Announcement Meeting:

“An ANNOUNCEMENT meeting should be super fast, and is reserved for announcements that you want to make in person to the team.”

If you use your wiki to blog internally, as we do at Atlassian, then post the announcement on the wiki. You could even do this before the meeting itself to gather feedback and questions which you can then address at the meeting.

This doesn’t necessarily make the announcement meeting redundant. It’s still good to have the meeting to make sure everyone gets the news and questions are answered. The wiki can help make sure that relevant questions are gathered and answered.

Status Meeting

A STATUS meeting should be reasonably quick, and it’s a chance for all teams to be heard from. However, it’s not for discussion. Instead, the project manager calling the meeting (and at a startup, lots of people get to play project manager) should have gone around ahead of the meeting to get the status. Get all the conversation out of people by hearing them fully OUTSIDE the meeting.

There’s an obvious wiki application here. Everyone on the team should be keeping track of their status on a wiki. That enables the project manager – and everyone else on the team – to monitor progress. When the status meeting takes place, it should be focused mostly on informing people outside the team or project.

This meeting type is also one where I might disagree with Chris. If a team is keeping track of project progress on a wiki, then status meetings within the team shouldn’t really be needed at all, and the focus should mostly be on Brainstorming meetings.

Brainstorming Meeting

A BRAINSTORMING meeting is probably the most open-ended and least simple to run. In these meetings, you’re asking people together to discuss open-ended futures. This should be clearly announced at the beginning of the meeting (as well as in the invite), so that people know it’s going to be a conversation and not a quick in-and-out.

The best use of a wiki here is to publish the draft agenda on a wiki, and ask for input from everyone who has a stake in the project. It helps identify the areas people already agree on, and separate those from the issues & ideas that need more discussion in the meeting.

For all 3 meeting types:

During the meeting, have participants collaboratively record minutes and notes. This is much better than the traditional scenario where one person is assigned to keep minutes and furiously scrambles to jot down everything. If everyone contributes to the minutes, they’ll be more comprehensive and better reflect various viewpoints expressed in the meeting.

After the meeting, encourage people to make sure the minutes are accurate, and refine them as needed. Also, encourage people to leave comments and questions, and make sure to respond.

How do you use wikis to improve your meetings? Share your ideas and tips in the comments!

Check out my new Wikipatterns book – a how-to guide for growing wiki use in organizations with practical advice from a wiki expert. (That’s me!)

Here’s what people are saying about the book:

• “Create an idea-sharing environment where incomplete can be linked together and from this, solutions emerge.” – From the book’s Foreword, by Ward Cunningham
• “I’m going to recommend this without even reading it! Should be an e2.0 must-read top-shelfer…” – Susan Scrupski
• “Just pre-ordered this from Amazon. Looks to be a good read and an essential tool in any E2.0 evangelist’s tool kit.” – Scott Gavin
• “I love it when this happens, a blog I’ve read for ages (devoured some would say) gets published in book format. Needless to say my copy is already ordered.” – Gordon McLean

For more information, check out the full description of the workshop, and the current agenda. You can attend either or both days – just make sure to sign up!

If you’d like a similar workshop in your area, please indicate it here.

One of the recurring issues in discussions about enterprise 2.0 has to do with the relationship between new tools like wikis, and more traditional enterprise software. Should the new tools fully replace the existing ones? Can they? And even if they can, will organizations shed their investments in those existing tools and make a wholesale move to the new ones? I don’t think it’s a “one or the other” choice, and organizations that have invested in tools like SharePoint aren’t likely to just write off that investment.

So there has to be a “third way” that involves making the tools work together, and the SharePoint Connector is a good example of that. When tools like SharePoint and Confluence can work together, it helps organizations that already have SharePoint feel more confident responding to demand for a wiki like Confluence, knowing the two can work side-by-side. As Zoli said: “just removing the “we’re a SharePoint-shop” political obstacle in some major enterprise clients is worth it alone.” People can use the tool that’s best for their work, (Colin Toal left a good comment on Mike’s blog about this: “You deliver a tonne of value that is beyond simply locking out other products and the integration is slick.”) and not end up with problems like redundant, separately evolving sets of information housed in disconnected places.

