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

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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.

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.

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:

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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"

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?

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.

Wiki as a Knowledge Management Tool

My research has been focused on the collaboration and knowledge sharing elements of knowledge management in the enterprise. One of the key parts of this is to map what the enterprise wiki pilot is achieving against the basic knowledge cycle I started with when I began my first MSc (I have just started my second!).

So, looking at the 4 elements of the KM cycle above:

Find
Wiki use in the enterprise allows you to combine the knowledge of many teams into one larger, community knowledge base. This gives the users a "place" or "home" for their contributions where they know that they can be easily used by others.

Organise
Wiki spaces in products like Confluence & Socialtext are hierarchicaly structured in the parent-child page relationship which makes them easy to understand and to administer. Additional features such as tagging, breadcrumb navigation and powerful contextual search makes information retrieval much better than email + file shares. Some early responses with our wiki pilot have indicated that the benefits of having a web-based document sharing tool which can index-search attachments to provide a more powerful information retreival service is a very welcome addition to their job roles.

Share
Here is where the "Wiki Way" shines. There have been many groupware products in the past which have facilitated centralised, web-based document management, but wiki's provide this with the important collaboration layer that web 2.0 enables on top. They are a much more intuitive environment to interact with and will be around for a long time, as your n-generation graduate intake will already be trained in these environments from their own social interactions on the web!

Use & Reuse
As is mentioned on Stan Garfield's Weekly Knowledge Management Blog this week - 3 major benfitis of KM are avioding redundant effort, avioding repeated mistakes and taking advantage of existing knowledge and expertise within your organisation. A collaborative working environment supported by wiki use can help deliver on some of these benefits.

It is easy to forget the base principles which are enabled by web 2.0 tools when put to use in a business environment. We must be able to recognise the simple goals which culture and technology in the past have prohibited. A changing world with more and more distributed and virtual teams require organisations to provide its knowledge workers with tools which facilitate distributed and virtual collaboration.

21 Days of Wiki Adoption by Stewart Mader

Keep a close watch on Stewart Maders 21 days of Wiki Adoption. This set of 21 short videos will help you to understand the concept of Wiki use in your organisation.

Stewart is the author of 2 books, Wikipatterns and Using Wiki in Education. I have followed his blog on wiki patterns for some time now, and he is great at explaining the wiki concept in "plain english" just like the guys at CommonCraft.

The key thing about this series of videos is the simplicity and clarity of the examples that Stewart delivers. I frequently get asked in my organisation - "What is a wiki?" (this normally comes about 15 mins into my demo of our enterprise wiki!).

But that is ok for me, as if it takes them 15 mins to query the technology, then maybe the underlying benefits of collaboration, knowledge sharing and intuitive information retrieval are more prominent. The best bit is when we get to the cost!

So follow Stewart's videos and learn! As Luis Suarez said:

I bet, I know, I am sure of it, that after watching through the entire show with the different episodes, you would be more than ready to start deploying those wikis within your organisation.

Selling Knowledge Management - Language is Key

I haven't had much time to post lately, my dissertation is at a very busy stage. One thing that I thought would be useful to share is my experience of turning an idea into reality. I am looking to pilot a wiki-based portal in my organisation to enable better collaboration for COP's (Communities of Practice), Special Interest Groups, Communications Groups etc.

I have found that the language used to describe my project has been very important. People don't readily know what is meant by 'Knowledge Management' and sometimes they can get a little scared when you try to sell an idea as KM. This is also true for web2.0, as is my experience with the word 'wiki'.

Now, almost everyone I have spoken to about the project has heard of wikipedia, but I am trying to demonstrate the benefits of wiki use in a controlled environment behind the firewall, So I have tried not to mention wikipedia where possible. I am enjoying people's reaction and their questions as they try to understand the concept.

I gave the idea a 'brand', so that when the people I meet talk to each other, they will spread the idea by using its' name. I called the portal 'OnePlace' - To signify that all of the work is now in one place, where the participants of a group can easily find their information (documents, meetings agendas, presentations), and that their COP now has a 'Place' (below) rather than simply comprising of a thread of emails and a monthly physical meeting.

So what about the language? I have tried to use words like re-use, reduce re-work, easily find what you are looking for, keep up to date .....to describe the use of a collaborative wiki space when working as part of a COP.

