Why Knowledge Management?

Watering Your Wiki

Federal Computer Week is not a part of my typical required reading list, however John Zyskowski's Tending the wiki garden offered some great advice on wiki growth and care.

In Zyskowski's opinion, wikis offer the kinds of collaborative, transparent, efficient and unpredictable (in a good way) characteristics that government agencies are looking to implement.

As a proponent of the use of wikis, this is very true, but it's important to remember when dealing with a wiki implementation - at least in the early stages - it is not a "if you build it, they will come" playing field. It will take on-going work and cultivation.

Accessibility. In your wiki selection, pick a tool that can easily be learned by the public you're intending to reach as contributes. Many wikis require a basic level of understanding of wiki markup language which is similar to HTML. For a properly setup wiki, this does not have to be a deterrent, but when beginning with a blank canvass, this could cause a barrier to acceptance and use if this is not considered.

Perhaps one of the most important pieces of advice from the article for anyone implementing a wiki is that in order to get people to contribute content, there must first be enough content to garner interest and to which users have something to edit or add

The next suggestion requires that wiki management encourage while lightly controlling during the early stages.... The idea of a wiki is to have a completely open collaborative environment that can accommodate a wide variety of projects. However, if users work to create pages too specific to their use only, or silo-ed pages are created by the subject matter expert and not editable, this defeats the purpose of the wiki and discourages new users...

...while a fan and user of Wikipedia, I find it to be a bit locked down and uninviting to new users who may find their additions heavily redacted or removed. A wiki must be factual, but style and input should be allowed to evolve, and early disagreements on all things wiki can usually be resolved with a quick discussion (verbal collaboration) with the other people on the best way to present the information.

In one sense, it is counter-intuitive to say this about a wide open collaborative environment such as a wiki; but as a wiki grows, it is important to have someone ultimately responsible for the content. It's vital that this person be the type of individual who can cultivate and motivate contribution, while "organizing the content, weeding out redundant or inaccurate information, and facilitating collaboration on new topics."

And whether this is empirical or opinion, Lena Trudeau - Program Area Director of Strategic Initiatives at the National Academy of Public Administration - states that in a wiki environment, there will be 1% who contribute most of the content, 9% that are sometime-contributors, and 90% lurkers - those who just use, read and watch the wiki.

Wikis are great tools, but from experience the planning and early execution are critical for success.

Knowledge Management in Customer Service

I was perusing the last week's Knowledge Management and Content Management articles and blogs courtesy of Google Alerts, and saw an interesting article on KM in Retail, but it was primarily a technology article in KM World...and I kept hearing the words of Jerry Ash in my head reminding me what I already know...KM is about those who generate, share and use the knowledge, not about the technology that helps us to do that.

With that in mind, today's post became obvious....eVergence's blog posting entitled, The Top Five New Years Resolutions for Customer Service. We all have complaints about and horror stories related to customer service, a job which in many cases is low paying, off-shored, seldom recognized and never-fully-appreciated (except to the customers who need it in high quality). Customer Service is also a front line position that offers huge opportunities for making a difference - and for generating innovative practices and 'managing' knowledge.

Estaban Kolstoy's suggestions are:

1. Resolve to be more patient. This is an obvious one for Customer Service personnel, as well as any staff that deal with customers. Kolstoy suggests empowering Customer Service staff with a little more power to deal with customers who will undoubtedly be feeling the pressures of the current economy.
2. Resolve to get in better shape.This is the time to discover your strengths and weaknesses and get them in order, making necessary changes. I would suggest for managers to listen to Customer Service staff for ways to improve processes.
3. Resolve to fix broken relationships. It's not possible to fix all relationships, but a) it is a great suggestion to take time to do this...businesses will need to keep as many customers as they can during the tough economy, but just as important is b) learn from your mistakes. How did you harm the relationship in the past and what can be changed moving forward to prevent these types of problems (and how can you fix the feedback loop to catch and fix these issues quicker).
4. Resolve to try something new. Kolstoy primarily suggests new technology solutions, such as blogging, twitter, etc., which is not a bad idea, but my preference would not be to go the hi-tech route initially, but instead, resolve to try new processes, new procedures....and pilot them...if there is also a way to use technology to help you do these things, then by all means adopt it...but start with new, fresh ideas from the front line CS staff and expand from there.
5. Resolve to listen better. Somewhat obvious...and as Estaban acknowledges, this is an aggregation of the previous 4, but worth mentioning. I'll just extend it to say from Customer to Customer Service Staff, from Customer Service Staff to Customer Service Management on up to senior management - feedback and then action are always good resolutions.

It's good advice to start the year and keep attention on these 5 points. I'm not big on "Top lists" - but this one does not violate my rules about lists - probably because it is a prime number and short enough to be easily remembered.

Wiki Tools/Resources

A few years back - in 2005 - I did a research project to find a wiki for our internal use at work. We downloaded it, installed it, and it got very - very - light use...just a handful of pages were created.

Then about 18 months ago, we came up with a specific need, and from that requirement launched a very brief search, installed a wiki, and it has been well used since that time. In fact, since the initial use, we have conceived of other ways to use the wiki and it continues to be a more valuable tool all the time.

Not sure how a wiki can help? A great site to inspire wiki use is Grow Your Wiki, and particularly the 7 effective wiki uses and the companies that benefit from them will infuse any brainstorming session or grass roots movement with ideas.

Back to my search, it would have been handy - in both instances - to have had access to Cameron Chapman's recent post 100+ More Wiki Tools and Resources over at Mashable. It does not violate my aversion to lists, as it is simply a compilation with very brief descriptions (one sentence) of the wiki or wiki tool, and a link to a page where you can get more information. Very concise, but a great place to start a search (Cameron Chapman however could possible create a new list aversion). But the Wiki list is great - I hope it is kept up to date, or an updated posting is made at regular intervals.

To really 'talk the talk', WikiIndex is a wiki site about everything wiki, including lists of wikis and resources. It's too much to start a search there, but looks to be a great resource - and it's a wiki.

Any time is a good time to start a wiki, but from our experience, have an initial need or demand that will attract use. Have some wiki resources available. Then wIth participation will come some innovative ideas on other uses. This can help too.