4 challenges to wiki adoption in organizations: #2 odd-sounding names
The second challenge to social media/enterprise 2.0 adoption that Sandy Kemsley cites has to do with the names of these tools, and the notion that we:
…feel a bit silly stating that we blog (as opposed to maintaining a reverse chronological online journal), or use a wiki (as opposed to a collaborative editing workspace). Seriously now, “blog”? “Wiki”? “Mashup”? Do we really expect stuffy enterprise executives to get past the names and see how the technology can impact their organization?
I don’t think the names are all that silly. There’s nothing exciting about “reverse chronological online journal” and in fact it sounds like something that a committee of stuffy people came up with.
Unique names provide an opening to ask “What is it?”. If I heard “collaborative editing workspace” that’s too generic for me to know it’s a new kind of tool, but if I heard “wiki” I’d ask, “What’s that?” There’s the opening for someone to explain it.
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Colin Mooney says:
Mar 27th, 2008
Hi Stewart,
I agree with you here in that the names of the web 2.0 actually create interest and a ‘buzz’ to go with your efforts. A ‘reverse chronological online journal’ sounds like something from the distant past!
At the same time, I can understand where this issue arises. Often, a social media champion becomes a human dictionary of web 2.0 terms when faced with challenges from the non-technical or digital strangers. If I had a dollar for the number of times I am asked what a wiki is…..!
One piece of advice I would have for Sandy is to keep things simple when delivering the explanations ala CommonCrafts ‘Plain English’ methodolgy. Focus on the benefits and possibilities rather than the technical specifics of these tools. Afterall, they are SOCIAL computing tools, which are the enablers of effective communication and imroved collaboration which are the prizes at the end of your enterprise 2.0 journey.
Regards,
Colin Mooney
Said Kassem Hamideh says:
Mar 27th, 2008
“twitter”
Stewart Mader says:
Mar 29th, 2008
@Colin – So true! The gem is the business and personal value of these tools. The funny sounding names are a good departure from long, hard to remember names, but once we get peoples’ attention with a funny name, we’ve got to be able to quickly explain what it does show them the value. And you’re right – keeping it simple is key!
@Said – yep – Twitter is a funny sounding today as Blogger was seven years ago, but look how that turned out!
John Tropea says:
Mar 30th, 2008
Funny I came across this post now, as I just tweeted about this this morning:
johnt: For enterpise 2.0 we should use the word “watchlist” rather than RSS reader
http://twitter.com/johnt/statuses/779944024
trib: @johnt for all E2.0 when talking to non-tech, regular language is a must – watchlist=RSS, collaborative space=wiki, project diary=blog, etc.
http://twitter.com/trib/statuses/779944929
Stephen Collins says:
Mar 31st, 2008
Stewart, John Tropea and I have been talking about this on Twitter today and while we both know we understand the terms, we’ve certainly seen in more than one large enterprise (and small, for example, my daughter’s school) that there is a significant barrier to acceptance early on when the informed (us) use these terms in conversation with management or non-technical users.
What we need is a combination of things – easy terms that don’t make us seem like wankers when communicating and equally easy definitions that we can rattle off and that are interesting enough to pique curiousity.
It’s more than occasionally, that I’ve needed to describe a wiki as “a collaborative work space” and a blog as “something like an online diary”.