Wiki, a Shared Blog for the Corporate World

Writable webs empower people to share knowledge effectively and to be more productive

Wiki, a Blog (Weblog) for groups: Communities can organize and share content in an organic and free manner
If extended with the right set of functionality, a Wiki can be applied to corporate groups to schedule, manage, document, and support their daily activities

Conference talk at VCWI 2005 IT Seminar in Eindhoven, Sept 2005BR Jun Hu BR MailTo(j.hu@tue.nl)BR Slides available from [http://id00243.id.tue.nl/JunHu/WikiYourWeb]

What is a Wiki?

WikiWikiWeb = Writable Web
- As quick to contribute as e-mail
- As easy to use as a website
WardCunningham implemented the original WikiWikiWeb in 1995 to collaborate on software patterns
Inspired by HyperCard; some call it a Blog for groups
Wiki design principles:
Open
Should a page be found to be incomplete or poorly organized, any reader can edit it as they see fit
Incremental
Pages can cite other pages, including pages that have not been written yet
Organic
The structure and text content of the site is open to editing and evolution
more
WikiDesignPrinciples

Blog: (Weblog)
1. Key: Easy to publish opinions of individual in regular intervals
2. Media to express individual voice
3. "Post media" (like e-mail), sometimes with feedback and talkback
4. Usually hosted service (e.g. Six Apart's [http://www.typepad.com/ TypePad])
Wiki: (WikiWikiWeb)
1. Key: Easy to create and refactor on content owned by group
2. Media to express group voice, deemphasizing identity of individuals
3. "Refactor media", content may change at any time
4. Usually open source software, installed on own server
Some Blogs have Wiki-like features, some Wikis have Blog capabilities
- Merge over time?

attachment:email.png	attachment:wiki.png
email	wiki

Open Source WikiEngines: Download and install
- MoinMoin: Used by internet communities (Python)
- [http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl UseModWiki]: Used by internet communities (Perl)
- [http://phpwiki.sourceforge.net/ PhpWiki]: Popular Wiki (PHP)
- [http://www.flexwiki.com/ FlexWiki]: .NET based (C#)
- [http://snipsnap.org/ SnipSnap]: Wiki + Blog (Java)
Hosted Wiki services: Wiki farms
- [http://www.socialtext.com/products/workspace/ Socialtext Workspace]: Open source Wiki (Kwiki) with Blog extensions; for corporate use ($$$)
- [http://www.editme.com/ EditMe]: Simple Wiki and Blog ($4.95/month)
- [http://www.teamflux.com/FrontPage Teamflux]: Simple Wiki ($20/quarter/person)
Wiki appliance: Wiki in a preconfigured box
- [http://www.socialtext.com/products/appliance/ Socialtext Appliance]: Based on Kwiki with some proprietary extensions

attachment:wikipedia.png

[http://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia]: Wiki + Encyclopedia
A free encyclopedia that is being written collaboratively by its readers
Project started in January 2001
The most active public Wiki: There are over 290,000 articles in English; more in 50 other languages
Anyone in the world can edit any page.
Doesn't that lead to chaos?
- Domain experts contribute
- Well defined policies for contributing and handling content
- Graffiti gets removed quickly (rollback available)
  - IBM's [http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/history/ research] on history flow of articles ([http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/history/gallery.htm gallery])
Content can be freely distributed and reproduced under the terms of the [http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License, GNU Free Documentation License]

E-mail Habit - I prefer e-mail
- E-mail doesn't scale - new people, new technology, new customers, new partners...
Shared knowledge vs. 'Owners' - I don't want to edit someone else's page
- Wiki culture: nobody 'owns' pages, and any change can be built upon
- First person to create page is not the owner!
'No control' syndrome - This leads to chaos
- Can be perceived as disruptive by upper management
- Soft security, audit trail, peer review
Wiki syntax - yet another language
- Wiki is not more difficult than e-mail, e.g., just do it
- Use the help pages, doesn't take long to learn