[Mediawiki-l] Thoughts on Sales Pitch

[Dr. Nancy Dailey]

My "elevator speech" to executives and leaders in companies about the use of wikis tends to focus on the pain they feel about knowledge sharing, knowledge transfer and problem solving. I'm an applied sociologist (not a technical person:) who helps people adopt/integrate technology solutions into their daily work life. 

Example... I have a media research client who has a core group of baby boomers who have been with the company for 30-40 years. These folks are the brain trust of the company and they're ready to retire. They are launching a wiki to try to capture all that knowledge and not let it walk out the door. It's a low cost option to pilot a new way of solving a complex problem. If it doesn't work, they can always go back to MS Sharepoint (which hasn't worked real well for them in the past). 

Your sales pitch should aim 1) to solve a problem executives see as a priority; 2) show how the return exceeds the perceived and real risks; 3) how it may help the corporate culture, not hurt it, and 4) most importantly, how it will help the bottom-line.

Hope this helps. I learn a lot about wikis from reading the emails. Thank you!
Nancy Dailey 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: mediawiki-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org 
  To: mediawiki-l at lists.wikimedia.org 
  Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 7:00 AM
  Subject: MediaWiki-l Digest, Vol 40, Issue 39


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