Convergence Green Travel Meetup

I attended the convergence Green Travel Incubator - "Collaborating for the future we want" event in Dublin City Hall today as part of the worldwide Rio +20 event which commemorates the Earth Summit in Rio 20 years ago. The event was a Green Transport Incubator where a number of startup and small green tech companies got to pitch their ideas and all attendees then had the opportunity to discuss them in a pro-action cafe style. 

Some speakers were:
Eoghan Madden (Dublin City Coucil)

Eoghan outlined the transport needs and problems of the city. He gave a brief history of the volume and makeup of the daily traffic coming into Dublin City. They estimate that in the next 10 years, 100,000 EXTRA vehicles will be coming into the city EVERY DAY! He also outlined some novel ideas they have for reducing demand at peak times including innovative ways for removing more service vehicles from key corridors.

Mark Rafferty (GoCar.ie)

GoCar is a car-sharing service (only one in Ireland) which is similar to Zipcar in the United States. The are currently in 16 locations (12 Dublin, 4 Cork), but will grow to 200+ vehicles in the next 12 months! They are also looking into an all-electric fleet in the coming 5 years. Interestingly, their customer base is mostly made up of cyclists and public transport commuters who see GoCar as the alternative to the second family car (for infrequent car journeys). They have recently received new investment and have relaunched their brand.

James Leahy (www.biketowork.ie)

James Leahy of the Irish Bicycle Business Association (www.ibba.ie) spoke about their flagship program "The Bike To Work" scheme, which in partnership with the government, enables commuters to purchase a bike with a tax-saver reduction of up to 41%. The IBBA is made up of a number of businesses including bike shops, which has helped them to engage with the government in a more efficient manner - with one voice. They hope to grow the use of biking to work in partnership with Dublin City Council and others.

Eoghan Murray (www.GetThere.ie)

Eoghan created getthere.ie in 2006 having returned from New Zealand, having noticed the poor choice of rideshare options in Ireland. Being from Donegal, his travel options to core centres such as Dublin were often restricted and not practical. GetThere offers a trip planning service for a large number of Bus / Rail operators ASWELL as offering car pooling. He has found success in organising carpooling to large concert evenes and festivals. He has over 80,000 hits to the site per month and would like to grow and monetize the business moving forward so he can take it all on full-time. The work he has done to date is very impressive considering the lack of API-based availability of transit schedules in Ireland!

Overall this was a great event to attend, with many like-minded people looking to provide innovative solutions in the Green Travel domain. Some other resources are:

http://convergence.cultivate.ie/ - Convergence Event Website
www.cultivate.ie - Cultivate Website
www.sustained.ie - Sustainable Business Resources
www.ibba.ie - Irish Bicycle Business Association

Wikis in Knowledge Management Presentation

This is the presentation I gave at the Dublin Institute of Technology on 08/11/09. There were 2 masters classes in attendance (Knowledge Management & IT).

Wikis In Knowledge Management Enabling Effective Collaboration

View more presentations from mooneycol.

For My Next Dissertation - BPO

I am currently working on my second masters dissertation as I near the end of my MSc in Operations & Technology Management at DCU.

The topic of BPO seems to be hot right now with recent M&A activity in this domain, including the acquisition of EDS by HP. Just last week, HP announced a re-branding of EDS which will now be known as "HP Enterprise Services".

My own specific focus on BPO relates to the challenges that a captive O&T unit faces in exposing BP services on the commercial market in their industry. This will build on the core competency theories of Prahalad and Hamel which would suggest that organisations can use their existing expertise to provide services to others.

Classic cases would include the spin-out of EDS from General Motors, 6-Sigma from Motorola and the likes of Canon becoming a key market player in the printing business.

I will share some of my research and thoughts here, but I am finding the subject very interesting and especially in a recession, where organisations are looking for new revenue channels when traditional income sources are suffering. Disruptive Innovation and Discovery-Driven Growth are two topics which are quickly growing my reading list currently!

