Wildwood's Wiki is Hard At Work |
| by CJ Romberger |
How can you store different types of information in one central system that's easy to manage? And it needs to be searchable. What about a Wiki?
Here's Wikipedia's definition of a Wiki:
A wiki is a type of computer software that allows users to easily create, edit and link web pages. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites, power community websites, and are increasingly being installed by businesses to provide affordable and effective Intranets or for use in Knowledge Management. Ward Cunningham, developer of the first wiki, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as "the simplest online database that could possibly work". One of the best-known wikis is Wikipedia.
In the Wikipedia, a large number of these words are linked to other wiki entries. Cross Reference Heaven!
Why A Wiki at Wildwood?
We have several internal systems at Wildwood to do tasks and store information. For example, we have project management software, an accounting system, and a defined subdirectory structure. These are all effective in their own right, but these systems don't easily allow collaboration or overall business information storage and retrieval. We wanted a central knowledgebase repository and collaboration area for tracking and sharing information. A few examples of what could be stored there are:
- knowledge gained on a project
- great websites we all like
- resources for various purposes
- newsletter ideas
- events
- networking groups
We've tried several solutions, but they all fell short and internal adoption failed. Then, recently, we installed a Wiki. It's still an infant, but it's already turning into a great repository for information.
Our website has more about wiki implementation, including:
- simple strategies for getting user buy-in, (critical),
- wiki structure and management,
- what software we used (free),
- plug-ins (easy to add),
- security considerations, and
- some editing tips (anyone can do this!)
SIMPLE STRATEGIES FOR GETTING USER BUY-IN
The most critical component of any system is getting user buy-in. If people don't find it useful, they won't put information into it. There's a few simple strategies we've employed to encourage the maximum possible buy-in. We'll mention some of these throughout this article.Please note that the Wiki is still in its infancy at Wildwood, so it's a learning process.
WIKI STRUCTURE AND MANAGEMENT
We recommend that you at least try to plan the structure before you implement. In addition to planning the structure, don't forget to COMMUNICATE that structure to everyone who will be using it. And while you're at it, create a page IN your Wiki that defines the structure so new users will have access to this information as soon as you give them access to the Wiki.
The two key components for getting buy-in are
- worth using
- ease of use
Worth Using:
Garbage In, Garbage Out, right? 8 second attention span. If it's not useful immediately, your users are gone. This applies to internal systems, too. Maybe it's 10 seconds internally, but it's still short! If you want people to work with the wiki, you have to make the wiki work for them.
- When we have meetings, we open the wiki and write information from the meeting in it. (We've started to use this during client meetings, too.)
- When we learn to do something new, we open a page and put what we learned and what resources we used in it.
- We started a Question of the Day to make the Wiki a little fun and to encourage participation. The amount of time we have will probably cause this to turn into a Question of the Week, but it definitely started everyone using the Wiki.
- Make it fun. Let employees share pictures or put personal announcements on it. Put company event information in it. What's going on in your community? Put resources there for others to see.
- Make it as open as possible for input. Put the minimum restrictions you can on entry and editing functions. Don't manage every word users write.
- Management and owners can encourage Wiki use by using it themselves. Then, instead of emailing information and announcements around, what about emailing everyone to tell them there's an announcement or information in the Wiki?
- Ask for feedback on a regular basis to make sure the Wiki continues working for everyone.
Ease of Use:
Navigation:
We have a defined subdirectory structure at Wildwood, and when we implemented the Wiki, we decided to use that same structure. This way, employeees learn one storage structure. There are many more opportunities in the Wiki for linking and cross-referencing than there are in a directory structure, so in addition to the structure links on the front page, we have other links to hot topics, or frequently accessed areas. It's a great place to put company announcements and reminders. And if you can get your employees to make this their home page, you're way ahead of the game on getting buy-in.
Modification:
Wiki's are easy to login to, and easy to modify. The TikiWiki software we're using has quicktags on the left of the editing window, and a wikihelp button at the bottom. You can enter keystrokes to represent things in the editing window, or you can select text and apply formatting or structure using the Quicktags and icons on the left of the window.
There's a list of Last Changes, Rankings so you can see what's popular, and several other useful tools in the main Wiki area. There's also an extensive Admin area that allows you to manage just about everything to do with your wiki.
WHAT SOFTWARE SHOULD YOU USE? WHAT DO YOU NEED TO HAVE? (Warning: This paragraph is just a little more technical than the rest of the article.)
We have our Wiki installed on our company's dedicated internet server, which is at Rackspace in San Antonio. We chose TikiWiki as our software. It's open-source, free, and written in PHP. We're using a mySQL database backend to support it. We downloaded the free source files, followed the installation instructions, and were up and running fairly quickly. (We can do the same for you.)
We've chosen at this point not to bother with modifying the way it looks, as it's only an internal application. However, there are templates available for altering the design, or a custom design can be applied. Customizing the look might be desirable if the Wiki is going to be a knowledge base for your customers, an Extranet between you and your partners, or an Intranet for employees in a slightly larger company than ours. (We can do this, too.)
PLUG-INS
Here's a list of other types of applications that can be hooked into the Wiki:
Image Galleries
Articles
Blogs
Forums (Also known as Discussion Boards)
File Galleries
FAQs
Maps
Trackers
Calendar
User files
Polls
Search
Webmail
RSS
Score
Meta Tags
Google Maps
Our goal in the new year is to install and try out some of these applications. We'll update this page with more information as we learn it.
SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
We have our Wiki doubly protected. First, it has a nice little gray login box protecting it. If hackers get past that, they'll get to read the information. If someone wants to edit the information, there's another login to do that. We're careful not to put information in this Wiki that will ruin our business if a competitor gained access to it. We back the system up as well, in case there's a disaster such as a hard drive failure or a server-hacking.
There's also varying levels of permissions and groupings that can be created for editing the wiki. We've chosen to let everyone in our organization have the same editing access at this point in our business. We want to encourage the maximum amount of participation, so we don't want any"barriers to entry" that aren't necessary.
IN SUMMARY
We believe the most valuable asset a service business has besides its employees is its knowledge. What a great way to store, retrieve and protect yours!
PERSONAL POSTSCRIPT
The FOUR-LETTER WORD THAT CHANGED MY PERSONAL LIFE
A wiki is changing my personal life, too. While I was in the process of implementing our company wiki, I realized I had little arsenals of information in my personal life, too. They weren't very organized, they weren't searchable, and they weren't centrally located and easily accessible. So I started a personal wiki. It's password protected, just like our business wiki.
A few examples of information I'm in various stages of keeping in my wiki include:
Websites I like
Music I've heard and would like to purchase
A list of CDs I own
Links to websites I visit on a regular basis
Places I'd like to visit/have visited
Information about where I've stored other important information
Quotes that inspire me
Things that rejuvenate me. If I'm feeling down, I can look at this list and pick a fun activity without much thought.
A list of goals and comments about the goals.
Ideas for my Gadget Girl articles (see Austin Woman Magazine's December, 2007 issue for my first Gadget Girl article.)
Invention and business ideas. If I thought them through, this information is there.
Do you have a wiki? I'm interested in hearing how you or your business are using it. If you had a personal wiki, what would you put in it? I'd love to hear that, too. Click here to contact me.
