Wiki's Aren't Like Other IT

Wednesday, April 2, 2008 by Mistlee


Can't see any images? - !



Recent Articles

Coding Horror - Spying On Users
Coding horror has an amazing story on why you should be careful of just about every download you put on your PC. The story covers G-Archiver from Brother Soft, where the programmer coded a Google mail username...

Is Your Security Department Necessary?
"What do you do that provides value to the company?" With all the companies I have worked with and have worked in over the last 20 years, asking this one question seems to get everyone slack jawed at the...

How The Rise Of SaaS Relates To SOX, SAS...
The growing popularity of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is having a significant impact on data security and regulations compliance. Most companies are concerned -and rightly so-about the legal and security issues...


04.02.08

Wiki's Aren't Like Other IT


By Ross Mayfield

Michael Idinopulos blogs Why wiki's aren't like other IT:

First, wikis are not a scale play. A single business unit, a single team, even a single person can derive business value from using a wiki.

Of course the network effects are exponentially greater at larger scale, but there's a lot of benefit even without the scale.

Second, wikis are not a standardization play. Traditional IT systems are all about trying to limit variation and get everyone to do things the same way (often for good reason). Wikis area all about morphing, molding, and adapting to the way people and groups want to work. So the grassroots appeal is not surprising.

Call Today For a Free Domain Consult

Finally it's difficult to force someone to use a wiki. It's relatively easy to force compliance around a Purchasing, HR, or Finance system: simply mandate usage and take away the alternatives.

But the alternative to wikis is email, and who's going to take that away? People will use wikis only if they want to, so the adoption has to come from front-line workers freely choosing the wiki over other alternatives equally available to them.

He goes on to note the economics of SaaS and Appliance models provide further differentiation.

I'd note that his second and third points get at the difference for collaboration something you can't mandate from the top down. Andrew McAfee would chime in here pointing out the freeform difference of Enterprise 2.0, where the structure emerges as a byproduct of using the tool, rather than being defined in advance. Often and unfortunately by IT.

Comments


About the Author:
Ross Mayfield is CEO and co-founder of Socialtext, an emerging provider of Enterprise Social Software that dramatically increases group productivity and develops a group memory. He also writes Ross Mayfield's Weblog which focuses on markets, technology and musings.

ITProNews is brought to you by:

SecurityConfig.com NetworkingFiles.com
NetworkNewz.com WebProASP.com
PerlProNews.com SQLProNews.com
SysAdminNews DevWebPro.com
LinuxProNews.com WirelessProNews.com
CProgrammingTrends.com ITCertificationNews.com



About ITProNews

News and updates for the IT professional





-- ITProNews is an iEntry, Inc. publication --
iEntry, Inc. 2549 Richmond Rd. Lexington KY, 40509
©2008 iEntry, Inc. All Rights Reserved Privacy Policy Legal

archives | advertising info | news headlines | free newsletters | comments/feedback | submit article


Unsubscribe from ITProNews.
To unsubscribe from ITProNews or any other iEntry publication,
simply send an email request to: support@ientry.com
ITProNews News Archives About Us Feedback ITProNews Home Page About Article Archive News Downloads WebProWorld Forums Jayde iEntry Advertise Contact

0 comments: