corporate wiki: success factors?

>>> Fernando Correia<fernandoacorreiagmail.com> 24/11/2006 17:10 >>>
>On the company I work for, we are in the process of
centralizing all
>technical documentation of our software framework on the
wiki, for use by
>several departments of the company.
>The idea is catching on and other departments are
exploring the idea of
>using the wiki to document their knowledge and also to
publish documentation
>to customers.

After some months trying to propel the use of a wiki wiki
environment within a couple of research teams, I have
concluded that a top-down approach is mostly required. I
mean, when the head of a team asks team-members to discuss a
contribution she/he has previously entered in the wiki by
using the wiki, you will be successful for sure: there is
not alternative to use the collaborative environment!
 
Of course you have to be attentive to the bottle-necks could
cut productivity with such an approach. What you could get
is no answers at all! So, to get a previous agreement on
this way of contribution by a number of persons is
advisable.
 
Workshops showing wiki work basics by using the wiki
environment will also encourage people to follow the thread.
Even probably you must be ready to suffer criticism and
scepticism for a long while!
 
For me, at the moment, two major concerns:
 
1. Most of the team-members arrive to the wiki from a
WYSIWYG environment. In spite of this fact, most of them are
now using Mediawiki without problem. I'm trying to decide if
the use of a WYSIWYG environment with the wiki is a must or
could be avoided.
 
2. How to move wiki entries from Mediawiki to rtf, xml or
OpenDocument formats.
 
As far as I see by reading this list entries, Mediawiki
people philosophy are far from these two concerns. So they
are from access control. And I can get their point! But at
least in the kind of environment I am trying to introduce
wiki culture rtf/OpenDocument document production and access
control are required. As after a number of trials with other
wiki packages I have successfully implemented a number of
Mediawiki wikis I keep struggling to learn enough about this
environment as to satisfy the needs of the groups.
 
HTH,
 
Ricardo


--
Ricardo Rodríguez
Your XEN ICT Team
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