Larry Cannell explains the inherent weakness in files as the primary container for information:

I don’t even want files. What I want is the information stored in a file. I have been thinking about files and documents lately and I have come to the conclusion that our reliance on the computer file as the primary structure for storing our digital “stuff” is hurting us in ways we cannot see. This is holding us back from realizing truly breakthrough capabilities.

Files must be pushed out to people, and each person makes changes in isolation from others. The resulting revisions must be combined – and differences resolved – which can lead to disagreements, misunderstandings, and corrections. This can prolong the development of critical products like proposals, reports, technical documentation, and anything else that needs to be produced by many people in a short time period.

A wiki pulls those same people in to work on information in a shared space where one always sees the most up to date version – the product of all previous revisions. This eliminates the reconciliation of competing or conflicting changes, since they’re dealt with during the revision process. That’s the part of collaboration that’s otherwise the least collaborative, least productive, and most damaging to the social fabric of work groups.

More worldwide praise for 21 Days of Wiki Adoption -
this time from Germany, New Zealand, and the US:

Felix Harling from Germany wrote about the series and the Wikipatterns book on his blog EinfachSchnellKlar (Easy-Fast-Clear):

Stewart Mader has written wikipatterns, a book that was very well received by the enterprise 2.0 and knowledge management community. Those who don’t want to buy the book (or don’t have an online access to the book e.g. thanks to the SAP SkillSoft partnership) may have a look at the Wikipatterns website or at Stewart’s blog: he is currently publishing a “21 days of wiki adoption” video serial.

Scott Abel wrote about the series on his blog The Content Wrangler, and specifically discussed Day 18: WikiCharter – community ‘house rules’.

A WikiCharter is a set of guidelines to ensure productive interaction between members of your wiki community. Here are five guidelines from the Sony Ericsson Developer World wiki provided by wiki evangelist, Stewart Mader, author of the book, Wikipatterns: A Practical Guide to Improving Productivity and Collaboration in Your Organization.

Marshall Kirkpatrick wrote about the series on the blog ReadWriteWeb, where he is a Lead Author:

…here is wiki consultant Stewart Mader’s great short video series 21 Days of Wiki Adoption.

Mike Riversdale from New Zealand wrote about the series on his blog MiramarMike.co.nz – Generating agile organisations:

Stewart Mader has been running a fascinating (and must see) podcast of how to encourage wiki uptake within your organisation…

Mark Oehlert linked to the series on his blog e-Clippings (Learning as Art).

Thanks Felix, Scott, Marshall, Mike, and Mark!

Rob Castaneda, Founder of CustomWare Asia Pacific, wrote Working the “Wiki” Way for the March 2008 issue of Octane, quarterly magazine of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO).

In the article, he discusses how CustomWare uses a wiki internally to improve information flow between teams working on client projects:

The Pain Point

The biggest snag we experienced was transferring knowledge and context from the sales team to the delivery team. This muddled flow of information threatened our client projects.

Rob and his company decided they needed to improve communication, and decided to use a wiki as their collaboration platform. [Read more]

More worldwide praise for 21 Days of Wiki Adoption -
this time from South Africa and the US:

Patrick Berry and Scott Jungling at CSU Chico wrote about the series on their blog Institutional Knowledge:

Our friend Stewart Mader is putting out 21 Days of Wiki Adoption videos. Even if you are already going with your wiki project, there will be some episodes worth watching.

Matt Herzberger linked to the series from his blog mattherzberger.com.

Anne Gentle wrote about the series on her blog just write click and specifically pointed out Day 12: Documentation:

Each video is short, encapsulated, and easily digested when you need a break. I’m really enjoying them, and the cool US map background behind Stewart.

Note: I’ll be presenting Wiki Roundtripping? Structured Authoring? How Do They Co-Exist? with Anne at DocTrain West 2008 in Vancouver, BC in early May.

Younique, a social media marketing firm in South Africa, wrote about the series on their blog marketing + it, and specifically discussed Day 13: Wiki vs. Content Management System and Day 14: Is Data Safe in a Wiki?.

Thanks Patrick, Scott, Matt, Anne, and Younique!

On Monday, I posted a reader poll asking how you use wikis. As of last night, 127 of you responded, and here’s what you had to say:

There were three respondents who chose “Other”, and here are their specific responses: Managing classroom information, garbage trash, and audits. Now, I can’t really say much about garbage trash, but I can comment on the other two “other” uses:

Managing classroom information is an excellent wiki use. In fact, I got started using wikis doing something very similar – building a wiki-based science curriculum.

Using a wiki for audits is a great use too – besides having all your information easily accessible in one place, the revision history the wiki maintains for every page is very audit-friendly since it shows a complete trail of who contributed information, when they did so, and what was added, changed and removed.

Jeffrey Keefer (Twitter) commented on the post and asked about a poll for education uses. That’s coming next week! He also asked for more information on some of the uses I included in the poll, like project management. Watch for that next week too.

Rachel Happe has a great list of Social Media Metrics. If you’re looking for ways to measure the impact of social media tools in your organization, Rachel’s list will have you thinking about:

Activity Metrics like: comments & trackbacks, number of contributors, time spent on site, and most active contributors

Survey Metrics like: quality and speed of issue resolution, and referral likelihood

ROI Measurements like: Number of new product ideas, % of ideas from customers/prospects/community, and Revenue/Adoption rate of new products from community vs. traditional sources

Got more? Email her at rhappe [at] idc.com

Ben Martin on social media use in organizations:

Here’s the dire assessment: Your association is becoming more irrelevant by the moment if it isn’t participating in the conversation made possible by social media. Signs of the paradigm shift are all around us and quite obvious. Association leaders who don’t recognize the signs are either uninformed or unconscious.

Eighth in a series by guest author Vincenzo Cammarata.

In order to shift from the culture of individual work to the culture of collaborative work, it is obvious that the issue of trust is crucial: trust is linked not only with the Wiki spirit but it is a very important requirement of creativity and so of the orientation to innovation.

To be considered a credible expert is important such as to be sure to have reliable expert’s opinions; the feeling that you are appreciate inside your team and more in general in your community is an incentive to be active and “creative”.

Related WIOWA Questions:

8.a Time allocation (support to effectiveness)

In your online profile, do you have the possibility to write about your further expertises or personal projects?

8.b Teaming (organizational services)

When there are meetings, have you the same documentation of other participants?

8.c Openness to Ideas (knowledge and collaborative support)

Do you think that your ideas and, in general, your work, get the right acknowledgment from your Organization?

8.d Decision Making Agility (communication and socialization)

Do you consider reliable the insights coming from the whole community?

I believe this very strongly, and I think it’s one of the most critical cultural changes that will determine which organizations thrive and which ones lose relevance.

Bill Ives echoes this point in his summary of J.P. Rangaswami’s presentation at the FASTForward ’08 conference. Rengaswami talked of the “new polarization” in organizations, or how the customer gains control.

The fights have traditionally been within the IT departments. Now they have moved outside.

The first polarization is expertise. People of his and my generation believe experience is necessary for real innovation. We need to stop rejecting youth.

The second is participation. Now people can participate in much more than possible. He gave as an example, the numerous donations in small amounts that Obama has raised for the US primary campaign through the web on his way to a record month for total contributions ever.

The third dimension is time. He quoted Rupert Murdoch that fast is the new good. Now we have stuff in Beta all the time. JP said that IT has to get over these three concepts to succeed. Now the users have already breached the IT wall and running around inside the fort. It is too late to keep them out.