Wikis – Day 4 – Overcoming Bad Stigmas
Dec 3, 2009 Social Media & Network Challenge
Week 4: Wikis: Day 4
Wiki, Blog, “social,” even RSS can be four letter words and leave a bad taste in the mouth. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen people shutter at the very mention of any of these. Yet their bad raps are a form a pre-judgement derived (often times) from a single bad encounter which they project upon the subject as a whole.
“People have been character smeered on Wikipedia.”
“Schools won’t let their students cite Wikipedia because it is so often wrong.”
“If anyone can post anything on Wikipedia, it must be incorrect.”
There is some truth to these statements. Yet, as Sandra Ordonez, a spokeswoman from Wikipedia, has said in an email interview,
“Wikipedia is the ideal place to start your research and get a global picture of a topic, however, it is not an authoritative source. In fact, we recommend that students check the facts they find in Wikipedia against other sources. Additionally, it is generally good research practice to cite an original source when writing a paper, or completing an exam. It’s usually not advisable, particularly at the university level, to cite an encyclopedia.”
Sound advice.
Yet the prejudice does not stop there. They assume that if Wikipedia can be abused, “certainly a wiki in the workplace will be abused.” Not so fast. Change the circumstances and you change the outcome.
How can Intel create a wiki, amass tens of thousands of pages of information, have millions of page views yet have relatively no abuse? Again, the context has changed.
When we use wikis inside an organization there isn’t any hiding. If you abuse, your name is all over it. No one wants to be ‘that person’ so we all understand that civility rules. It is either that or your job. I’d take the former.
Also, what about bad information? To that I say, open your wallet or purse or daytimer. Look inside. Do you see anything (expired cards, notes, old auto insurance cards) that are out of date or old information? I decided to look in my wallet – which I like to keep lean and to a minimum size – and found five pieces of such bad/old information. If we don’t keep our own personal wallets up to tip-top shape, why are we faulting something that could involve hundreds or even thousands of people?
Very often, however wikis are for a very specific purpose. A meeting, or documentation or for project collaboration. Specific people are constantly using those pages and if there is anything incorrect or out of date, they often change it.
Because of the change of venue and those involved, wikis become highly useful. Realistically, do pages get out of date? You bet. But, like the note in my wallet, if it is out of date and not useful anymore, it is ignored. And that is OK. It isn’t needed so whether it is up to date or out of date doesn’t matter to me.
I could go on and on about negative stigmas. But until you try wikis you may not understand. Kind of like watching someone ride a bike. Someone who has never seen one before might ask, “How do they stay up! That is impossible.” Sure, it is VERY difficult if you are standing still. But if you change the context, the circumstances, and ad motion to it, it all of the sudden makes sense.
To Do: In the comments, tell us how you have used a wiki.
Tags: social media challenge, Wiki
Wikis – Day 3 – Privacy & Adoption
Dec 2, 2009 Social Media & Network Challenge
Week 4: Wikis: Day 3
Photo by SashaW on Flickr
Before we jump in to the exercise, let’s talk privacy. There is some information you obviously don’t want open to the public – from a work or personal standpoint. To help with this, wikis usually have a privacy setting. The Wetpaint wiki allows you to keep your pages private but allow others to approve specific others to collaborate. This way you have full control over who sees and edits the information. This is perfect for work or close knit subjects. But, just because you put it out there for others to use does NOT mean that they will.
One of the biggest impediments to the usage of any of these tools that I found early on was duplication.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: social media challenge, wetpaint, Wiki
Wiki – Day 2 – How Wikis are Used
Dec 1, 2009 Social Media & Network Challenge, Uncategorized
Week 4: Wikis: Day 2
Some things are beautiful because they are easy to use the first time and don’t need much of an explanation, if any at all. It has always made me laugh that instructions are printed on a bottle of shampoo. Understandable, but still… Other products are just too over the top, or way too complicated to understand.
Wikis are simple: Click edit. Modify. Click Save. Done.
Photo by kristin wolff on Flickr
When a product is so easy to use, its adoption increases (see this post on Complexity and adoption). If we combine these together – ease of use and high adoption – something extraordinary happens: Unintended uses. We think, “Well, if I can use it in this instance, I bet I could also use it here, and here, and here…”
There are many list of how wikis can be used.
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Tags: social media challenge, Wiki
Wiki – Day 1 – An Introduction
Nov 30, 2009 Social Media & Network Challenge
Week 4: Wikis: Day 1
Not only have you lived this scenario, but I am sure you all love it – right…?
