progress report or lessons learned review. Even a shared agenda would help as I said in this post some time ago. Starting small will really help people gain confidence enough to start working on bigger projects like knowledge assets.

Instead of creating company shaped Wikipedia replicas, maybe we should all set our sights a bit lower and take some time to get used to what Forrester and many others consider to be high value tools for business.

And just for the record, I think Wikipedia is the dogs thingamees :-)

Enterprise 2.0 Technologies: they're not going anywhere anytime soon

Thanks to Bill Ives and his Portal and KM blog, I've been able to get the gist of the Forrester TechRadar For Vendor Strategists: Enterprise Web 2.0 without paying the $379 it costs to read the whole thing (hurrah!)

Bill reviewed the report and his highlights mention that usage of Enterprise 2.0 software has produced significant success with social networks and wikis, moderate success with blogs, forums, mashups, prediction markets, RSS and widgets (don't they make your beer bubbly?) and minimal success with microblogs, podcasts and social bookmarks.

I'd agree that people appear to connect with social networks and wikis more than, say, podcasts and RSS (vastly underutilised if you ask me), but I would have to read the report to know why the distinction between social networks and forums. Any road up, the top and bottom of it is that in terms of these collaborative software applications "Some were just starting on their journey (microblogs), others had reached their high point (podcasts and forums) but none were on their way down". So the fact that the public sector is only just opening its doors to these tools is not necessarily bad - looks like enterprise 2.0 is no fad.

CILIP event - web 2.0, knowledge management and the corporate librarian

I had a bit of an epiphany last night, a bit late for the biblical sense (the end of the 12 days of Christmas) but definately a sudden moment of understanding that caused me to think differently...

I was speaking at an event run by CILIP (Chartered Institute of Librarians and Information Professionals) in London. It was in a rather nice "proper" pub, part of the Cilip in London Sekford Arms programme of meetings. I had originally envisaged doing a powerpoint presentation, image based of course, with videos and examples of blogs, wikis etc. However the group has a "no technology" rule, requiring only that the speaker, well, speak.

I was, to be honest, dreading this, as I've always used powerpoint and similar as a prompt to help me remember where I am, what I was going to say, to give me some place, as I'm a bit of a waffler. To be without said prop filled me with dread. But I was amazed (cue epiphany moment).

I felt incredibly comfortable with just sitting there, talking to people, without thinking about what my slides said, without worrying about whether I'd missed bits, whether the videos would work...all that distracting stuff you get with technology. I could listen to what I was saying, listen properly to questions, watch the group for non-verbal cues (like nodding off, head shaking, frowning) which I'd probably have missed had I been concentrating on the technology I was using to present with. I felt like, almost anyway, a storyteller. I'm going to try to avoid powerpoint in future...

For those who couldn't make it - I did promise I'd put my key points here, so here they are:

• Educationalists and librarians have the same basic objective - to help people gain knowledge. Educationalists focus on the how of learning, information professionals on the what, the information, but the end result is the same - we're all helping people to learn. The more we work together to do this, the more helpful we will be to our customers.
• Technology can help, but we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water. Face to face interventions have served us well, and I think we should use technologies to supplement what we already know about people and the effective ways we've developed of working for and with them and not forget about this knowledge by focusing solely on technology. I know some would disagree, but for me it's not about the technology per se, it's about how we can use and leverage it to best effect.

The evening was a great experience, the audience were fantastic. What a great group of clever, thoughtful, open minded and responsive people.

There were some very interesting questions about the philosophical nature of knowledge. I'm fascinated by this topic, but I do feel that when considering the practical uses of knowledge, it's about what we can do to help one another learn, as much as it is about understanding what it is we know, and what is knowing. It was also great to see and hear from health based individuals who struggled with issues of access, skills, understanding and also excellent examples of the uses of technologies such as wikis and blogs in a medical library.

After (another) rubbish day at work I was really pleased to read Anne Welsh's post on the event, and to hear that those who were more negatively inclined were more engaged by the end. I feel like I did something really useful, and sparked some debate, whilst thoroughly enjoying myself and learning more about the role of the librarian in the corporate world. I also discovered (thanks to Ruth Rikowski), that there are some fabulous books published by Chandos which are right up my street in terms of knowledge management, so I encourage you to have a look at their catalogues.

