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]

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.

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?

Fifth in a series by guest author Vincenzo Cammarata.

The social networking aspect is the starting point of a company sensible to Enterprise 2.0 – then Wiki – solutions. Introducing this concept in a workplace context is possible to change in a radical and effective way the previous organizational culture.

The first step to stimulate social networking is to allow the creation of personal spaces – if possible with an internal blog – and then to produce a staff list in order to let people know who their colleagues are and which are personal skills that they own. In this way there will be a simpler identification of experts.

Related WIOWA Questions:

5.a Flexibility on process design (support to effectiveness)

Is it easy to identify an expert in the whole community?

5.b Teaming (organizational services)

Are members of teams able to know all the competences and expertises of co-workers?

5.c Decision Making (knowledge and collaborative support)

When the group has to take a decision, it is usual to ask opinion to experts inside the whole community?

5.d Openness to Ideas (communication and socialization)

Are individuals insights visible to the whole community?

Shel Israel recently wrote about what he perceives as two camps with very different views of how social media can be used by organizations:

Camp #1

…those who understand that social media is something new and different from traditional marketing. It is not about putting messages into foreheads. It is about the enormous wisdom and efficiency to be gained simply by having conversations with customers, prospects, employees and partners. [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:

Fourth in a series by guest author Vincenzo Cammarata.

The true collaboration occurs when people have the possibility to co-work on the same sub-task, activating a mechanism of new knowledge creation. Collaboration is not so obvious if is not clearly supported: the risk is to exchange this “together” learning process with a simple cooperation process, producing not new knowledge but only a simple addition of individual regress knowledge.

In this sense, collaboration has to be helped in order to avoid isolation in job and supported with a compatible scheduling of daily activities. Is also important to create “collaboration bridges” across teams and groups, involving people to participate in each other’s activities or involve experts on other areas to collaborate together.

Related WIOWA Questions:

4.a Support to People (support to effectiveness)

Do you know which people are involved in your same projects?

4.b Teaming (organizational services)

In your team, are individuals plans often compatible with the group activity?

4.c Collaboration (knowledge and collaborative support)

Is it usual to participate to other group projects?

4.d Communication (communication and socialization)

Is it usual to discuss with others about their work, solving problems together?

Michael Idinopolous suggests 3 ways to build a participatory knowledgebase using a wiki:

1. Structure by Topic

The whole point of the wiki is its ability to bring people together and connect dots across organizational silos. That won’t happen if you structure the wiki around those very silos.

Here, he argues the wiki shouldn’t mimic the existing organizational structure because that won’t help break down information silos.

I agree with the principle of using the wiki to encourage new connections across the organization, but it does need to start with some resemblance of the existing organizational structure. That gives people confidence in using it. [Read more]

Third in a series by guest author Vincenzo Cammarata.

Sharing is linked with the concept of a democratic access – and then utilization – to all kinds of resources, from physical tools to data and, even better, to ideas and individuals’ insights.

The possibility of sharing improves an effective distribution of common resources (meeting room, projector, corporate car…). In a more general acceptation of the term, the availability to ideas or previous solutions useful for different use is an advantage that make co-creation of new knowledge and a healthy circulation of knowledge possible.

Related WIOWA Questions:

3.a Resources Allocation (support to effectiveness)

Are the common resources accessible to all and can these be booked in an autonomous way?

3.b Openness to ideas (organizational service)

Is it possible to access or find results and insights inside and outside the community?

3.c Collaboration (knowledge and collaborative support)

Is it usual to implement others’ work or co-create documents?

3.d Communication (communication and socialization)

Is the real time circulation of ideas among the community supported?