25 Tips for a Better Wiki Deployment

Here are some hard-won lessons learned from those who have implemented wikis at their organizations.

The use of Web 2.0 tools requires imposing some, but not too much, administrative structure on the collaboration environment. Too much structure inhibits innovation and interaction. Too little structure can devolve into purely social interactions, engen

As the collaborative environment is being established, people are looking for cues for how to interact. Establishing appropriate cues early sets the tone for interactions to follow. It is much easier to start on the right foot than to correct problems lat

Web 2.0 tools provide the opportunity to identify extremely valuable knowledge held by the ‘crowd.’ When members of the crowd do contribute valuable knowledge or insight, reward them for it.

Allow colleagues to evaluate one another’s contributions, even relying on them to distribute many of the rewards mentioned previously. Peers are often in the best position to evaluate a contribution and the work that went into it.

Effective use of Web 2.0 tools for collaboration depends on both the tools and the community that uses them. New Web 2.0 capabilities are being introduced daily, and it can be difficult for even a tech-savvy community to learn to use them all effectively.

Don’t be discouraged if 90 percent of what the collaborative environment produces is not valuable to you or your business. The goal is to find the 10 percent that is truly valuable and that you wouldn’t have found any other way. These are the ideas that

The wiki champion(s) will be responsible for creating awareness of the wiki and reminding others how easy it is to use.

Youre not deploying a $100,000 content management system. Failure is a cheap option.

This is the easiest way to gain viral adoption in the enterprise.

Overstructuring makes it hard and intimidating to add new content.

Provide users with a variety of ways to participate. A user who only feels comfortable commenting on content at first may evolve into one of your most prolific contributors.

Nothing promotes participation like visible activity.

Create simple graphical reward badges for frequent contributions, moving a project to the wiki or any other activity that promotes adoption. Badges should be placed on the user’s wiki page for everyone to see.

Support for dynamic content is a must here, as the content will remain evergreen.

User pages are a great opportunity to experiment with features and gain familiarity with the wiki.

Most users already search the Internet but don’t know that the same facility exists inside the company.

Let users make mistakes; good wikis make it easy to reorganize content.

Integrating the wiki with your databases will allow users to create their own dashboards for daily activities.

Self-expression is important in teams and across organizations. Wikis are a perfect embodiment of self-expression that transcends organizational structure.

With enterprise wikis, concepts of ‘spaces’ or ‘projects’ are almost always required.

Granular security with the ability to specify permissions—even at the page level—is often required for enterprise wikis.

There is no single best practice on how a wiki should be rolled out within a large organization. However, it is often most effective to implement a wiki within those groups or departments that have immediate use for it. Forcing the wiki as a companywide m

As users within the organization send out wiki links or e-mail wiki pages, other users will get interested—or at least curious.

Some wiki applications require detailed configurations for advanced features. Make sure you know what users want before rolling out your wiki.