How Can a Wiki Help Your Business?

Do you have problems sharing knowledge across your business development team? Are you trying to build a community around your product?

What is a Wiki? In a nutshell, a Wiki is webpage that allows any one to change the content of that webpage immediately via their web browser. The best known example of a Wiki is wikipedia.org where registered users (anyone with a valid email can register), can submit new topics and edit existing ones.

In a non-wiki environment, generally one person is charge of website content. If another person wants to add or update information, he or she would have to go through this gatekeeper.

In the Wiki model anyone can directly change the content of a page – all through their standard web browser.

Scenario 1 – Sharing leads among your business development team.

Sales and Business Development are the lifeblood of any organization. Being able to work together as a team to secure new customers and retain existing ones is necessary to sustain a competitive advantage. One possible application is to use a Wiki like a virtual whiteboard. Each Business Development team member can add their opportunities and/or client facts to a client page. Once this page is updated, the entire team can now have access to this knowledge.

Scenario 2 – Building a community around your product or service

In today’s online world, users expect to find customer support and product information easily on the web. This means generating a lot of content. A better way is to get your customers to do it for you. A properly structured Wiki can enable your customers to add advice, create tutorials, create “Getting Started” guides and suggest product features. For example, GarageGames, a company that creates software for independent games developers, has a Wiki for customers to contribute tutorials and advice for the community. Another simple example, is Mick’s Wiki, a place where kids can contribute to ideas for a video game. In conjunction with blogs and forums, Wiki’s are just another way to integrate into clients and help customers feel part of the brand.

Scenario 3 – Internal documentation for your product development team

Creating and protecting technical documentation within a team is always a challenge. Usually you will have one “content manager” in charge of developing and releasing relevant documentation to the team. Wiki’s can help “democratise” this process by allowing programmers, team leaders, contractors to contribute in controlled space. There is only one document only one current version.

Who’s in control?

One big question for managers is “How do we control the content?” There are a number of ways:

• “Watch List”: anyone, including administrators, can watch a particular page. If objectionable material is posted you can always remove it.
• Banned Users/IP Addresses: if you have a habitual abuser you can block them from editing your Wiki.
• “Protect”: Administrators can protect a page so that only authorized users can change its content.
• Access Control: some Wiki’s allow you to restrict content based on group privileges. This is useful in a corporate environment where keeping information separate between business units is a requirement.

Knowledge Sharing Culture

One final note. While Wiki’s, (or forums, or blogs for that matter) are useful, they cannot by itself create a new business environment. For Wiki’s to succeed, your team must be committed to a knowledge sharing culture. An environment where people are encouraged for sharing information and wanting to help others. Only then will Wiki’s provide valuable communication functionality for your business.

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