Photo by darkpatator on Flickr
You need to get some feedback on a proposal so you write it up in Microsoft Word and save it on your computer. Then you create a new email message, attach the file, add an introduction and send it off to 4 choice people. They each open it, modify it (with tracking on), save it to their computer, create a new email message, attach the modified file, add a high level explanation of their thoughts and send it back to you. You now have four email messages with four attachments – all of which you open, plus your original one (a total of 5 almost identical documents are now open). Now you cut and paste their changes into your document and save it. You email back two of the four with an explanation or clarification of a question they asked and that starts two separate conversations with follow up emails. You create a new email message, attach the newly revised document and send it back to the four original people for a final look. Two of them respond with an agreement on the document, two of them make more changes, to which you respond by creating…
(Honestly, I could go on, but I am tired of it and I think you know the end of the story.)
STOP THE MADNESS!
How about a new situation.
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Tags: common craft, social media challenge, wetpaint, Wiki
Corvettes, Waiters and Wikis
This morning my 14 year old son said that he LOVED Corvettes and I asked why. You see, every time he and my 11 year old son see a Corvette or Mustang, they gets all excited – too excited.
“Because they are fast and cool looking.”
“Would you pick a girlfriend based on those criteria” I asked.
“No.”
“What else do you know about Corvettes?”
Struggling… “That they are really cool.”
“Coolness is a cultural factor. Do they have style? And why don’t you get excited when you see other typical ‘cool’ cars – like a Porche or Fararri or Aston Martin or ….”
“Aston what?”
“Have you been inside of a Mustang?”
“No, but I saw the inside and it was cool. These tan leather seats…”
“So if I put tan leather seats inside a Gremlin (my first car) it would be cool, too. Right?”
This was all said lightheartedly, but with a twinge of seriousness.
What makes something “COOL” and is that reason enough to get it?
Too many in our professional world are waiters – order takers. They tell us what they want and we give it to them. A training. A wiki. Social something. But we need to back up and ask “Why?” Much of the time they say they want these things because 1) that is all they know or 2) because they are deemed ‘cool’. Both of these were in play with my son and his cars. He didn’t know much about other brands, nor did he really know why he liked them, but he knew what was cool.
If they don’t know why, find out for them. Even though it may seem like a bother to them, they will thank you in the end.
Requirement to Social Learning Adoption #1 – Relative Advantage
Feb 23, 2009 Adoption, Social Learning SIG
“Relative Advantage is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as better than the idea it supersedes.” (Diffusion of Innovations, p. 15)
How do we get adoption for social learning (or anything really?) The above statement has two Key parts.
1) BETTER. It must be seen as better. Better how?
More efficient?
More cost effective?
More quick?
Less of a hassle?
Less obtrusive?
More conforming to current _______?
More integrated with _______?
Notice that ‘better’ may be monetary or social or ego or convenience or… What is better for your organization and culture? You may want to find their pain or the thing that will give them the most freedom.
2) PERCEIVE.
Whether ‘better’ is truly better & can be quantified or not doesn’t matter (at least not for adoption). What do they perceive is better – the old solution or the new one? The old way of thinking or the new one?
Both ‘better’ and ‘perceive’ is an individual matter, not so much an organizational matter, as you will see with the following four Keys. The individual make the collective. So you need to get to the individual.
EXAMPLE: (I think I have written about this before, but shall do again.)
To get adoption for one solution I approached the Support department and asked, “What process are you having problems with right now?” I got a list, but at the top was reporting bugs and enhancements to the development team and then tracking the results. They showed me their process (convoluted and lacking to be sure). Then I stepped up to the whiteboard and showed them a different process, with a wiki, reaching the end goal, with less headache. Bingo. They were on board. After coordinating the whole thing with the other department, the new process went into effect.
They haven’t looked back. If something goes off, they quickly tweak it as necessary. The problem is now gone and the communication between the groups for that instance improved immediately.
For you to perceive their perceptions, you will need to get in their heads. This is part of the necessary analysis you will need to conduct before even thinking of a solution.
What questions could you ask to find what is most important to them?
Tags: perception, Relative Advantage, support, Wiki
Why #9: Complements Learning
Dec 19, 2008 Selling Social Learning, Verbs of Social Learning
Image by inf via Flickr
WHY #9: Complements Learning
The next characteristic of social learning is that it is not supposed to be threatening to the training department. Instead it is to complement the learning function. Indirectly I have seen many people with a learning function be intimidated by social learning because it almost seems to threaten their jobs. On the contrary, for the most part it will compliment and add value to the learning. Sure, in some instances it might replace some training. But over all it is not meant to do that.
When I say that it does not replace I want to be clear: It does not replace traditional learning for the most part, but it instead adds to it. It DOES, however, replace – and absolutely MUST replace – less effective methods of informal learning. This is KEY.
ILT has its place. ELearning courses have their place. Simulations have their place. Social Learning adds to the existing toolbox. But to do this we MUST change our skills sets to accommodate. We can’t sit back and say, “This is they way we have done it. There is no way you can learn on a blog (or through Twitter, or through a wiki).” Because, to be blunt, you would be wrong if you did say that. We must adapt or be left behind.
This is not a scare tactic, but rather an great opportunity for those that catch on the concept. It is time to jump on the wave and ride it!
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