So where has this got me? A pilot is now being implemented, and we will see how the users react. It will be interesting to see how the baby boomers react to using wiki instead of depending on the office suite. I am confident though that even if they struggle initially with WYSIWYG editing, they will experience/observe enough benefits over the traditional email & attachment way of running a COP within an organisation (below).

Please let me know of your experiences with introducing wiki to your organisation?

IT Consumerisation - The user has the power!

I have been reading lots of papers recently about web2.0 adoption in large enterprises. It seems that the common occurrence is a small grassroots seed that grows with popularity into a larger more widely used solution.

I am referring to the IT consumerization which Gartner says will be "the most significant trend affecting IT in the next 10 years". While looking at my own organisation for my dissertation, I have come across multiple small-scale wiki implementations scattered among different departments.

On their own, each wiki was very powerful and an excellent improvement on the conventional tools for team collaboration in the 90's (email + MS Office), but in terms of consistency, cross-reference and compatibility they are actually creating the same siloed effect we started with. In speaking to one of the "Wiki-Champions", I also discovered that usage was not very high amongst the team members because the wiki was seen as a "gimic" i.e. There was no exclusive content on it which required them to use it, and also no management support of its usage.

I believe that IT managers have to recognise the user "urge" to use the social software tools as part of their working environment. The best way is to get in early, to put the tools in place so that at least when a team or project wants to create content in a workspace, they are all common, held on a single knowledge base (I don't like the word repository), and can be searched with all of the others.

One of the things that I have been concentrating on from the beginning is management support. If I engage the senior management approval for wiki usage by clearly displaying and explaining the KM benefits which could be realised, then I will get that exclusive content which will help ensure improved usage and sustained engagement with the system.

Collaborating in Workspaces

As part of my dissertation, I have been exploring the concept of employees working in "spaces" rather than on siloed PC's or shared folder drives. I have been expanding my enterprise workshop manager idea. There are 2 reasons for this:

1. By having informal discussions with colleagues, I realised that an enterprise would want much more than a workshop manager. They were all pointing me towards some method of capturing the knowledge created in a workshop, linking to the relevant output documents and giving the content some context.


2. When I started looking at enterprise wiki solutions, I realised how powerful they are. With the emphasis on simplicity, I was able to focus more on the content instead of worrying how the small pieces would fit together.

The main product I have been looking at is Confluence from Atlassian. I had heard alot about this product from other bloggers, so I decided to have a look for myself. I have found it very easy to use so far, and most importantly, Confluence does the simple things right.

So what does the use of an enterprise wiki offer? Well I am loving the concept of working in "spaces". A space is created for a project, many pages (overviews, documents, attachments, conversations etc) are created within this space providing a better visualisation of the project for its participants.

There are the more obvious advantages also - reduction in the use of shared folder drives, better document versioning, reduction of email spaghetti. Overall, I just love the look and feel of working in a project space, allowing me to access all relevant documentation in a searchable, taggable, personalisable space.

One interesting thing I will be looking at will be the comparison of a low-cost product such as Confluence with an enterprise giant such as Lotus Quickplace.

More to come on what I am actually doing, not getting much time to blog at the mo!

Enterprise Workshop Manager - Using multiple interlinked wikis to capture knowledge

A while back I wrote a post called Organising a workshop using a wiki (Please read this earlier post for reference). The idea was to improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of running a workshop. Now for my dissertation I am thinking about the practical implementations of this type of knowledge capture in the enterprise.

Imagine your organisation is undertaking a large business requirements gathering exercise in relation to a major implementation. It is estimated that it will take a total of 70 workshops to cover all of the streams involved.

Using my proposed method, the facilitators could reduce the number of mails required to run these workshops as all details in relation to each event is located on its own dedicated set of pages.

Using links, the outputs of Workshop 1 can be referenced on the "Background" page of Workshop 3, as these 2 workshops are related. This means that the repetition of information is reduced, and less documents are required for the preparation for individual workshops. The re-use,retention and linking of valuable knowledge is increased.

Traditionally, an individual who cannot attend a workshop does not contribute (they may send someone else in their place). This can often detract from the effectiveness depending on that individuals role or importance to the topic being explored. Now, they can contribute any suggestions, questions, concerns, or ideas to the workshop wiki before the event. This helps improve the quality of what is discussed on the day, and improves the overall effectiveness of the event.

