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]

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.

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?

Seventh in a series by guest author Vincenzo Cammarata.

Strictly linked with transparency concept, openness is at the base of the principle that people work better if they have access to the right information and possibility to assume that all over the organization.

The simple access to other group member data or the possibility to know activities scheduled also in other groups are normal operations in a mature context such as is allowed to look to other team solutions or results in order to decide something for the own team.

Related WIOWA Questions:

7.a Collaboration (support to effectiveness)

Is it possible to access other groups’ contact data?

7.b Openness to ideas (organizational services)

Is it possible to know when other groups meet and, if you want, participate?

7.c Decision Making (knowledge and collaborative support)

In order to take decisions, do you usually look to other groups’ or departments’ work results and choices?

7.d Communication (communication and socialization)

Have you ever participated in other groups’ or departments’ discussions?

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?