Why Knowledge Matters

Survey Results

It looks like the results are still continuing to come in...but...

The Gilbane Report has been taking a survey on the use of blogs and wikis as Knowledge Management (KM) enablers in corporations. Gilbane originally ran with about 40+ responses for a presentation, but to date has 71 responses in the survey. I will note that I had trouble with the link and was not able to participate (yet).

Basic stats: "Does your organization use blogs or wiki technology?" Nearly 50 respondents said 'yes,' and another 12 or so said they plan to. The "blog or wiki is used for..." 35 or so said information dissemination, 32 said Knowledge Management....

This is just a tease...you have to go to the link to find out more. 

So I wasn't out of my mind pushing wiki technology.

Late-Night Thoughts

While I had visions of visitors hitting this blog and providing some comments and feedback (which hasn't happened), I am finding that this exercise has provided me with an excellent journal of research steps, "best-known practices," and "lessons learned" concerning Wikis.

In retrospect, I probably should have done a Wiki instead of a Blog. Oh well.

Note to self: an excellent Wiki primer, comparison chart, and suggested usage for Wikis exists at: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue42/tonkin/

The linked article is written by Emma Tonkin, Interoperability Focus Officer, UKOLN (UK Office for Library Networking). It is well written, references nicely cited, and informative.

Wiki Lessons Continue

Another set of suggestions to add to the Wiki Journal.

The Mayhem & Chaos blog was the latest to weigh in on the recent LAT Wiki debacle ( http://mayhem-chaos.net/blog/archives/000869.html ).

[As an editorial comment, this blog notes a New York Times column laying some blame on Slashdot ( http://slashdot.org/ ) and its members for spamming the LAT Wiki.]

Mayhem offers the following advice for the establishment of any community, particularly a Wiki:

1. A wiki is an online community: A wiki without users is useless.
2. To build a functioning wiki, you need to carefully and slowly build up a community of users who contribute to the wiki.
3. You can't build a community overnight -- online or in real life.
4. Communities can be resistant to attack, if properly prepared.

Sage advice.

The Good, the Bad, and the Wiki

Well, with the disappointment of the LA Times Wiki shutting down after just 3 days, it was encouraging to see today (via the TaxProf Blog: http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2005/06/new_tax_wiki.html ) the good news of another large organization with (IMHO) an interesting and potentially successful Wiki. Intuit, the providers of Quicken, Quickbooks, and TurboTax has a Tax Wiki (TaxAlmanac) with nearly 8,000 pages and articles.

In a press release from SmartPros ( http://accounting.smartpros.com/x48497.xml ), dated June 6, 2005, the Wiki was begun as an internally generated Wiki and was just recently released to the public. It already has 2200 registered users (hmmm - now there's a good idea).  The tax codes that exist within the Wiki cannot be edited (well, at least not by the users or Intuit).

Note to self: check it out, given the taxpayer reports of the sometimes dubious advice that the IRS rolls out about taxes, why not....? 

Intuit's announcement can be found at: http://accountant.intuit.com/practice_resources/taxalmanac.aspx

More on Wiki Failures

Or should we say Moron Wiki failures?

The Los Angeles Times shut down their WikiTorial after 3 days of service.

In his blog, "You can't handle the wiki!", Drew Olanoff, at the Blog Factory ( http://drew.zapaloo.com/2005/06/20/you-cant-handle-the-wiki/ ) reports that spammers and foul mouths put a hasty end to the LA Times' dabble with wikis.

Drew's advice to other newspapers:

- hang in there longer than 3 days
- require registration to edit pages
- get some moderators

Well, since the LAT is in the business of creating the news, they are a hit with bloggers today, and this evening's search of Technorati (www.technorati.com) had numerous posts on the LAT failure to get their wiki truly off the ground.

Blog posts include:

LA Times Whacks Its Wiki http://pjnet.org/weblogs/pjnettoday/archives/000717.html

LAT wikitorial experiment falls flat http://billdoskoch.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2005/6/20/957754.html

Rethinking the wikitorial http://www.mslpr.com/blogworks/archives/2005/06/wikitorial_reth.html

et al.....

Ahhhhh. More lessons learned.

Wiki Weakness

Now that the internal wiki is running at the office, it's time I set aside my bias and interest in its working and take a look at the downside of having/managing a wiki.

Probably the biggest issue is the regulation of content. In a wide open wiki, one of the issues seems to be a form of "free advertising." According to a June 9, 2005 post on Many 2 Many, here's how it goes down, the original poster will "create a wiki page, point to it [via a slashdot - or other - post] as if to demonstrate independent interest for a project... then point to the slashdot effect on their wiki page as proof of said independent interest. Voila, an instant trend."  See the full post at: http://www.corante.com/many/archives/2005/06/09/wikipedia_authority_and_astroturf.php

Fortunately for me, my initial project is internal, so I'm not seeing this as a possibility. However, the ultimate goal is to go to a public use/access, where this problem could find its way into the project.

Something to note and something to think about.

Wikis - continued:

My Wiki decisions...