Customer Service on Twitter

Now that I have finally finished my exams, I can get back to blogging and catching up on my RSS feeds etc. One of the things that I have been looking at on Twitter is corporate organisations responding to customer queries, complaints and comments via their own branded channel.

Just like they should keep an eye on what is being said about them in the blogosphere, it is equally important to go that extra mile and help their customers on Twitter. I think it shows proactive engagement on their part.

Some banking examples include:

• RBC - http://twitter.com/RBC
• Citi - http://twitter.com/Citicorp
• Bank of America - http://twitter.com/BofA_help

For the organisations, this a low cost initiative, but has a potentially high positive effect on the customer who is looking for information. The answers to many of the queries are often simple links to existing FAQ and help material on their existing websites.

Approach seems to differ from organisation to organisation. Some have a single channel, while others allow separation of context by having a separate twitter stream per business unit (i.e. One for Credit Cards, another for Online Banking etc). It will be interesting to see if this type of web 2.0 customer service becomes mainstream, as you would almost expect the big players listed above to be leaders in this domain.

The main point here is that organisations must be aware of what is happening on the web in relation to customers making comment and publishing queries which are there to be answered. What better way to serve them than directly embracing the social media and making a difference to each one.

Knowledge Manager - PayPal Dublin

I've been really busy lately, finishing my 2nd masters, but I had to make time to blog this. I was excited to see that PayPal are advertising for a Knowledge Manager here in Dublin.

This seems like a great opportunity, and great to see knowledge management jobs popping up in the middle of the recession!

For more details see the exclusive linkedIn add.

Idea - Internet Banking App for the iPhone

I was kindly given an Apple iPod Touch for my birthday last week, and I have to say that the apps framework and app store have got my creative juices flowing. I have been playing around with a number of the downloadable apps and have now got my calendar, contacts, email, facebook and linkedin access through my iPod touch.

So, next I was thinking what other apps would I like? I started thinking about the tasks I carry out over the web (apart from searching tons of research papers) that I could potentially like to do through the iPod touch. My main thoughts were about my accounts access for banking, mobile phone, credit cards and other utilities.

The most popular of these I would think is internet banking. Yes I can already do this by using the inbuilt safari browser to go to the internet banking site and transact in that way. The problem is that the site is not designed for browsing it in such a way, and I repeatedly need to zoom in and out to manage the transaction which is not very suitable. So, my suggestion is that banks should produce an app for the iPhone to allow their customers to access their internet banking directly from the iPhone/iPod touch home screen.

There would be a number of benefits to this:

• It would work well as a marketing tool to advertise the internet banking offering.
• It provides a new channel to create business (mobile banking already exists but most mobile access is too slow to make the experience enjoyable. The wifi ability of the iPhone/iPod touch allows fast access).
• Surely all mobile phone operators will follow the same app model to increase the attractiveness of their phones (like this Nokia rumour?).
• It could possibly be extended to provide other services in the future.
  
• The net generation would love it, it would be "cool" to them.

What would the app be like? Well it would be quite simple I imagine.... Click on the app, which would present a login page allowing you to enter you identification code and password. This would then present you account information etc. Obviously there would be some security concerns related to this, but I can't see this as being less secure than the already available web browser option.

I think that more and more companies will enter this domain, as the popularity of the iPhone increases.

Enterprise 2.0 Starting Points

I have been discussing the introduction of web 2.0 tools into a global organisation with a contact recently and a few familiar points arose relating to the introduction of these tools / way of working. So to help address them, I have broken these points down into some headings:

Understanding - There is no point in implementing web 2.0 tools for the sake of it. You must understand both your target audience internally and how these tools can improve how you do what you do. Here you must look at how collaboration is different in the new way of working compared to how it is currently being achieved. From basic principles it is about connecting people through their knowledge and expertise by providing the environment (real & virtual) which encourages them to share information as part of their daily operation. This famous "Meet Charlie" deck gives a nice introduction to the potential of what can be done:

Meet Charlie - what is Enterprise2.0?

