Deirdre Breakenridge

I’ve been doing a lot of work with one of my clients to help them rethink how to use their wiki and then to re-launch the wiki for other employees to use in their organization.  It’s a huge effort that started because the original wiki was launched, and yet after a couple of years, no one was using it to share interesting information and ideas.

One of the first exercises we conducted was a review of the existing content.  PFS evaluated the content and grouped it into three areas:  static information (brochure-like), collaborative (with the ability to add and publish content) and updateable content (that wouldn’t necessarily be collaborative with members outside of the group that we were working with).  We did the exercise together (my client and myself during one of our meetings) by breaking up into teams of three, to represent each bucket of the existing wiki.  I had already provided the guidelines to my client regarding the wiki content to help speed along the organization process.

At the end of the exercise, we realized that most of the information previously published in the wiki, although very interesting and informative, was not the kind of information that people would update or add content to.  As a result we decided to remove this information from the wiki and place it into an area of the group’s website.  The material was well suited for a welcome center with content regarding the Group’s background, mission, vision, etc.

After careful analysis of the material left in the other two buckets, it was easy to see that we needed to be clearer on how people within my client’s organization should collaborate with the information that was presented.  We decided that the new wiki should have instructions on every page and will even have an avatar that tells a user how to participate in each area.  If users are still unsure, they can even ask the avatar a question and it will tell them exactly what to do.

Other great, new collaborative features include:

• An idea center to add ideas or to make connections with people
• Posting questions or opinions to discuss in a forum
• Related blogs to post comments
• An article rating system (through a widget)
• An interactive work area to share information with other groups.

The changes to the wiki are immense and it has taken on a completely different shape and form.  Wikis are meant to share ideas and help people when they are working collaboratively on projects.  It’s great to see how wikis launched years ago by companies are being revisited to provide employees with a useful forum for work, fun and interesting interaction.