[Mediawiki-l] corporate wiki: success factors?

[Ricardo Rodríguez - Your XEN ICT Team]

>>> Fernando Correia<fernandoacorreia at gmail.com> 24/11/2006 17:10 >>>
>On the company I work for, we are in the process of centralizing all
>technical documentation of our software framework on the wiki, for use by
>several departments of the company.
>The idea is catching on and other departments are exploring the idea of
>using the wiki to document their knowledge and also to publish documentation
>to customers.

After some months trying to propel the use of a wiki wiki environment within a couple of research teams, I have concluded that a top-down approach is mostly required. I mean, when the head of a team asks team-members to discuss a contribution she/he has previously entered in the wiki by using the wiki, you will be successful for sure: there is not alternative to use the collaborative environment!
 
Of course you have to be attentive to the bottle-necks could cut productivity with such an approach. What you could get is no answers at all! So, to get a previous agreement on this way of contribution by a number of persons is advisable.
 
Workshops showing wiki work basics by using the wiki environment will also encourage people to follow the thread. Even probably you must be ready to suffer criticism and scepticism for a long while!
 
For me, at the moment, two major concerns:
 
1. Most of the team-members arrive to the wiki from a WYSIWYG environment. In spite of this fact, most of them are now using Mediawiki without problem. I'm trying to decide if the use of a WYSIWYG environment with the wiki is a must or could be avoided.
 
2. How to move wiki entries from Mediawiki to rtf, xml or OpenDocument formats.
 
As far as I see by reading this list entries, Mediawiki people philosophy are far from these two concerns. So they are from access control. And I can get their point! But at least in the kind of environment I am trying to introduce wiki culture rtf/OpenDocument document production and access control are required. As after a number of trials with other wiki packages I have successfully implemented a number of Mediawiki wikis I keep struggling to learn enough about this environment as to satisfy the needs of the groups.
 
HTH,
 
Ricardo


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Ricardo Rodríguez
Your XEN ICT Team