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: 2.0 enterprise)

Support / Sponsorship - Once you fully understand what web 2.0 is about ("I get it!"), you now need to get your organisation on board. There are 2 elements to this:

1. Senior Management - The initiative needs to be supported top-down by senior management in the organisation (across all divisions / geographies). This is required from the beginning, and will work in a lead-by-example method e.g. Executive Blogs. The sales pitch to this group needs to echo their needs from existing programmes. Avoiding redundant effort, avoiding repeated mistakes, taking advantage of existing expertise, making individuals more effective, making teams more effective.
   
2. Grass Roots - The initiative needs to be driven laterally by communities of practice at grass roots level. Employees need to be encouraged to participate and rewarded for contributing. The model is suited to achieving a critical mass of users to ensure trust and sustained engagement for ongoing success.
   

Education - Web 2.0 is new to many, so it is important to convert these people by demonstrating a clear benefit to them from using the tools. Removing the technical jargon for business users can help to speed their introduction to web 2.0. I am a big fan of the CommonCraft show which has taught us to focus on plain english explanations of technical tools / concepts for business users. An example of how they simplify these concepts is RSS in plain english:



Starting Points - I believe that the best starting points for the introduction of web 2.0 tools are those which have high visibility, are cross divisional / geographically dispersed and can have a quick turn-around for early results. Operations & Technology is always a good area for testing the waters in this domain. The tasks and roles in O&T divisions are suited to adopting tools like instant messaging, wikis for documenting practices / ideas, RSS feeds for monitoring systems etc. Prove the value here and the other areas of your organisation will follow.

Growth - You need champions and evangelists to drive adoption and early growth for a successful beginning for your web 2.0 initiative. It is so important to fuel the flame of enthusiasm early on by demonstrating functionality, mentoring and supporting your user community. I had posted in the past about the characteristics of a wiki champion, but they are applicable to all web 2.0 adoption really:

• Be a Clear Communicator
• Be a Coach
• Be Patient
• Be Enthusiastic
• Be Engaging
• Have Fun!
  

Measurement - This is a real grey area, as the metrics could be different for each organisation depending on the goals of your initiative. There are however some emerging examples of what organisations are measuring when it comes to examining trends and ROI for web 2.0 programmes. Things like # of unique users, # of unique contributions etc. This slide deck shows some of the metrics that Accenture use for their knowledge management initiatives:

Measuring the impact of knowledge management

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: knowledge management roi)

This is by no means an extensive coverage of this topic, however I would encourage those interested in Web 2.0 or enterprise 2.0 to use the tools online to discover more e.g. YouTube, SlideShare, RSS Readers / Blogs, LinkedIn etc.

Introducing RSS to your Organisation - The Business Case

As part of my current MSc in Operations and Technology Management, we are undertaking a module in Technology Management. One of the current assignments I am researching is the investigation of how RSS (Really Simple Syndication) can be used as a new information channel for those areas of your organisation whose product is knowledge/information.

The examples I am looking at in relation to financial services are the press office and research units which produce press releases, market commentary, financial outlooks and other research material. I want to understand the relationship between these departments and their prospective customers (investors, journalists and the wider customer audience).

The first hurdle to overcome is the language used to introduce and explain RSS technology to the primarily business users who work in these areas. I presume it is unlikely that they will fully understand RSS, let alone know what it is (I am basing this on a statistic from my first dissertation in knowledge management where out of 101 people surveyed in a large financial services organisation, only 24 had heard of RSS - approx 24%).

I am a big fan of the Common Craft Show and their suite of videos which explain technology concepts in "Plain English". Their video "RSS in Plain English" is a good place to start:




I have also begun looking at existing financial services organisations who are using RSS to deliver updates to their prospective customers. Here is a sample set of RSS listings:

Northern Trust Corporation
ING Wholsale Banking
UBS Investment Research
Royal Bank of Scotland
Bank of America
RaboDirect

I will update how I get on here again, but my thinking is that if I was a journalist, I would appreciate automated feeds instead of having to visit each site every day to keep up-to-date with what is happening. Hopefully I can pitch RSS as a valuable, inexpensive tool which can enhance the offerings of the press office / research unit in the pilot organisation.

