Ideas for greater wiki participation
Here are some ways to get people to participate in a wiki. Quick definition of a wiki, for purists the Wikipedia definition is what you should fall back on. For those that just want to keep reading here, a wiki is a web-based place for individuals to contribute knowledge so that others may benefit.
At the Social Media Breakfast in Phoenix on March 14, 2008, I had a conversation with a colleague named Miles who provides tech support for computers at the retail stores of a major wireless company. Working with a team of developers, Miles is trying to increase participation in the company’s wiki, which will be used for tech support issues, essentially a knowledge base to expedite troubleshooting.
Here are some ideas for launching an internal wiki focused on, but not limited to
tech support.
- Create dedicated contributors
- Build an inventory of information that the site will have upon launch
- Provide incentives for contributions in the first phase of the launch
- Assemble targeted users and contributors to build Alpha version
- Assemble different set of users for Beta site & bring groups together
- Promote alpha and beta programs in anticipation of larger interest for the launch
- Create recognition program for creative tech support solutions posted
- Adopt wiki participation in the corporate or at least the departmental culture
Now for those of you that really like the details, here’s a thesis paper on Social Rewarding in Wiki Systems that will make you drool. After you go to this link paste in the following
World of Wikis is another good primer on wiki participation
Since there are just 8 ideas, we need two more for your typical ten of anything list, so please add a couple below.
Tags: wiki
This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 12:54 pm and is filed under internal communications, new media.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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March 20th, 2008 at 12:15 am
When faced with a wiki without content relative to you or your department (be sure to search first, no need to duplicate work). Here was the “nuts and bolts” of what I have been doing so far.
Go to the wiki, and make one page, announcing it is for your department, with child pages to appear beneath. Then make a second page describing how to edit the wiki.
If you are like me, you already have a stack of notes, bookmarks of websites, a collection of text files, word documents, excel spread sheets, address books, and saved emails you go to every day to reference things like “What is the code for stores in the West?” “Who is the contact in sales that knows about blackberries?” “What is the phone number of the fax machine for the biggest store?” “What is the team that handles issues with email?” and even the simple “What is the website where we time punch?”
You might be thinking “I should just convert all of this”. But you are looking at a monumental task if you were to try and do it all at once. Instead, keep the wiki webpage open. And when you have to reach into your notes to check something (and someone isn’t tapping their foot needing it yesterday), add a child page to the wiki and put in nothing more than the info.
Anytime you receive an email and think “Oh I should bookmark the site they link to” or “I should add this to my notes”, add it to the wiki instead. If you archive all your old email anyway, you can still search it in case the wiki ever goes down.
Keep this up for about a month, adding a page with about a paragraph of text every day or every other day, and within a month, you’ll have 15+ pages of relevant information on things you have been concerned with in the past 30 days. Go ahead and take an afternoon to observe what’s there, do a little editing, link some things, consolidate some pages, realize that some new pages should really be added, and add them.
Spend another month just adding content from emails (now that you are familiar with the wiki it will be much easier) and when you get an email asking a question, make a wiki page, and reply back with a link to the wiki page that answers their question. Next email you get with the same question, give them the same link.
Finally your next project that requires collaboration with another employee, make a new page, and keep track of notes with the wiki, and at the bottom of the page, put in a link to the “How to edit the wiki” page, send the link to the new page you made to your coworkers.
And when they ask, try not to evangelize to much. Focus on how easy it is to add new content and how nothing gets deleted. And how anyone in the company is able to access the information, and how if all departments had a presence, we could share information so much easier.
March 20th, 2008 at 4:20 am
Miles, this is great and I trust helps others considering a similar project. The one item I particularly liked is this
“Spend another month just adding content from emails (now that you are familiar with the wiki it will be much easier) and when you get an email asking a question, make a wiki page, and reply back with a link to the wiki page that answers their question. Next email you get with the same question, give them the same link.”
That is just so efficient. Nice work and remember your comment on this blog will result in Provident Partners donating a food item to a St. Paul food shelter.
All the best,