Larry Cannell recently wrote a piece for Collaboration Loop called I Hate Files, where he argues that reliance on files makes information harder to find & use: “I don’t even want files. What I want is the information stored in a file…I have been thinking about files and documents lately and I have come to the conclusion that our reliance on the computer file as the primary structure for storing our digital “stuff” is hurting us in ways we cannot see. This is holding us back from realizing truly breakthrough capabilities.”

Breakthrough capabilities like those offered by a wiki.

Unlike the file paradigm where individual documents are pushed out to people, a wiki pulls people in to work on information in a common space. That’s a breakthrough capability because it gets past the “physical” limitations of a file, and lets people directly interact with information. This makes for a more sensible organization system, and better version control - both of which are lacking in the file paradigm.

“I believe one of the reasons why it is easier for a group to manage and share documents using online office suites (rather than with files) is because they use the web rather than tolerate it. (emphasis mine) This is an important concept that was noted by Tim O’Reilly in his original Web 2.0 blog post. He referred to it as using the “web as platform” and is an important design pattern for Enterprise 2.0 too.”

One commonality among blogs, wikis and other social tools is that they respond to patterns of human behavior better then tools like email and traditional knowledge management software. Wikipatterns.com was created specifically to document these patterns and give wiki users a place to share information about the trends they see on their own wikis.

Related Posts:

• Gilbane Report: Near-Time builds wiki functionality into hosted collaboration service
• Managing Wikis in Business, Wiki Patterns as a sign of quality
• How do you reflect a maturing focus? Change your blog’s name!
• Writely and Google might be talking, Analysis of “web2.0″ companies, $39 experiment
• Introducing “Podcast on Wiki Patterns” - now available on iTunes