Connections like this represent the best of what social media and enterprise 2.0 is really about: collaboration at all levels (including software makers), transparency and easy discovery of information regardless of the “place” where it resides, and a further evolution away from the material constraints that have hindered the effective use of information in organizations.

Here are the details:

• Search: Users can search SharePoint and Confluence content together from one place.
• Content sharing: From within SharePoint, users can embed Confluence page contents allowing users to blend content.
• Linking: Within Confluence, users can access SharePoint document facilities. By including SharePoint lists and content within Confluence, users, in a single click, can edit Microsoft Office documents.
• Single Sign-On and Security: With one login, users can access both systems while seeing only what they have permission to view.

You can download the beta here.

Updates:

• Atlassian Blog: Introducing the SharePoint Connector for Confluence
• Atlassian Website
• Atlassian Press Release (via BusinessWire)
• Microsoft Press Release
  “Microsoft’s relationships with Atlassian and NewsGator represent dynamic new opportunities for integrating social computing technology into a company’s business productivity infrastructure.”
• SharePoint Product Group Blog
• Jeffrey Walker: David Kisses Goliath: Confluence Connects to Microsoft SharePoint
  “Today, we release the SharePoint Connector for Confluence which is by far the deepest integration of any wiki with SharePoint, and is a testament to the connectivity of the .Net and Java platforms…We found Microsoft wanting to solve the same problem: remove friction between our technologies. And we found Microsoft easy to work with. Their product managers and engineers and ours even got Accenture on the phone to test out the requirements. Accenture is a partner of both our companies, and a large user of Confluence, so their feedback was important.”
• Mike Cannon-Brookes: On Acting Decisively: Confluence + SharePoint Integration
  “Today we’re making a big announcement and we think we’re in good company.

  Apple did it ten years ago…

  “We have to let go of the notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft must lose. We have to embrace a notion that for Apple to win Apple has to do a really good job.” – Steve Jobs

  Novell did it last year…

  “CIOs want to focus on their business, and they want their suppliers to focus on improving operating system interoperability.” – Novell’s Open Letter To The Community

  Sun did it a few months ago…

  “Does it signal a strategic shift inside of Sun? No – we can walk and chew gum at the same time. Running, virtualizing and supporting Windows opens doors.” – Jonathan Schwartz

  We’re partnering with Microsoft and releasing the SharePoint Connector for Confluence.”

