Reader Hans Mundahl commented on my post The Secret to Giving the Presentation Everyone Will Remember, and his comment was so good it deserves its own post. He says:

If conference attendees:

• take a paper document following a presentation (barrier 1)
• it needs to be kept (barrier 2)
• and filed (barrier 3)
• and recalled (barrier 4)

before it can be useful down the line.

That’s excellent illustration of the inefficiency of printed documents because of the mechanics involved in handling and storing the information - and you can’t even search it! [Read more]

James Dellow reviews the Wikipatterns book:

The book is structured well and steps naturally from explaining the value and use cases of wikis into the adoption process. In terms of adoption, Mader offers 11 steps to a successful wiki pilot… that’s right, these are tips just to get the pilot right! In fact, its refreshing to find someone suggesting that adopting a wiki in an organisation can take a lot more effort than simply plugging a wiki into your corporate LAN.

He suggests that the patterns I’ve applied to wiki adoption can go beyond wikis themselves, and help catalyze adoption of other collaborative technologies:

my recommendation is that Wiki Patterns is worth a look regardless of the collaborative technologies you are using… there are a set of “patterns” in well written format here that can be applied to a variety of collaborative technologies.

And gives an example of the time- and frustration-saving benefit of using the wiki approach instead of email:

In one instance the process of submitting a large package of information to head office that was too large to email was reduced from hours of effort and days of elapsed time to less than an hour.

Do you have your copy of Wikipatterns? If so, what have you found most useful from the book? Let me know in the comments!

If you don’t have your copy yet, there’s no better time than now to order! And if you need a helping hand with wiki adoption, please get in touch!

BusinessWeek’s Debate Room asks whether foreign ownership is a good or bad thing for US airlines. Arguing in favor of foreign ownership, Matt Vella says innovation, not nationality, is best:

There’s little evidence the impact on labor would prove more substantial than that of the current outsourcing craze, which already has carriers retooling planes in remote parts of the globe. And foreign-owned, U.S.-incorporated airlines would, of course, be subject to U.S. safety, security, and employment rules.

One could also look to Air France-KLM as an example of foreign ownership that has strengthened the two airlines while keeping the KLM brand and Dutch connection alive and well. [Read more]

Scott Nesbitt of DMN Communications, a technical communications and consulting services firm based in Toronto, attended my presentations at DocTrain West and reviewed them on his blog:

Mader said wikis give collaboration context — you’re making changes based on the context of what someone wrote or edited, and not in a pristine copy of a file. This decreases misunderstandings, and increases communication. You’re not working in isolation but everything is out in the open (in the wiki comments/revision history).

The key message was that a wiki helps move a project forward through that collaboration and communication.

He also mentions my point about the benefit of using a wiki to capture relevant knowledge during regular workflow instead of after the fact:

In a documentation documentation project, Mader suggested writing about a feature or function while it’s being developed. This puts the information in context and keeps it fresh. Writing becomes part of the development flow and isn’t rushed to meet a deadline. You get better, more complete documentation.

DocTrain West 2008 takes place this week at the Marriott Pinnacle Downtown in Vancouver, B.C.

I’ll be presenting on How to wow your publisher by writing a book using a wiki today (5/8) from 1-2PM in Point Grey Room.

I’ll show you how I used a wiki to write my new book, Wikipatterns: A Practical Guide to Improving Productivity and Collaboration in Your Organization, and demonstrate how you can use this same approach to make writing more fun and efficient, keep your editor and publisher happy, and get your manuscript done faster!

And I’ll have a few copies of my book to give away during the presentation, so don’t miss it!