COP - Dublin Wiki Wednesday

As mentioned in my previous post, I presented a case study of my dissertation project to the MSc in Knowledge Managment course last Saturday at the Dublin institute of Technology. During this presentation, it emerged that a number of the current class are also working on enterprise wiki deployments in their organisations.

As we discussed the many aspects of introducing "the wiki way" into an organisation, I realised that there were lots of things that we could share with each other as this young technology starts to take hold. I suggested that we could investigate the creation of a wiki community of practice to provide a forum for idea sharing and best practice to be accessible to those around Dublin.

So, this week we are in the early stages of working out how best to approach this initiative. I am quite excited about the prospect, as I have read about other "Wiki Wednesday" groups in places like Toronto and London. I hope that we can engage an enthusiastic group of practitioners to participate towards making it a success.

Lots more on this to come!

KM Dissertation Advice

I met with a friend and former KM classmate of mine, Colman McMahon, today in preparation for a presentation we will be giving to the current students of the MSc in Knowledge Management at the Dublin Institute of Technology. We will be sharing our experience of tackling a dissertation in KM and also an open Q&A about our views on the current state of KM.

It was interesting to compare thoughts on where we see the future of KM, particularly on the technology and tooling side. We both had looked at wiki-use during our research and agreed that they are certainly useful in demonstrating the human elements of KM (capture, sharing, organising of knowledge etc). We also spoke about Sharepoint and Lotus Connections - we both agreed that there is huge potential in relation to the power of these environments to provide a solid infrastructure for KM and Enterprise 2.0 features going forward.

In terms of what advice we would pass on to the current class, we have yet to conclude on this. My own thoughts include:

• KM is more than just a technology discipline, in fact it encompasses many aspects of a working organisation. This is an important lesson to learn, as many people have fallen at this first hurdle of understanding what KM is and how it will provide value and enable internal growth for your organisation.
• The role of HR in KM is very important. "Learning & Development" has out-grown its welcome, and the days of simply attending courses and returning to the desk are over. The next generation of "Learning & Development" is continuous learning & development - KM! The knowledge workers of Gen X/Y want to search and discover knowledge instantly (instead of attending a 3-day course to do so).
• The tie between Web 2.0 and KM is a growing discipline. However, it is important to remember and focus-on the core KM principles. Don't deploy a wiki or blog because it's cool - deploy them for what they can add to your organisation, and be clear on what you are using them for.

Once we narrow down our thoughts on KM research and our experiences in the next few weeks, I will share them here.

RSS Overload!

I have been away from my google reader for a while (holidays etc.), and in the space of 15 days I had over 1300 unread feed items. It made me wonder if I am following too many feeds and so I started to filter some of the conent out.

As time moves on, will we need a manager for our feeds in the same way that email became too much for us also?

Connectr #4 Presentation from ILUG 2008

As per my previous post, I presented at the Connectr #4 event as part of the ILUG 2008 at the IBM campus in Dublin last week (see slides below). This was a great event to be part of as we got to meet the IBM development team and hear their views on working towards Lotus Connections 2.0 which has just been announced.

Other presenters on the day included:

• Heidi Votaw (IBM Lotus Program Director, Social Software)


• Alan Crean (Process Master)


• Neil Burston (Oak Ridge Business Solutions)


• Ian McNairn (IBM Program Director, Web Technology & Innovation)

Some interesting features of Connections were also demoed (eg Blogs, Communites, Activities, Wiki Integration, Atlas). Given that Enterprise 2.0 is a hot topic this week due to the Enterprise 2.0 conference taking place in Boston, there has been lots of discussion around Connections 2.0 and the comparison to Sharepoint.

My thanks to Neil Burston and Stuart McIntyre for organising the event, and also to IBM for being excellent hosts on the day. I will post more on Heidi's presentation again. Here are my slides from the day:

View Upload your own

Presenting at Connectr #4 in Dublin

I will be presenting a "15 minutes of Fame" session at the ILUG Connectr #4 event at the IBM campus in Dublin on June 3rd. My slot is called "Implementing KM - Success Factors" which is closely linked to my previous post on the subject when finishing my dissertation.