The sausage and chips were great too :-)

Thanks to Ralph for the invite and looking after me while I waited for my taxi, and thanks to Anne for contributing definitions in such a concise and accessible way...huge respect to you missus.

Academia vs Wikipedia...again

I thought I'd share this rather fabulous rant by Thomas on Techyum with you. Thomas is incensed about this article that appeared in New Scientist about Wikipedia, particuarly noting that some professors are less accurate in what they say than Wikipedia, which in my experience, is fair comment.

There has been phenomenal debate around the worth of Wikipedia, and most of the key elements of the debate can be found on Wikipedia itself. Indeed, in one of its own articles, Wikipedia itself notes that

Wikipedia acknowledges that it should not be used as a primary source for serious research.

but its value as an encyclopedia for me is endless. There is no way I could have written a thesis on the use of social media had I not had access to the definitions therein. Current information on the the terminology used in the area of social software use just wasn't available to me in books, and relevant peer reviewed articles were few and far between, in obtuse articles not held by my university.

Barry Leiba reviews research papers, and has kindly cited some examples of where Wikipedia shouldn't be used in research papers. His greatest bugbear appears to be the fact that references cited may have changed by the time the reviewer checks the reference, which is fair comment. This is mitigated however by refering to the precise version. David Gerard's comment on the same post explains how -

Click on the "History" tab and you'll see every version inthe edit history. Whereas the version at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation may change, the version at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Inflation&oldid=162022107 (14:46
UTC, 3 October 2007) will not.

Wikipedia are attempting to get around the problem of peer review, with, suprise suprise, a peer review system...based on "trusted" sources. To earn this trusted status, users will have to show some commitment to Wikipedia, by, for instance, making 30 edits in 30 days.

This seems very much a quantity over quality strategy, but I'm sure its more robust than that (!). New software will also be used to give a "trust score" to contributors based on whether their edits are changed or not. This means that any topic in which there is healthy debate and disagreement will therefore be a no go as edits and changes will reduce trust scores.

In terms of academically accepted definitions, maybe the solution is for the Oxford English dictionary say, to produce a free online dictionary which takes contributions from us mere online mortals, to speed up the process of adding new words. As it is, you have to subscribe to even view the Oxford English dictionary, it takes an age for new words to be included, and right now, there's just no real substitue for Wikipedia.

What is Enterprise 2.0? - Web 2.0 technologies for collaborative working

I've been poking about on the incredibly linkful (is that a word? It should be) Green Chameleon blog and I found a link to a really simple but incredibly concise demonstration of how Web 2.0 technologies can facilitate collaboration in the workplace.

It's the sort of the thing that might help you to sell the idea of using them for collaboration, knowledge sharing etc to people who have little knowledge of what Web 2.0 is all about. It looks like it would be a useful awareness raising tool.

I've failed to embed it, here's the link

This video, by Commoncraft, is clever, short and amusing, and demonstrates how a wiki can be used. But it's NOT one for demonstrating the business benefits of using a wiki for collaboration to your CIO.

Every community of practice needs a focus

Something Caroline DeBrun from the National Library for Health (who runs the Talking Knowledge Management blog along with many other KM activities and sites) said in her presentation at the CILIP event yesterday has struck a chord with me.

She mentioned that she personally used blogs for reflection, and wikis for collaboration. I agree, that seems a sensible and effective use of both technologies, but what she said made me really think about potential activities a wiki would be perfect for, and which would facilitate knowledge sharing, particularly the sharing of lessons learned from the experience of project management.

It's becoming clear to me that what we (NHS CFH) are trying to gather and utilise, primarily tacit knowledge based on experience which is difficult to articulate, is nigh on impossible to collect with a blog. There may be many reasons for this, and it may not be true of all organisations or group blogs, but what I think might work is to focus more on faciliating community development via collaborate activity. This should in turn, increase community cohesion and encourage a culture of sharing.

Acknowledging that people really need to focus on activity which improves practice within their particular domain if they are to function as a community of practice, I think rather than asking people to write about their own experiences and lessons learned, we should ask them to collectively create guidance for others, using a wiki. This should draw out experiences and knowledge that they wouldn't offer up in iscolation on a blog. To a certain extent, it's getting them to share their tacit knowledge without knowing that's what they are doing. Crafty...

I can't believe I didn't think of that before...amazing what happens when you look up for a moment, look around, and listen to what others are saying.

Definately one for the recommended research section of the dissertation.