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Two uses for wikis

Written by James Robertson, published August 28, 2008

Categorised under: Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, Intranets, James' articles

Wikis are gaining rapid adoption with organisations at present, driven in part by the very visible success of Wikipedia, and other similar sites.

While organisations are still learning how to use wikis in practice, it is clear that they can offer considerable benefits.

Wikis can be used in many different ways, and this briefing will suggest that there are two broad categories of use: ‘wikis as collaboration tools’ and ‘wikis as intranets’. These are two distinct situations, and should be managed in very different ways.

Wikis as collaboration tools

Wikis are first and foremost collaboration tools, designed to meet the needs of groups, teams or other local activities.

There are many situations where wikis can potentially be of value, including:

  • supporting team or project collaboration
  • creating a knowledge base for a specific group of staff
  • providing a home for collaboratively-created documentation or technical support information
  • offering a place for brainstorming or other creative processes

In these cases, a group of people are using the wiki as a common area to contribute ideas or information. Easy ways to create and edit content make wikis very suitable for this kind of use.

[CM Briefing 2008-12, read the full article]

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