Web 2.0 Conceptual Model by Ravi Govil

A great post by Ravi Govil called Web 2.0 - Conceptual Model. It communicates the enterprise view of how web 2.0 can support your collaboration needs and provides clarity of where these new behaviours include uses, communities and your enterprise content. Below is the conceptual diagram he presents for Web 2.0 principles:

1. Web as a Platform.


2. Service Agnostic of the Device.


3. Data is the Competitive Advantage.


4. Harnessing Collective Intelligence.


5. New Web Business Model.

Promoting Your Enterprise Wiki Portal - Business Card Idea

I have been thinking of ways to promote our enterprise wiki, particularly to new groups who have not been using wiki systems before. One thing I have been trying to do is to sell the concept that the wiki portal can act as a central knowledge repository that we can all benefit from. We called it 'OnePlace', to symbolise this idea "...find all your answers in One Place!".

Then, in a slide show I was putting together, it came to me that if I want to promote this as a great source of knowledge within the organisation, why not promote it using a business card. Now if teams say "where will we find information about xxxx", they can check OnePlace!

I have yet to 'test' this idea, but I think I will include it in any presentations I give internally as my closing slide......"Now the important contact you need is OnePlace"

Internal Blogging at BT

Another great post by Richard Dennison called Blogging Inside BT in which he describes how "BT management is prepared to allow its employees to express themselves and their opinions on ‘unregulated’, self-publishing platforms". It is a great read and another example of how to link the use of Web 2.0 tools to providing value internally behind the firewall.

I also like a response he has added to a comment on the post, relating to how blogs can have a longer life span than traditional discussion forums as "the owner feels responsible for keeping it going because it is part of their personal brand." I like this enterprise blogging idea, as it allows all employees to become experts in their own area, and makes individual knowledge more available to the wider internal community.

I have linked to Richard before, relating to his post on Web 2.0 adoption at BT. It seems that they have a clear vision of what they can achieve by empowering their employees with information and knowledge resources.

Anyone interested in real examples of how to formulate Web 2.0 strategy and learn from the BT examples should subscribe to Richard's blog Inside Out.

Implementing KM - Success Factors

I gave a presentation tonight at the Dublin Institute of Technology based on my dissertation. In it I was demonstrating the high level findings of the research and some of the learning points and experiences of piloting an enterprise wiki as a knowledge management enabler.

First off was the idea that knowledge management is much more about people, their knowledge and embedding a knowledge sharing culture than any particular technology. IT will inevitably be part of any large KM initiative, but is only the enabler of the end goal. It is important to tie the goals of the KM program to the objectives of the organisation in which it is positioned. This will help senior management to sell and promote it.

I have tried to promote the benefits of KM as part of the initiative. I have found it is important to communicate these in a language which makes sense to all stakeholders, without too much jargon. The first 3 are recommended by Stan Garfield. They were:

• Avoiding redundant effort.
• Avoiding repeated mistakes.
• Taking advantage of existing expertise in the organisation.
• Making individuals more effective.
• Making teams more effective.

Given the people focus of my research, collaboration and knowledge flows became important. If we examine the knowledge networks which exist in an organisation, we can better understand how knowledge flows throughout it. Large Organisations are made up of many networks, with key players who act as information brokers, boundary spanners, central connectors, and peripheral specialists. These flows can often create knowledge bottlenecks of bureaucracy, which can prevent free knowledge sharing.

Next it was onto Web 2.0, and how the elements and behaviours of web 2.0 applications and communities are becoming increasingly popular in knowledge management. For example, a Forrester paper out last week reported that 85% of companies using Wikis were using them as a knowledge management tool. The match between tools such as wikis to the knowledge cycle (find, organise, share, use/reuse) and the enabling features (Search Link Author Tag Extend Signal) of web 2.0 is one which has not gone unoticed. My approach was simple:

• Engage Senior Management to back the initiative.
• Secure exclusive, high profile use-cases for the portal.
• Brand the portal to promote its use.
• Meet with prospective teams and user groups to gauge reaction.
• Drive wiki adoption by becoming a ‘Wiki Champion’.

