In An Internal Wiki That’s Not Classified Noam Cohen of the New York Times shows how a wiki has changed a common US State Department practice:

In the past, said Stacie R. Hankins, a special assistant at the United States Embassy in Rome, when the ambassador prepared to meet an Italian political figure, the staff would e-mail a memo about the meeting and attach biographies of those who would be attending to be printed out.

Today, she said, they still produce the memo, but “now they attach a link to the Diplopedia article” — Diplopedia being a wiki, open to the contributions of all who work in the State Department.

Diplopedia (Wikipedia entry) is not just changing that one practice – it’s part of a larger shift called eDiplomacy:

The decision to embrace wikis is part of a changing ethic at the department, from a “need to know culture” to a “need to share culture,” said Daniel Sheerin, deputy director of eDiplomacy, which was created in 2003.

The transformation from culture of defense to culture of sharing that I often talk about in my presentations is in full effect at the State Department, and it’s helping people not only build the most up-to-date biographical information on diplomats and issues, but also collect the tacit knowledge that’s equally important but less prestigious – ordering lunch, for example:

In addition to reference material like the 200 biographies of Italian political and business leaders, the more than 4,400 Diplopedia articles reflect the range of the staff’s concerns — among popular articles are high-minded titles like “Foreign Affairs Professional Reading List” and mundane ones like “Building Pass.”

The advantage of Diplopedia, she said, isn’t necessarily the ease of creating new material, but the ease in finding information. “The political section used to keep biographies on political people, and the economics people kept biographies on economics people,” she said. “It was not always up to date. You didn’t always know what the other had.”

The practical information, likewise, is material that was floating around the halls of the State Department, but not typically written down.

“Not to resort to clichés, but it demonstrates the long tail effect,” Mr. Johnson said. “A lot of things are not things that you would put on a traditional Web site. If someone directed a desk officer to create an article, it would not be about how to order lunch. That might seem trivial — but getting food into the main State Department building is not an easy task.”