How to Find the Right Wiki for Your Project or Organization

Looking for a wiki for your team or organization? Do you need to host it on-site, or would you like one that’s hosted for you and ready to go? Do you need to integrate it with other enterprise tools, like email, SharePoint, or your intranet? These are just a couple of the important questions you’ll likely be asking, and one of the following wiki tools may be the right one for you.

My thanks to the following companies for supporting Future Changes. They all offer high-quality products and services that can help you build a useful, successful wiki.

MindTouch

MindTouch makes Deki, an open source enterprise collaboration and community platform that has a wiki at its core, and allows you to integrate with other tools like blogs, CRM (customer relationship management) systems, content management systems, and produce dynamic reports.

Deki is available in open source, hosted, and on-premise versions. The hosted and open source versions give you a low or no-cost opportunity to try out the software, and the pro hosted and on-premise versions give you the full features, integration options, and scalability.

MindTouch powers the Washington Post’s recently launched Who Runs Gov, a source of information on government officials, advisors, and policies.

GroupSwim

GroupSwim Collaboration is an on-demand tool that includes a wiki, groups, discussions, and file sharing, and will help you better organize and manage projects, streamline collaboration, and inform & involve your team.

GroupSwim Community gives your customers a community forum to get answers and share valuable information. It gives you the ability to see what’s most important to them, and quickly identify & resolve issues. Optional add-ons let you share files like training documents & white papers, and invite customers to provide input using a wiki.

eTouch

SamePage is an enterprise wiki that provides the ability to host multiple wiki workspaces, manage and share documents, and use blogs to communicate within and across teams. It’s available in on-demand or on-premise versions, so you can choose whether to host it yourself or let eTouch handle the technical details.

eTouch recently hosted an online seminar with the Aberdeen Group on the Recession-Ready Wiki. Here’s my summary and liveblog of the event.

EditMe

EditMe is a hosted wiki service that launched to the public in 2003, and has steadily grown since then. In 2007, the company introduced a service to build custom designs, integration with customers’ sign-in systems and account databases, custom features, and more. It’s a good combination of the convenience of a hosted wiki, and the flexibility to add and customize as needed.

CustomWare

CustomWare is a global technology services company that specializes in connecting business systems and enabling collaboration. The company offers a range of Architecture, Implementation, Support and Education services for products from Oracle, Microsoft, Adobe, Atlassian, Software AG, Cast Iron, and SalesForce.

Atlassian

Atlassian makes the Confluence enterprise wiki, and a set of tools that help technical teams and software developers track bugs & issues, analyze code coverage, manage identity & sign-on, track code changes & commits, and more.

Don’t forget to check out the Atlassian Summit, May 31 – June 2, 2009. This is Atlassian’s first-ever user conference, with tracks on Collaboration, Development Tools, and Plugins & APIs. Project managers, tech leads, code junkies, developers: This is a great opportunity to meet your peers, get great ideas, and even share your own ideas as a speaker.

You

Do you have a great product or service that could interest the readers of Future Changes? Check out my advertising package, see who’s reading, and then let’s talk.