Enterprise 2.0 Uncovered – Wikis

What’s in a wiki? Why wiki?

The wiki is a simple concept – it is a website that contains an edit option on each page. A visitor to the website can click on the edit button, change the content on the page, or link to another page on the web or within the wiki.

The wiki is a core tool in the growing suite of applications described as ‘Enterprise 2.0’: a phrase coined by Professor Andrew McAfee of Harvard Business School in March of 2006. It describes the use of social media tools by organisations as part of their work practice.

Earlier this year blogger Toby Ward, posted this item that discusses some Enterprise 2.0 success stories. He does use the term ‘Intranet 2.0’ rather than Enterprise 2.0 but in this context they are interchangeable (Thanks to Melbourne KM’er Andrew Mitchell for the link).

CPA Australia recently re-launched CPA Good Practice Guide – in a wiki platform.  Here is the official description:

“The CPA Good Practice Guide is a collaborative initiative between CPA Australia and its members. The online guide provides members with a comprehensive collection of tools, procedures, templates and checklists that can be used in day-to-day business situations.”

The Good Practice Guide itself is a useful KM tool. But, you may now be wondering, why have you put it into a wiki?

The main reason is the flexibility it offers. CPA Australia has adopted an enterprise wiki. That is, a wiki which along with the standard wiki features such as simple editing, tagging and cross-referencing, also integrates with the CPA Australia website and provides us with detailed access control options.

As a result of this flexibility we are able to rapidly add new content and enhance existing content. We are also now able to encourage contribution from users. The CPA Good Practice Guide has always been created and driven by members, it seems a natural extension to encourage direct contribution.

Currently the CPA Good Practice Guide is private and in ‘Comment Only’ mode, meaning only CPA Australia members or GPG contributors can view the guide and provide feedback using the comment function.

At this stage the Good Practice Guide resources themselves cannot be edited. The access control settings allow us to start out with a locked down version of the guide and over time create new areas where contribution is encouraged. The beauty of this system is that formally reviewed content and member generated content can be separated and clearly identified within the same website.

The wiki is a simple tool that opens up many new possibilities, the example I have outlined above is just one possibility. We are experimenting with a range of smaller scale ‘behind the firewall’ projects within CPA Australia, I’ll write more about the challenges and benefits of some of these over the coming months.

Have you implemented a wiki project? Tell us your stories about how it went.

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