“What do you use a wiki for?” This is the question that Michael Idinopulos discusses an interesting blog article. He highlighted the following four solution areas: Collaborative Intelligence, Participatory Knowledgebase, Flexible Client Collaboration, and Business Social Networks:

• Participatory Knowledgebase: A wiki as a participatory knowledgebase is not only a knowledgebase for users to find the information they want, but also a tool to easily and quickly share and discuss the information that is relevant.
• Collaborative Intelligence: A wiki aimed at collaborative intelligence is a “one stop shop” where employees can find up-to-date information that is essential for their jobs.
• Flexible Client Collaboration: A wiki can also be used as a means to collaborate with your clients. The good thing about it is that you can quickly set up a space to share all relevant information with your clients. This kind of wiki works differently than the wiki’s above because you create private spaces on the wiki.
• Business Social Networks: This is a wiki aimed at all the internal and external stakeholders of your company. Here they can share all their information about your company.

I think that creating a framework with solution areas mentioned by Idinopulos is a great way to help people to promote their wiki internally. Because of the extensive possibilities it is hard to explain in one sentence, but when you present a few broad areas it is easier to communicate.

To me the distinction between Collaborative intelligence and Participatory Knowledgebase was not completely clear. I think Idinopulos means that the focus of Collaborative Intelligence is that one department (marketing) provides essential information for another (sales). For the Participatory Knowledgebase it is the department itself that shares knowledge internally.

Important to mention is the clear distinction of focus groups in these solution areas. Collaborative Intelligence and Participatory Knowledgebase are mainly focussed internally, where Participatory Knowledgebase is aimed at only one department. Flexible Client Collaboration is partially focussed outside the organisation. Business Social Networks focus on the entire spectrum of internal and external stakeholders.