• Jon Silvers: A good day for collaboration
  “From my perspective, it’s also nice to have finally made the announcement. Now, hopefully Jonathan, Brendan, Zach, Mike and everyone else working on the product and marketing can get some sleep. ”
• Robert Scoble: Microsoft goes Web 2.0 with Sharepoint
  “Atlassian’s role in this? They are building a Sharepoint connector. Why do that? After all, Sharepoint has its own wiki service? Cause Atlassian’s is better and Microsoft’s customers were asking it to support Atlassian’s.”
• Richard McManus: Microsoft Partners with Atlassian & NewsGator – SharePoint Goes Web 2.0
  “This isn’t just another ‘we promise to work together’ type announcement – there is a new product being released today by Atlassian at http://www.atlassian.com/SharePoint, called the ‘SharePoint Connector for Confluence’. It’s a plugin that will be available for download on Atlassian’s website later today. This plug-in pulls content from SharePoint to Confluence and vice versa.”
• Dennis Howlett: Microsoft does the Atlassian pogo dance
  “Unlike the marketing partnerships we usually see, this one has genuine utility. The ability to connect between Sharepoint and Atlassian’s Confluence is real, providing single sign-on, search, content sharing and linking between the two applications. From Atlassian’s perspective, it provides the company with a market leading brand to which it can hitch its sales wagon.”
• Dan Farber: Atlassian, NewsGator hook into SharePoint
  “In the summer Microsoft approached us. At the same time every large customer was experiencing political friction between the Microsoft document/email-centric users and a growing group of wiki users, in our case Confluence,” said Jeffrey Walker, president of Atlassian. “Users want to search across both. Microsoft knew we were Java-based, but approached us anyway. Once we decided to do it, we found we were pretty like-mined and collaborated with Microsoft engineers.” In part, the solution was driven by shared customers, such as Accenture, Walker added.
• EuroInvestor.co.uk
• ScobleShow: Microsoft partners with Atlassian over Sharepoint Wiki
  “Atlassian builds enterprise wikis and is white hot.”
• eWeek|Darryl K. Taft: Atlassian, Microsoft Make Web 2.0 Connection
• Don Dodge: Atlassian and Newsgator bring Web 2.0 to Sharepoint”
  • It is a great example of how Microsoft works with partners to create great solutions for customers.
  • It shows that Microsoft will do this even when the partner product competes with our own functionality.
  • Microsoft will do it with a company like Atlassian that is “open source” and built in Java. It is all about meeting customer needs.
• Ross Mayfield: Sharepoint wiki was last year’s news
  “I should commend not only Atlassian, but our partner Newsgator for taking the step to integrate with Sharepoint.”
• Jevon MacDonald: Atlassian, NewsGator develop Sharepoint Integration Options
  “Atlassian and Newsgator are two established leaders in the respective markets. Both have significant market access, well tuned sales operations and strong product roadmaps. Atlassian specifically has fantastic developer relations, and have built a very pluggable and easily integrated product.”
• Cori Schlegel: “Big” news today in the Microsoft SharePoint space
  “…single sign-on and cross-platform search can be pretty important in the enterprise world. Plus the ability to embed Confluence (Atlassian’s wiki product) content into SharePoint pages and allowing Confluence users to edit SharePoint content directly are pretty big wins. It could also be pretty innovative for large existing SharePoint customers who are interested in using wikis for collaboration.”
• Computerworld|Heather Havenstein: Microsoft partners add wikis, RSS to SharePoint
  “Atlassian Software Systems Pty. Ltd. and NewsGator Technologies Inc. today unveiled Wiki software and RSS technology, respectively, for Microsoft Corp.’s Office SharePoint Server 2.0. Both firms added SharePoint support for their products under an agreement with Microsoft announced Wednesday at the Web 2.0 Summit here.”
• WebProNews|Robert Scoble: Microsoft Goes Web 2.0
• Yahoo! Finance: Atlassian Integrates Confluence Enterprise Wiki With Microsoft SharePoint
• Techmeme:Microsoft Partners with Atlassian & NewsGator – SharePoint Goes Web 2.0 (Richard MacManus/Read/WriteWeb)

Here’s what I commented to Bill on his post: “They needed a system where editing is immediate and very simple. It was more important to let people add content rather than worrying about what they shouldn’t do.”

So true – it’s good to hear that an organization is concentrating on the positive and taking an optimistic approach instead of wringing its hands over thoughts of bad things happening.

“…”Knowledge management, previously a big concern, has moved off the agenda for the time being.” That is because knowledge management became a byproduct of using the wiki and not a separate activity.”

Great point – true knowledge management happens when people are able to do it without fighting with the technology and seeing it as a separate activity. It scares me to think of how many organizations have ended up treating it as an after-the-fact burden b/c the tools haven’t made it easy.

This is a great case study – Nathan deserves a lot of credit both for what he’s doing with wikis at Janssen-Cilag, and for sharing this really comprehensive, detailed case study with us all. Bill, thanks for your added input as well!

To all those who have built the site into what it is today, a heartfelt thanks! You are building something of immeasurable value to all wiki users.

Here’s the official description:

Wikis for Higher Education Teaching and Learning, Research and Business Collaboration
An interactive event involving:

• A keynote presentation from Stewart Mader (noted wiki/social software researcher, author and speaker)
• Roundtable discussions for those interested in wikis for teaching and learning, research and/or business collaboration
• Hands-on workshops
• Staff expert panels

I’m giving a presentation on enterprise wiki adoption and growth strategies at Atlassian’s new office in Sydney, Australia next Wednesday, 11 July, at 5:30pm. Beer and pizza will be served at 5:30, and I’ll give a presentation at 6:00, followed by Q&A and an opportunity to socialize with other customers and Atlassian staff.

I’ll share strategies for wiki adoption in a range of different environments, projects, and types of organizations. I’ll also discuss Wikipatterns.com and the practice of applying patterns to help coordinate peoples’ efforts and guide the growth of content, as well as recognizing and resolving anti-patterns that might otherwise hinder growth, so that your wiki has the best chance of success.

Click here for more information and to RSVP.

Look forward to seeing you next week!