The initiative was supported top-down by senior management, driven bottom-up from grassroots, and promoted laterally through communities of practices. This ensures sustained engagement across a wide range of groups within the organisation.

3 high level conclusions:

1. Knowledge management is more about people and the processes which enable knowledge management than specific technologies.


2. Simplicity is important, providing knowledge workers with the tools to quickly capture, organise, share and reuse knowledge which is important to their work.


3. Wiki’s provide users with the collaborative environment required for successful knowledge management.

My KM Dissertation Abstract

Having completed my KM masters dissertation, I thought it would be useful to share the abstract which sums up alot of the work I have been researching. The title of the dissertation was "Wiki based collaboration: An effective enabler of Knowledge Management?":

The World-Wide Web has evolved into a collaborative learning environment, where contribution and participation are replacing consumption and passive involvement. The shift which has taken place towards 'web 2.0' has been extraordinarily rapid, with the true potential of the web to connect people and their knowledge being seen. The use of web 2.0 tools as enabling technologies for knowledge management is becoming increasingly popular, with organisations replicating the success of these technologies on the consumer web behind their firewalls. The goal is to improve the knowledge sharing cultures internally and make better use of their organisational knowledge, so as to gain competitive advantage.

The full potential of the adoption of web 2.0 tools has yet to emerge, however early cases of successful implementation of social tools in support of organisational goals are positive. By closely aligning the aims of the knowledge management initiative with the goals and business objectives of the organisation, together with the early support of senior management, the potential success of the program is improved. An experiment to introduce web 2.0 technologies in a large financial services organisation has been undertaken to examine the challenges which arise and how the approach and language of the initiative helped to overcome potential misunderstanding and confusion about the terms web 2.0 and knowledge management. A pilot of an enterprise wiki platform was implemented, with full engagement of design and technical teams to position the technology as a potential collaboration standard. The focus was always about the capture and sharing of knowledge throughout, with many learning points for wiki champions and knowledge managers emerging.

Confusion around the true definition of knowledge management can be harmful to the potential success of initiatives if the wrong approach is taken. Focusing too much on technology can distract knowledge managers from the most important elements of implementing a successful knowledge management program; people, social networks and their knowledge. While technology will almost always be part of any knowledge management initiative, it is important to recognise that it is only an enabler of the cultural change with which knowledge management is associated. In order to facilitate effective collaboration between cross-functional and geographically dispersed teams, a new suite of enabling technologies is required, as the frequency with which these types of collaboration occur increases. Traditional tools such as email and file share have been overused and actually detract from effective collaboration amongst teams in projects which appear with increasing complexity.

This approach has shown that the terms knowledge management and web 2.0 are not crucial to the success of these programs. Aligning the goals of the project to the business objectives of the organisation allows senior management to better engage with the efforts involved in achieving those aims.

Please let me know if you have any comments or thoughts?

Banking on Knowledge at MIT

MIT's Media Laboratory and Bank of America are teaming up to examine the future of online banking. The newly created Center for Future Banking will explore the impact of web computing and social networking on the way people manage their finances.

This is something which really interests me, as banks and financial services organisations are often conservative when it comes to innovative schemes like this one. It comes back to the question of whether or not you want your bank to be innovative and outlooking. You would probably want them to be more dependable and consistent.

However, as customer trends are showing, internet and convenience banking channels are becoming more popular. This is particularly evident amongst Gen x and y customers, who are being brought up on the web, and being digital natives, would prefer to transact online.

Some of the questions which the center will aim to address include:

How can every customer be empowered with the knowledge and tools to take better control of their financial futures?

This is where knowledge management on the inside can start to show on your customer-facing channels. I am a big fan of corporate blogging and podcasting, especially where the organisation is using web2.0 media to provide advice for customers. I have spoken before about the RaboDirect podcast series, which was a series of podcasts offering financial advice on a number of topics.

