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]

Sixth in a series by guest author Vincenzo Cammarata.

A common element between Wiki philosophy and innovation successful case histories, is the partial or total absence of structure or, saying better, of hierarchy. The possibility, in fact, to contribute in the same way, indifferently at which level you are involved in the organization, is one of the first steps towards the reduction of barriers to collaboration, participation and involvement in the organizational life.

Peering is to intend in the two ways of organizational commitment: from both the perspective, the access to common information and the possibility to contribute to corporate knowledge.

Related WIOWA Questions:

6.a Supporting people (support to effectiveness)

Is everybody able to update useful information like telephone numbers or scheduled meetings?

6.b Resource Allocation (organizational services)

Is everybody able to book meeting room or, in general, common resources?

6.c Flexibility on process design (knowledge/collaborative support)

Is everybody able to recombine documents and then publish it?

6.d Communication (communication and socialization)

Is everybody free to publish (in the intranet or wiki) information useful for your colleagues?

Larry Cannell writes about a recent CIO Magazine interview in which Ross Mayfield discussed 4 common wiki uses that can reduce email. Here are Ross’ four examples, and my suggested Wiki patterns that can help you with each:

1. Collaborative intelligence - “for example, in marketing and sales operations, you need to communicate to the field organization about an ever changing product line.” The pattern I’d use here is Magnet to establish a wiki as the “go-to” place for people out in the field.
2. Participatory knowledge base - “99 percent of the pages created [on the wiki] and tagged allow the call center to go from 20 clicks to find information to four, substantially decreasing search costs and decreasing the average call time by 10 to 20 percent.” I’d use the FAQ and Seed it with content patterns here.
3. Flexible client collaboration - “a collaborative workspace between [a firm] and the client.” Agenda is a good pattern for using the wiki to organize meetings with clients, and kickstart client collaboration.
4. Business social networks - “with your business partners or customers, where you’re communicating to them, getting feedback from them, and they’re interacting directly.” I’d use the Corporate Directory and MySpace patterns as the building blocks of a social network.

The WikiSym 2008 Call for Papers is available now. WikiSym will be held 8-10 September in Porto, Portugal!

WikiFest - 6:00 talks

WikiFest is a new addition this year. It’s devoted to helping you start and grow a successful wiki, and I’ve structured it Pecha Kucha style which means max 6 minutes and 20 slides - get to the point, do it fast, and hear from as many people as possible! [Read more]

You’ll just have to watch the video to find out! Sam and Dennis Howlett discussed the differences between online communities and internal collaboration, and it’s well worth watching: