Case study about building a collaboration wiki inside the IT community at The Washington Post.
First presented to students at USDA Graduate School in June 2008.
Russian Call Girls In Gurgaon ❤️8448577510 ⊹Best Escorts Service In 24/7 Delh...
Building community inside the enterprise
1. Community building inside the enterprise
Moving toward wiki adoption at The Washington Post
By Dave Burke. Presented at USDA Graduate School in June, 2008.
1
2. IT Workspace
• Our case study
• What’s a wiki
• Two key concepts: linking
and tagging
• Lessons learned so far
3. Washington Post IT Unit
• About 200 people
• Supports operations of the newspaper and some operations at other
Washington Post Company affiliates.
• Publishing systems
• Advertising systems
• Syndication
• Accounting
• Production
• Infrastructure
4. My Team: Web Solutions
• 14 people
• Design, build, and manage web
applications to support The
Washington Post
• These include. . .
5.
6.
7.
8. Background - Web Solutions
• Back to 2005, we’ve been working on how to better support our
apps
• Much of the problem stemmed from important knowledge being
trapped
• Various private and shared drives
• Old email threads
• But mostly, people’s brains
9. KLMNO
Risk of wetware-based knowledge storage
For instance, on most Saturdays. . .
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aok/2190318934 http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikelo/614958266/
Technical Architect His boss
dave burke
10. Background - Web Solutions
• 2006-2007: The stakes for application support were getting higher
• SOA was making troubleshooting more complex
• A large SAP integration was making it more business critical
• We needed a better process, and a better tool
• We tried a wiki
11. Background - Web Solutions
• Results from our 60-day pilot
• Wiki works as a platform
• But the product we chose didn’t cut it
• Special markup language
• Users were anonymous
• Attachments/Images were difficult to handle
• We kept using it
12. Document Repository Study project
• WYSIWYG Editor - no markup
language
• Named users and single signon
• Full-text search, including
attachments
• Email, RSS integration
• Tagging for dynamic
organization and blogs
14. What is a wiki?
A collection of web pages
Every page is editable
Just click, type, and save.
Every page has a name
Link by page name; no HTML
required.
Source: Ross Mayfield. http://www.slideshare.net/ross/new-paradigms-for-using-computers
15. What is a wiki?
Communication Not a
“Platform” “Channel”
(e.g., e-mail, IM)
READER
EDITOR
EDITOR
READER AUTHOR READER
AUTHOR
AUTHOR
READER
• Visible to all • Visible only to participants
• Persistent • Transient
16. What is a wiki?
• Wikis build group memory (or at
least a better chance at it)
• Simplifies collaboration (everyone
works on the same document)
• Accuracy through (identified) peer
review
• Every page revision is saved
Source: Ross Mayfield. http://www.slideshare.net/ross/new-paradigms-for-using-computers
• Roll-back changes with a click
27. KLMNO
Linking vs. Tagging
Linking connects
individual pages
•“Hand Made”
• Static
Tagging creates
groups of related
pages
•“Machine Made”
• Dynamic
28. KLMNO
What are tags?
• Keywords related to an
object (e.g., photo, wiki
page)
• Tags categorize objects
on the fly
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cambodia4kidsorg/260004685/in/set-72157594311446988/
http://workspace.washpost.com
dave burke
29. KLMNO
Tagging example: photos on Flickr.com
View this video slide: http://bit.ly/St5A1
http://workspace.washpost.com
dave burke
35. Lessons learned so far
• 90% of wiki success is half mental
• Mindset shift - Sharing by default
• Current: "I only know of three people who need this information, so I'll email it
to them."
• New and Better: "I only know of three people who need this information, so I'll
publish it on the workspace for them, and any others I don't know about."
• Best: “The workspace is my default tool for collaboration and communication,
because it's easy, and it gives me maximum value for my time. I only use
email when I really need privacy.”
36. Lessons learned so far
• 90% of wiki success is half mental
• Publishing Anxiety
• A belief that the workspace is more official makes people
think their work needs to be polished and 100% accurate,
which leads to them doing nothing.
• Current: "I'm happy to answer questions in the hallway and by
email, but writing something 'official' is a bigger deal."
• New and Better: “I understand that the IT Workspace is a living
document. I can contribute information I’m only ‘pretty sure’ about,
and note it as such, just like I would in email.”
37. Lessons learned so far
• 90% of wiki success is half mental
• Organize-as-you-go model takes getting used to
Traditional New
1. Write 1. Write
2. Edit 2. Publish
3. Publish 3. Edit
(repeat)
38. Lessons learned so far
#1 Question about the wiki so far:
“Put this info on the wiki? Okay. . . where?”
42. Lack of structure scares some people
• It helps to provide an overall structure to start
43. Emergence doesn’t scale down to enterprise levels
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html
44. Emergence doesn’t scale down to enterprise levels
Wikipedia IT Workspace
1.67 Billion 150
1.5 Billion 135
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html
167 Million 15
45. Emergence doesn’t scale down to enterprise levels
Wikipedia IT Workspace
1.67 Billion 150
1.5 Billion 135
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html
167 Million 15
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-sends-167-billion-users-to-wikipedia-
per-month/5084/
47. Why use the wiki?
• Support self-service
• Fewer late-night (or mid-day) support calls
• Easier access to the information you need to support your systems
• Less occupational spam
• Wiki pages and blogs allow you freedom to choose what info you receive
• Keep your skillset current