I love wikis. I love the concept of wikis. I love the potential for enterprise wikis on the corporate intranet.
However, wikis are not reinventing the intranet. In fact, very few organizations have an enterprise wiki on the intranet. Though as I alluded to last week in Wiki versus content management the wiki is growing in popularity.
Shiv Singh adds some much needed perspective to the wiki hype in his recent column The Truth about Enterprise Wikis:
Every second day I come across someone waxing profusely about enterprise wikis and how they're going to change the way knowledge workers interact. I believe in enterprise wikis and I really like wikipedia too. But that doesn't mean I feel every Fortune 500 needs an enterprise wiki. There are some important truths about enterprise wikis that get ignored often.
The first is that not every knowledge worker wants to collaborate. Putting an edit button on a page doesn't mean your knowledge workers are going to jump at the opportunity to share their thoughts for free.
Secondly, enterprise wikis only work when people feel secure in editing someone else's work. I can't imagine many knowledge workers editing their bosses work especially if everyone else is going to see the edits. It just doesn't happen that frequently. Sure if they're collaborating on a document and only the two of them have access to the page then maybe. But certainly not otherwise. Before encouraging your knowledge workers to use a wiki, make sure you have a trusted, secure office culture first.
More on The Truth about Enterprise Wikis.
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Yeah I would have to agree with Shiv Singh about the fact that enterpise wikis can't function the same as wikipedia…as much as it seems the same it is very different..wikipedia is an encyclopedia of general knowledge and people will always wanna contribute to that ( I myself have done so on many occasions)..but enterprise wikis..not a good idea if you ask me..it will never function..cause I know I wouldn't want someone stealing my ideas..and basically that is what will happen with their developements..and having that in mind..people won't be willing to participate…I mean I sell stuff like Generic Xenical and I wouldn't want anyone stealing my methods which I use to sell those…I am sure you get the point…