Joined on 09-23-2005
TechSoup Member
I'm about to make the case to my organization (about 100 people nationwide) that a wiki would be a great replacement for our terribly outdated internal site.
Any tips on getting non-techie people excited about the information-sharing possibilites, and getting them to actually use the thing?
Even the tech-friendliest folks had to be prodded to use our trial version of
webexone, so I'm a bit stymied.
Thanks!
Just out of curiosity.....why a wiki? Is this something that would be beneficial to them?
Have you explained why to the people?
Best,
Michael
Joined on 11-16-2005
TechSoup Member
Yeah explain that its really fast to edit so there aren't any production bottle necks any more. That generally sold people here. Until they realized that Wiki markup was almost as much of a pain as HTML then they were less excited.
Joined on 04-15-2005
TechSoup Member
No pain, no gain... just kidding!
seriously, wiki markup is really not that bad. and definitely easier than HTML. It's worth it!
I think the best way to convince someone is to explain AND demonstrate.
How about you build a small demo site for your organization, and demonstrate how easy it is by simply doing it?!:)
You could also gather a short list of cool website using wiki and demo those.
Joined on 12-01-2005
TechSoup Member
Yeah, I would first try adding a wiki as part of the internal site. Perhaps for one specific area or function. Let people start using in just that one place then as it catches on roll it out all over. Just switching the entire intranet over will probably get a lot of folks frustrated.
Joined on 11-16-2005
TechSoup Member
I guess i would also add, make sure you test them out and pick one that makes sense for you user group. I'm a big fan of PmWiki but the way it nests pages can be extremely confusing at first. On the plus side PM's WYSIWYG buttons work pretty well (if your not using Safari) so that seems to make up for it.
People here were seriously amazed when i showed them how to edit a page. It wasn't till after they decided they liked wiki's that a bit of confusion set in.
The wiki, or any other new technology for that matter, has to solve a problem or do something that needs to get done better than the current system. If there's no motivation by staff, there can be no motivation to change. Excitement needs to arise from tapping into the staff's motivation. What motivates them? what are they motivated by? what are their goals? Then you have to show how the tool you're suggesting fulfills their desires. As an end in itself, technology is worthless (if not dangerous).
As a practical matter, I would try to show them how I can use the wiki to do something that I needed to do faster or better than I otherwise could. For some, I might show them something I (or in the case of the wiki, 'we') couldn't otherwise do.
WIKIWYG helps adress this in part, by offering a better and more familiar editing interface, and some wikis are much more editing-friendly than others.
WikiWYG
Joined on 02-01-2002
TechSoup Member
We deployed a wiki about a year ago. Adoption was very low.
Recently, a demo included taking people to wikipedia. when people were at wikipedia, they recognized the potential our internal wiki has.
I think I was missing providing users a concrete example of this technology in use. That missing element would have incentivized(?) staff to use the wiki (so I was told).
Joined on 01-30-2006
TechSoup Member
I know several people in our organization who "got it" when they were introduced to Wikipedia. As the royal highness of the wiki, it's pretty impressive and its value is easily understandable.
- Henry
> The wiki, or any other new technology for that
> matter, has to solve a problem or do something
> that needs to get done better than the current
> system.
Excellent point, phil. All too often, techies try to introduce technology into their organizations without ever explaining what the technology really accomplishes.
--Amit
Joined on 09-23-2005
TechSoup Member
A belated thanks to everyone for your input.
As much as I like Wikis, I'm finding that they (and even Wikipedia) are a bit too advanced for our staff. They're enviro people, not computer people. :-) With a big organization, any learning curve can quickly become too steep.
I tested a intranet created with Xoops that had all the familiar features (a windows-like file structure for documents, a discussion forum, a calendar), and they're warming up to it a little better.
I believe the important thing is that it is really easy to get started - then later people might get curious about how to do this or that
Joined on 11-02-2006
TechSoup Member
Speaking about getting started, I want to open up a wiki to help our organization continue constructing our regional strategy with about 25 people in 4 countries. Our intranet portal is too cumbersome for this and I want to start playing with wikis to see what they offer in practice.
Does anyone here have any recomendations as to which wikis you all like best for this kind of purpose? It would have to be a private wiki and I don't mind paying a little bit to get extra features. I like the format of media wiki but if I understand correctly that's only for public wikis. I would be grateful if someone could share with me recomendations on different options. I've read the real nice piece on introduction to Wikis with the example of the Kigali wiki (which has a nice format as well) but I'd like some recomendations from practitioners on this. Thanks a lot.
Alfredo
Joined on 11-02-2006
TechSoup Member
I should also mention that I'm only interested in online versions--we don't want to have to deploy on our server or anything. Thanks. AO