OK. So I've seen a lot of wikis.  And I've even ordered the book, "The Wiki Way," (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/020171499X/qid=1118446836/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/103-3734654-5096645?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) but now I have to actually find, pick, and start to use a Wiki.

There are three specifications (specs) that are requirements for me: 1) The wiki must be open source and written in C# so that we can modify it to suit our needs (OK - so that's actually 2 specs), 2) The wiki will be used by programmers, 3) It may be extended to be used by general users at some point in the future.  Hmmmm.

Now, the Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org - the online encyclopedia) is the most contributed to wiki that I am aware of. It is fairly easy to use, but not what I would call friendly for a user. One the first visit, I would actually call it fairly difficult. It would, however, work as a good wiki that could be used by the programmers, who are familiar with the wikipedia, and I think that most users could pick it up, given some time. But, alas, it's not written in C#.

Some days I think I'm blessed. There's a wiki engine out there called "PerSpective" created by a guy named Alan Slater. His wiki can be viewed and tested in his "Sandbox" at: http://www.high-beyond.com/perspective.aspx?action=view&page=perspective.Welcome .

First, it satisfies the need for a C#-written engine....that's huge, since there aren't a lot of them.

PerSpective is fairly easy to use. As wiki's go, I think it is the easiest of the 10 - 12 that I've looked at. The editing paradigm is closest to a word processor's look and feel (some similarities to MS Word in that sense).

Your requirements may be different, but to satisfy my needs, this looks like the way to go. Over the last couple of days, we have downloaded it and installed it, and it has gone smoothly. I'll continue to write about how it is going as a tool for programmers, and then some day - maybe - I'll write about how the users like it.

But in the meantime, knowing that my "Plan A" is only as good as my "Plan B" - I do have another wiki waiting in the wings.

More Wikis

First let me say that I am probably upsetting a few people out there for putting my Wiki thoughts in the Knowledge Management category, but I not only think that it fits, but at least at this point of my research and blogging, it is the best place for it.

I am completely amazed at the number of open source wiki engines where the authors are interested in sharing their work. Since my purpose for a wiki is to capture, debate, and evolve a research 'knowledgebase (or at least a receptacle), this seems like a great way to get started and to modify and customize the wiki as the research evolves.

I found a number of wiki engines written in Perl, Python, and PHP. This week's search led me to an excellent article on evaluating a wiki engine (particularly one in Perl, Python, or PHP http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2004/11/04/which_wiki.html).

Fortunately for me, I found a few places where the research has already done for me....for example, http://tavi.sourceforge.net/WikiEngines/ComparingWikis . This table compares the wiki engines, Tavi, Wakka, UseMod, and PhpWiki. Now, it just so happens that my ultimate goal is a C# wiki engine...Oh, well, have to do the research myself....but the 'tavi' comparison chart above has offered me a number of parameters to compare in my search.

Wacky with Wikis

Wikis

I've been looking into Wiki engines some more lately, trying to figure out where to use them and what works about them. I still don't have an answer, but I innately like them for some reason.

NOTE to those new to "wikis" - 1st, "wiki" or "wiki-wiki" is the Hawaiian word for quick or quickly (if you've traveled there you no doubt saw the "wiki-wiki" buses at the airport). Probably the most well-known wiki is the Wikipedia, an online, interactive encyclopedia created, edited, monitored, re-edited, etc. by the users of the encyclopedia themselves.  Wiki engines then are the software that allows for the creation of interactive pages where the visitors can contribute and edit each other's work. In many cases, to make things even more "open," the source code (programming code) is also "open," meaning that you can download and improve the wiki engine itself, either for yourself and/or others (at no charge in most cases). Go to the Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) link for a feel for how this works. It's pretty cool.

The wikipedia has been incredibly successful, with over 500,000 English entries.  The biggest down-side to the wikipedia is trust of the information; not knowing, by reputation or credentials, who the editors are; and materials not cross-checked.  Yet, I was reading an article where the wikipedia is trusted more than Microsoft Encarta (user survey).

Hmmm…so is it trusted? Or not?

It seems to me that wikis are a great way to interact, much better than blogs for hashing out ideas...what’s the perfect application? An encyclopedia?

Perhaps wikis are best for a company Intranet, or a group of like-minded individuals on the Internet. But if you build it will they come?  Who will they be? What will they write. Why?...and if I start one, what can I do to facilitate participation?

Well, as I think this through and learn more, there's a great resource out there at http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiEngines . It's a Wiki. This linked page is a wiki about wikis. This particular wiki was created by Ward Cunningham, the original creator of wikis. There’s some good content there…It's helping me through the process. 

Hopefully I will get a handle on Wikis, wiki-wiki! 

Wikis

Wikipedia:

I've spent a bit of time over the last day or so, checking out Wikipedia http://wikipedia.org the online Encyclopedia that is interactive (you can add to it). It has over 500,000 articles in English (and other languages are well represented there too). It looks like an incredible resource. I checked out a few things, and the writing is good, and the information seems factual.

What I can't figure out is the appeal in contributing...anyone help me out?