The notes for a workshop are usually jotted on to large flip-chart sheets during the workshop. These then have to be transcribed into a word document and mailed to everyone for review (at this point the flip-chart sheets we used to record what happened in the workshop discarded). Now, we can take the notes directly onto a wiki page during the workshop, and they are immediately available to all participants afterwards. They remain there for cross reference for future use.

All of the knowledge created during the 70 workshops is now held on a single, searchable repository. Each page or set of pages can be exported as PDF documents, which can be the starting point for the drafting of Functional and Technical specifications.

The method allows for many individuals to collaborate in a new way. By allowing easy, combined input to each workshop before the event, there is a reduction in time wasted on any "Surprises" on the day. It also allows for a definition of focus by providing a forum for Q&A.

Each user would open up the Workshop Manager. They will be presented with a "Dashboard" showing them all of the workshops they are involved in. They will be directed to the homepage of any one of these by clicking on its link.

I will expand this idea more in the more posts to come, but please let me know if you have any suggestions!

Web2.0 - What's different this time around?

While thinking about the role of Web2.0 in the enterprise, a contact has asked the following question - "What's different this time around?"

They were referring to the language being used by vendors to sell the idea of web2.0, noting that it is very similar to the "spin" used back in the 90's during the emergence of the Internet.

This is one of the reasons I chose to tackle this issue. As I outlined in my dissertation proposal - "the adoption of web2.0 tools and methods is being prohibited by misunderstanding of purpose and lack of defined ROI for business cases".

In this context, I would say that where the emergence of the Internet created channels for business to exploit a new market with their customers (e-commerce), web 2.0 is more an enhancement of "How" organisations operate internally.

Using Wiki's, Blogs, Intranet Portals, RSS etc will not present an immediately obvious ROI like Internet Banking or Online Sales did. However, they can help empower organisations to become "learning organisations" i.e Reducing repetition of mistakes, improving knowledge retention, creating collaborative environments, and encouraging a knowledge sharing culture.

A quote I like is by Kahlil Gibran:

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than
much knowledge that is idle.

There are also externally facing uses of web2.0 for organisations emerging (RSS feeds, Podcasting, Support Wiki's etc), and as their popularity grow, we will see more exploration in this domain.

Organising a workshop using a Wiki

Following from my recent post, 15 productive uses for a Wiki, I have been thinking about how wiki's can help improve collaborative working - No. 16, Organising a workshop using a wiki .

Workshops are used to gather small groups of people over a short period of time to concentrate on a defined area of concern. They are used to brainstorm, discuss ideas, help in decision making, and to plan a course of action.

Usually a workshop is organised by a facilitator, who will invite participants to attend via email. This email will include the title of the workshop, date & venue, a brief description of what is to be discussed (background, progress-to-date) and the list of invitees.

At this stage, the facilitator will probably field a number of questions in relation to the workshop from invitees requesting further information. So, when the facilitator responds to each individual question, we are in a situation where the workshop has already been siloed into a number of individual channels - before it has already begun!

This is where I see the opportunity for improvement. I think it would be useful for the facilitator to setup a wiki for the workshop. The wiki would include:

• Workshop Wiki Homepage - (Title, Brief description, Aims & Objectives) This page sets the scope of the workshop, and is the entry point to the wiki.
• Admin Details - (Date, Time, Venue, Contact details, List of Attendees etc.) This would help eliminate the standard phone calls and other queries in relation to the basic information for the workshop.
• Agenda Page - (List of items for discussion, Presenters, Workshop Structure) This page will allow invitees to remind themselves of what will be discussed. This can be updated/altered in accordance with comments/suggestions in the time leading to the workshop.
• Background Information - (Documents, Intranet Pages, Presentations, and other related material) This would help invitees to prepare themselves for the workshop by having quick access to all relevant material which will support the workshop on the day.
• Workshop Discussion Page - (Facilitators' answers to pre-workshop queries) This would allow all invitees to keep up to date with any queries, additions to the agenda, and comments/suggestions by all involved.

