Enterprises that are structurally successful in knowledge management and online collaboration have significant competitive advantages. However, chances are slim that you know many of such organizations. Knowledge management and online collaboration just have not gained enough momentum within enterprises. Things seem to be changing though.
Wiki’s successfully overcome a number of traditional knowledge management and online collaboration issues.
According to Wikipedia: “A wiki (sometimes wiki wiki) is a web application designed to allow multiple authors to add, remove, and edit content.”
Strange as it may sound; the main difference between traditional knowledge management platforms and wiki’s is that people are actually using and embracing wiki’s. It is said this is due to user friendliness, great search possibilities, easy linking and the powerful feeling of being an author.
Reasons not heard so often but more relevant for enterprise uses of this technology is that previous Knowledge Management platforms too rigidly dictated work flows and had too much focus on capturing “actual knowledge”. Such knowledge management is not intuitive and often even burdensome for those working with these systems.
Wiki’s on the other hand leave users free to work with them as they please and are easy to use. People themselves define what they store and what information is valuable. People can post their content any way they like. If others think it is incomplete or incorrect, they can edit, remove, or discus it.
Another drawback of previous platforms is their costs. Implementing a typical Knowledge Management platform would be costly, not to mention the resourcing required to set it up and maintain it. The investments in set-up and licensing of wiki’s are small. There is also no need to migrate the old systems to the new platform as simply linking to the content of the old platform makes it searchable. Maintenance on wiki platforms is small compared to the traditional systems. As users work with the knowledge it is maintained automatically.
There is one force that still needs to be overcome. As wiki’s lack formal control mechanisms, management fear the resulting lack of control.
To sum up, wiki technology is making knowledge management and online collaboration work, because people actually use it. This adoption success and the low costs are important reasons that many companies today are looking into starting to use wiki technology on a large scale.
[Quote] Reasons not heard so often but more relevant for enterprise uses of this technology is that previous Knowledge Management platforms too rigidly dictated work flows and had too much focus on capturing “actual knowledge”. Such knowledge management is not intuitive and often even burdensome for those working with these systems. [quote/]
Correct! If you look closely at the actual business cases of knowledge driven companies such as consultancy/accountancy firms then you can find a bases for the reason why these organisation’s do not use wiki’s.
July 16th, 2007 by multimind
@multimind: Could you elaborate a bit further on the business case statement? It looks interesting, but there might be multiple ways to interpret it.
July 20th, 2007 by Jaap Linssen
How could complete openness amongst colleagues or in the interaction with clients be treatening to these kind of organisations? There are several. What do you think?
July 23rd, 2007 by multimind
@multimind: I think that the threats like the willingness to share information and feeling redundant after sharing valuable information are mainly cultural problems. This regarding to sharing knowledge with your colleagues.
Sharing knowledge with clients might for consultancy/accountancy firms be more difficult. I think that using a wiki for communicating with your client asks for a clear statement of what the wiki will be used for.
July 23rd, 2007 by Bas Kolff
@Bas
I agree. Also, people needing to be billable / account for every hour of the day mostly perceive an internal barrier to share insights with other people, since these insights may be the main thing setting them a part from their colleagues. Or, the insights may enable them to get the job done quicker than their colleagues, as knowledge is a personal USP. Also, some organisations maintain some levels of ‘competition’ within their organisation. Whether this is a good thing, I’ll leave up to you to decide.
To take this one level further…. Let’s assume that you have a company forum or wiki on which ‘general population’ can post questions/share information; would this be done for things other than e.g. a lost file?
The solution to these questions in my view lie in how one is rewarded for ones contribution to the wiki-content. So, how could participants whose contributions add value be rewarded?
Looking at the client side… Is it the client or the product or service supplier who is hesitant to use a wiki?
July 23rd, 2007 by multimind
@ multimind
I agree with your first statement. I think that people feel important when they have knowledge no one else within the organisation has. They might also feel important when sharing a lot of information on a wiki. This can also raise the status of this person.
On your second statement about rewarding people for their contributions on a wiki I’d say that this doesn’t have to be true. How do you explain the popularity of Wikipedia? Contributors only get rewarded with a good feeling and the hope that if they are looking for answers someone else put that piece of information on the wiki. They also feel part of the community.
I think this can also be an important factor client/supplier wiki. When the client feels part of the community he/she will participate and share valuable information. The supplier on the other hand has to be open towards the client and give him/her the feeling that he/she belongs to the community.
So summarizing, I think you can have contributors on your wiki without a physical reward.
July 27th, 2007 by Bas Kolff
As to the popularity of Wikipedia… Yes, plenty of people are sharing, even anonymously. Why? Maybe just to feel good about having made a contribution to the community or even to strengthen their own understanding of certain subjects because other people can edit the entries.
Would the participants to a corporate wiki need to disclose their identities in your view? I think that a survey in the respective organisation would be the best first step to take, to check if people are open to the concept. The organisation psychology side of this is an interesting element, absolutely worthwhile exploring in more detail.
July 30th, 2007 by multimind
This is an interesting discussion!
I think there is truth in the fact that people might keep information to themselves because they fear losing power or worse losing their job. So let’s say this info does not land on the wiki.
There is a lot of information that people have that they would probably very willingly put on a wiki. If you are the only person who knows how to do something, there is a good chance that a lot of people will come to you to ask for your help. Such skills can also be annoying. In such cases you will gladly put your knowledge on the wiki and refer to it when people come asking.
Starting at this level will improve chances of success and can very well grow to the situation where the type of information written about earlier is posted.
August 8th, 2007 by Jaap Linssen