While this may not have brought in millions, it was the number #1 business podcast here in Ireland. It is time for others to follow suit, in a market which is still a niche, but one in which the early birds could benefit from.

How will banking interactions evolve as a customer’s physical and virtual worlds become completely intertwined?

This is an area in which environments like second life have begun to expose as a potential new market. I have experienced live IM sessions with Dell support staff recently, and found them to be much more informative and engaging than waiting on the end of the line listening to Whitney Houston for 20 minutes!

Organisations such as RBC are leading the field here, with virtual agents, a presence on facebook, and an excellent site, called RBC p2p on which 6 students blog to their peers about their financial experiences. This is where organisations need to be, in the same network as their customers. This has moved from the street to the participative web online.

Some organisations have already shown that building a community of customers enables you to provide an improved knowledge providing relationship while being able to gather valuable feedback at the same time - thus they become prosumers as defined by Don Tapscott in Wikinomics. A great example of this is the Sony Vaio user community.

How will social networks and mobile platforms transform customers’ banking experiences, making it easier, more convenient, and better integrated with their daily lives?

This is the golden question! We have seen how internet banking has transformed customer interactions since the late 90's, with a high percentage of customers now managing their finances through their banks online portal.

The demands will grow for more functions and increased engagement over new channels such as mobile internet banking and increased information sharing between banks and their customers.

This partnership will be interesting, as more and more organisations enter this unknown market.

6 Characteristics of a Wiki Champion

This is a cross posting of a piece I wrote for Stewart Mader who I have linked to many times here at Extacit. Based on my own experience, I have jotted down some of the characteristics that a Wiki champion may need to succeed:

Knowing the benefits that Wiki use can bring to your organisation is the easy bit! Driving adoption and selling that message is what will make you a Wiki champion.

A Wiki champion is important –

“a passionate, enthusiastic champion is essential to the success of wiki because s/he will be able to generate interest, give the appropriate amount of training for each person at the right time, monitor growth of the tool and fix problems that could derail adoption.” Source WikiPatterns

There are no set rules or processes to follow, only some emerging guidelines and best practices (known as patterns), so it is up to you to make it succeed. There is no better place to start than the 21 days of Wiki Adoption series here at Grow Your Wiki.

Like any new technology, there will be some resistance to Wiki adoption in your organisation. This can come from many sources, not just those who are not familiar with Web 2.0 or Social Computing. You must be clear about what you are trying to achieve with your Wiki deployment. So here are some of the characteristics you may need:

1. Be a Clear Communicator: Wiki and the ‘Wiki-Way’ of working will be new to many people in your organisation. It is important to keep things simple when selling the idea. I have found that gaining senior management support early for your project is important. Then you can let them sell the idea for you.
2. Be A Coach: Commonly known as ‘Wiki-Gardening’, you will need to coach some of the early users so that they can make best use of their Wiki from the beginning. They in-turn will pass this on to others, but a quick win is important to securing sustained engagement from your user community.
3. Be Patient: Be patient with your early adopters, allow them to sculpt their Wiki in their way. They will know what works best for the information they work with and the team members they deal with. Be ready to help when they need it.
4. Be Enthusiastic: People will react to your enthusiasm and knowledge of the ‘Wiki-Way’. Encourage others to try new things or to look at how they currently collaborate and show them how this could work in the ‘Wiki-Way’.
5. Be Engaging: As people begin to find their way with Wiki use, be available to discuss or help with continued use. Show them examples from other Wiki’s internally, so they can see what others are doing and adopt some of those practices themselves.
6. Have Fun!: This is one of the most important characteristics. Wiki adoption will be different in each organisation. Grassroots & organic seems to be an emerging successful trend, so there will be an element of exploration and innovation involved. Enjoy this period, communicate and engage with your user community and you will reap the rewards.

There may be many other challenges you could face, but if you get the formula correct for your organisation, then it is a great experience. You might even have people call you ‘The Wiki Guy’! Overall, a collaborative environment, where knowledge sharing and productivity has improved is a very welcome outcome of the Wiki adventure.