The main challenges to managing the communication via email, and keeping invitees up-to-speed in the time leading to the workshop are well presented by Jeff Oxenford in his post Death by e-mail. Jeff points out that:

While e-mail is a wonderful thing, it's not designed as a discussion tool for the following reasons:

• E-mail is one-way communication, not discussion.
• Written words and tone often get misinterpreted - 90% of communication is non-verbal.
• Messages often cross in cyberspace, so you're commenting on proposal 1 while others are commenting on proposal 3.
• It's much easier to be negative when talking to a computer screen
• People don't read every word of an e-mail message.
• Many important decision makers tune out when the flow of e-mails get too great.

Like Jeffs' guidelines for email, I would say that:

• Send out the Invitation by e-mail (in the form of an invitation to the new workshop wiki).
• Accept comments/queries, responding with an acknowledgement, and a link to the page on the workshop wiki where the comment has been noted/addressed/been posted for collaborative reaction.

So the advantages are:

1. Capture Knowledge - Gather all the relevant background documentation and information required for the workshop.
2. Organise Knowledge - Setup the workshop wiki, with areas for confirmation, collaboration, and communication. Avoid crippling delays and irrelevant discussion on the day by allowing attendees to contribute ideas and suggestions before the workshop takes place.
3. Target Knowledge - Allow all of the attendees to get up-to-speed before the workshop. The wiki also allows for those unable to attend to contribute in some way.
4. Transfer Knowledge - Document action plans and outcomes of the workshop for all attendees to see. This allows all involved to keep up-to-date with the "What next?".
5. Maintain Knowledge - Allow future reference to the work carried out in this process so as to help in other projects and prevent re-work.

Please let me know what you think. I may consider exploring collaboration-enabling topics such as this one for my KM dissertation.

Related:

Application of Wiki's (wikipedia)

Supporting Community Through ICT (Rountable Workshop)

15 Productive Uses for a Wiki

Here is a great resource from Web Worker Daily, called 15 Productive Uses for a Wiki, posted by Leo Babuta.

The 15 uses listed are:

1. To-do list
2. Project Management
3. Operations Manuals
4. Checklists
5. Plan an event
6. Log client work
7. Track invoices
8. Notes & Snippets
9. Goals
10. Contacts
11. Workspace
12. FAQS
13. Collaboration
14. Reference
15. One place for everything

Depending on the size of your team, the culture in your workplace or your personal preferences, any number of these suggestions are applicable to improving your working environment.

Wiki's won't change the world, but I like them, and I believe that they will appeal to younger professionals in the future who regularly use social networking and collaborative tools as part of their daily college experiences.

Be sure to check out all of the "responses" below the post, as there are many testimonies from individuals and groups who are using wiki's to improve how they work.

I am using a wiki, (early stages at the moment), to manage my KM dissertation. I chose Wetpaint, which allows me to setup custom page templates enabling me to document categorised case studies and paper reviews in a consistent manner. I am hoping it will also provide an interesting medium for collaboration with my supervisor.

You can see the Extacit Wiki here.

Corporate Blogging Resources

I came across two corporate blogging resources at the Blogtronix Wiki.

1. A list of sites and blogs related to Corporate Blogging.
2. A list of Corporate blogs.

I find the topic of corporate blogging interesting. Can your organisation really realise tangible benefits from blogging? Well, personally, I think that this media will become more important as the net generation replace the current consumer market.

By net generation, I mean the teenagers of 2007, who from 2010 onwards will open bank accounts online, harness wiki's and rss for information/news digestion, and will probably no longer want to receive communication with service providers via traditional mail and postal services.

It remains to be seen whether this generation will research potential service providers by analysing the material of their corporate blog?

There is also an interesting Social Text wiki site, Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki, which has some interesting discussion on corporate blogging.

Book - "Transforming your intranet"

I came across this fantastic chapter today via Bill Ives Portals & KM blog (which is a goldmine for all on KM, portals, blogging and much more!).

This book is called "Transforming your intranet", and the technology chapter "Preparing for Intranet 2.0 - how to integrate new communication technology into your intranet" is authored by Kathleen Gilroy, the Otter Group and Bill Ives.

I will talk about this paper in more depth in later posts, but I really think it is one of the best I have seen in terms providing a great snapshot of the use web 2.0 technologies to encourage innovation, collaboration and platforms for publishing ideas.

In this chapter you can read about:

• Understanding RSS



• Building a blog network



• Wiki's



• Social computing tools



• Search techniques (tagging)



• Case Studies (Siemens, IBM, and Merrill Lynch)

You can download the chapter from here.