Corporate Wiki’s

Wikipedia. Wikia. These are just a few of the websites that people think of the word “wiki”. Often considered unreliable places for sourcing information – and we all know how students are told not to use wikipedia as a source – yet wiki’s can actually house vast amounts of knowledge that can be beneficial to individuals and businesses by harnessing collective intelligence. IBM is famous for its use of wiki’s and other social media within the corporate environment, allowing employees to interact in a scale previously not seen before.
This post is part of the International Geological Congress series. This rest of this post will reflect on how a wiki can be beneficial to the International Geological Congress.

What Is The Strategy?

The international Geological Congress (IGC) has been designed in a manner that allows members to network and share information. This is the very sole purpose of the IGC.

By establishing a base location for employees to interact, it will be possible to maximise their very purpose. A corporate wiki can help build knowledge repositories, allowing members to share information outside of the congress. Furthermore, members may be able to search and access data that they might have not had the chance of accessing at the congress (be it because of time limits, or they just simply hadn’t “bumped” into the right member whilst attending the congress).

Suggested Tactic for Introduction

Two of the biggest downfalls to a wiki is the lack of content and lack of publicity – without content very few people will visit the website and very few will spend time contributing to it. I suggest that at the next IGC in Brisbane, Australia, 2012, a wiki is advertised. Perhaps encourage each speaker to mention the newly created wiki, and encourage the audience to contribute. This will resolve both the downfalls – people will be aware of the wiki, and will also be encouraged to add content. Furthermore, they will know that the wiki is newly created, and thus be more forgiving of any lack of content.

 

Can you come up with any further reasons or tactics for the IGC to implement a wiki?

  • Jerome

    I have to agree with you about concerns regarding the wiki content. It looks like a daunting task to get constructive contributions to the wiki. Perhaps as part of IGC’s social media campaign, it would be best that each speaker and highly respected industry leaders seize the initiative and build the Wiki. When the content becomes alot more creditable, it should attract more contributors around the globe. It would also be good to link the wiki to other social media platforms. E.g. the blog could have articles with internal links to the wiki to explain certain ideas and concepts. Great post!

    • http://www.katskinner.com Kat Skinner

      Thanks for the feedback Jerome. I was thinking of how to give recognisable industry leaders initiative to contribute to the wiki – particularly prior to any major popularity gain. At most I could think of was monetary rewards, publicity awards, or even discounted/free entry to the IGC event in Brisbane 2012. Can you think of any others?

      • Jerome

        Maybe we could think along the line of giving credit to the top speakers at the congress or the events with the highest amount of attendees (it has to be interesting to attract a high number or people to come).

  • http://twitter.com/ky_mok Kathleen Mok

    Yes it’s rather daunting to go to a wiki and find it to be empty. It’s often easier to go in and add / edit others’ work rather than starting something from scratch. Encouraging others to add content is a good idea although to add to your point I guess having someone (a ‘champion’ as others have written on this topic) would also be beneficial.

  • http://www.facebook.com/devin.kleu Devin Kleu

    As the IGC is going to have the best and most well respected professionals in the field of geological science it would almost be a waste not to have some form of wiki! Visitors may not be able to get to every single keynote speech that they wanted to due to time restrictions, but if this information was published on a wiki (even if it had to be made private for only those with IGC passes) it would improve the experience of all involved.

    I think the fact of user authentication should also be taken into consideration when implementing a wiki – if the most well respected professor posted findings from his research it may have very little persuasive weight if he accidentally posted anonymously!

    Great post!