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Since the introduction of content managed intranets, a lot of web editors and their teams have struggled to keep on top of knowledge and document management. I can’t say I’m surprised, mind. Not given the volume of information found on many intranets and the wide range of uses that information is put to.

There are clearly significant roles for a Content Management System (CMS) and a Document Management System (DMS) in today’s corporate intranets. But I don’t believe either of these really suits the dynamic requirements of live project working, where knowledge creation and file exchanges need to happen autonomously and in real time. Enter the wiki.

Wikis can be the perfect platform on which to run and centralise live projects. Unhindered by the controls of a CMS and not constrained by the publication protocols of a web editor, they offer project teams an ideal way to share documents and develop knowledge.

Corporate issues
Wikis don’t have a great reputation in the corporate world. A number of companies have had problems with critical comments placed on Wikipedia, the web encyclopaedia that anybody can contribute to. Others have tried incorporating wikis into their public websites, sometimes censored and sometimes not, and the results haven’t always been positive. A few companies have decided to take down their wikis due to perceived brand damage.

Protecting the brand is not a concern with an internal wiki. With an intranet sitting behind a firewall and the access privileges controlled, there aren’t the same issues or debates around policing and censorship. So while I understand why many companies are wary of public wikis, I think some of them may be missing out on a potentially beneficial tool by not implementing them internally.

The benefits of an internal wiki 

An internal wiki could be valuable both to project teams and to a company as a whole.

Benefits for project teams

- Wikis can be set up relatively swiftly and the process doesn’t require a high level of technical knowledge
- They are web based applications, so there is a low learning curve
- They are very flexible and can be used to exchange lots of different types of file, including HTML, emails, PDFs, a variety of image, audio and word processing files, and those all essential PowerPoint files
- They provide a centralised and secure location for all project data.
- A wiki is available 24/7

Benefits for the company

- Wikis are inexpensive and not difficult to set up
- They spread the responsibility for knowledge creation across the business.
- They reduce the amount of HTML publishing
- They reduce the burden on the CMS web team
- They encourage interaction and help to promote a single company culture
- They are a fast and effective way of generating and capturing knowledge for a knowledge library.

Sharing information and creating knowledge

To my mind, there are two common errors that companies can make when using an internal wiki. The first of these is granting access to everyone in the organisation. A wiki might be an excellent way for project workers to exchange information, but it’s very unlikely to help sales departments or administrative support teams. In other words, it’s only an appropriate application when it’s used by an appropriate set of people. 

The second error can be in thinking of a wiki as a large DMS. It’s not, It’s better placed as a tool to share information and create knowledge. A wiki works best for live projects and, once a project is finished, the information that has been obtained can be removed and placed in a document library, where it becomes time-wrapped knowledge. The knowledge acquired from the most recent project can then be used as the starting point for the next one.   

So is your company ready for a wiki?

Wikis are not appropriate for every company. Business objectives, working processes and the corporate culture all have some part to play in deciding whether or not to introduce one.

Good reasons for using a wiki

- When the members of a project team are working in different places around the country or the world.
- When knowledge creation and best practice dissemination are business objectives.
- When you want to spread the load and the responsibility for knowledge creation.
- When you have a large work force and a small CMS web team.
- When you want to increase your knowledge creation without vastly increasing your web publishing costs. 
- When you need 24/7 project working.

Good reasons for not using a wiki

- When you just want to build a document library and archive system (use a DMS, because it’s better suited).
- When you want to support project debate and discussion (use blogs, because they’re better suited).
- When nobody is prepared to take responsibility for setting up and managing a wiki.
- When you don’t have a good search engine.

In short

When it comes to knowledge creation, most large companies are trying to achieve similar things. They want to improve their knowledge, both in terms of quality and volume, and make it easier to disseminate information across a regional or a global network. At the same time, however, they want to keep their web publishing costs in check.

With a conventional CMS-based intranet, these two aims are not happy bedfellows. But with a wiki, used the right way in the right environment, the benefits could be considerable. 

If you'd like to discuss how a wiki could work for you contact Julie Randall on
020 7404 4490 or email julie.randall@rufusleonard.com

And if you have a comment to make please join in our forum using the comment box below.

 

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