Belgian Newspaper: Internal Wiki More Useful Than External

Roland Legrand, in charge of Internet and new media at Mediafin, publisher of Belgian business newspapers De Tijd and L’Echo, wrote about his firm’s experiments with wiki adoption for PBS’ Mediashift.

His one-sentence conclusion should be read and re-read by anyone thinking about using a wiki at work:

For people who already know each other well, a wiki can be an efficient way to prepare projects and events, but the tool seems less useful for a group of strangers. Thus, I am not yet convinced that a wiki is a good way to let Mediafin’s reading audience create new content.

The outsize presence of Wikipedia has led to the notion that an organization can simply put up a wiki, and people will magically show up and fill it with content. In that sense, Wikipedia is a fluke – a good idea that itself is successful, but not infinitely repeatable. The people that contribute to Wikipedia do so because they’re inclined to contribute to an encyclopedia, and want to further the site’s ambitious agenda.

By contrast, the people who come to a newspaper’s website are there to get the latest news. Most are not visiting with the intention of adding information, and that’s why a public wiki attached to a news website isn’t as likely to succeed. Mr Legrand sums this up well:

…using wikis to create collective texts about “big issues” is difficult. People hesitate to change texts, and they don’t have the time or the skills to write elaborate stories. Most of our audience is still not used to the idea of collaborating to write a text with other people whom they have never actually met.

So where is a wiki useful? As part of the framework for teams with specific goals, a cohesive purpose, and things they need to work on together. If you have these prerequisites, then a wiki can help you save time, cut down on unnecessary email, get better input from people, and build a store of knowledge and processes that will help you make future tasks even more efficient:

Wikis can be useful to save time when working with a large group of people. For instance, a wiki is an efficient way to organize an event or project involving several journalists. (Although a wiki can’t entirely take the place of actual meetings.)