Wiki Wiki What?
What is a Wiki?According to Wikipedia1, the online encyclopedia and one of the most well-known Wiki sites, a Wiki is "a website ... that allows users to add content ... but also allows anyone to edit the content." Unfortunately, in this context, that's a fairly inadequate definition, comparable to defining Ingenta as "a public company": it's accurate, but it doesn't give you a very helpful idea of what a Wiki can do.
Ultimately, it is hard to define a Wiki precisely because of one of its most useful features: it is flexible. It can achieve many ends; you can quickly and simply construct web pages for public consumption, using some very basic mark-up. Perhaps, then, the defining value of a Wiki is its ease of use; this is neatly signified by the fact that the word Wiki is Hawaiian for "quick".
Who's using them, and why?
Not surprisingly, Wikis have been most readily adopted by software developers. Slowly but surely, however, they are also being used by non-techies who need to jot down, share, or co-author information. A Wiki can function as a scratchpad – somewhere to log ideas as they arrive, the advantage being that you can save them in a navigable, searchable environment where they are then available for others to peruse and, potentially, add to. Thus a Wiki can support and encourage brainstorming. Each page contains version tracking which enables you to check the history of changes, should you need to (which you may well do, in a collaborative environment)2.
How does Ingenta use them?
Ingenta is home to a number of well-respected software engineers, under whose guidance we have nurtured a corporate Wiki over the last couple of years. As a burgeoning, transatlantic company, we found ourselves grappling with a wealth of documentation which had little organizational structure and in many cases suffered from unwitting duplication and lack of version control. The Wiki provided a genuinely effective solution. For example, the entire build and launch of IngentaConnect was specified and documented on the Wiki, where everyone could review the plans, embellish where appropriate, prompt further discussion and so forth – all via a user-friendly interface which did not rely on local hosting but could nonetheless be access-controlled for internal audiences only. We have since begun to use our Wiki for tasks as diverse as co-ordinating RFP responses, maintaining lists of frequently-forgotten facts and providing both internal and external training documents for Ingenta products and services.
Building on the success of our internal Wiki, Ingenta has also implemented customer-facing Wikis, which help us to better serve those of our clients with whom we are working on large-scale projects. In the case of McGraw-Hill's AccessScience Search project, the Wiki was used to ensure the various McGraw-Hill staff we worked with were able to view regularly updated information in one coherent, indexable location. Instead of emailing weekly update documents to the customer (clogging up their mail programs, and requiring them to store the data somewhere locally for future retrieval), we simply needed to email URLs pointing to the appropriate update on the Wiki, from where they were intuitively linked to all previous correspondence, reports, specifications and other relevant information. Janet Fisher, Ingenta Client Manager for McGraw-Hill commended the use of a Wiki in this context:
"The project unfolded so much more smoothly because of the centralized, structured documentation available to all stakeholders via the Wiki. Deadlines and roadblocks were clearly visible to all which helped us to avoid unnecessary delays. At the end of the project, we were left with a comprehensive record of its development; this enables us to review the overall success of our implementation and recognise any elements where we could have improved our service."
Sounds interesting. Where can I find out more?
• Visit the Wikipedia's entry on what a Wiki is and how you use it.
If you've grasped the basics but are interested to learn more about implementation of a Wiki, try the following articles:
• Wood, Lauren. "Blogs & Wikis: Technologies for Enterprise Applications?", The Gilbane Report, volume 12, number 10, March 2005. Wood gives an overview of Wikis (and blogs) in corporate use and discusses how particular features work well in this environment.
• Tonkin, Emma. "Making the case for a Wiki", Ariadne, issue 42, Jan 2005. This article looks, in greater depth, at the potential uses for a Wiki, and provides more information about the various implementations available for adoption.
• Mattison, David. "Quickiwiki, Swiki, Twiki, Zwiki, and the Plone Wars: Wiki as PIM and Collaborative". Searcher, volume 11, issue 4, April 2003. Provides a wealth of useful links, gives useful descriptions of personal experiences, and generally gives a broader context (albeit somewhat dated in parts).
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page, or check out UK newspaper The Guardian's critique on the subject.
2 Version tracking, search and other such capabilities will depend on the wiki software being used.