3 posts tagged “wikipedia”

If newspapers are in decline because of social media, then when was the last time you went to Encyclopedia Britannica to find out something rather than Wikipedia? It's been a while.

Well, Britannica has moved on to what Shel Holtz describes as its 'first significant foray into the social media space.' Has it missed the boat? Hardly.

In Now is Gone, Toby Bloomberg is quoted as saying: "For those organisations...that think they have missed the virtual boat, it is moving out of dry dock; there is no need for swimming yet, but it is quickly picking up speed." The interview was dated June 14 2007.

There is an important lesson here for companies unsure of the idea of social media for internal or external use. Britannica decided to get it right, rather than get it first.

Dan Greenfield asks if agencies have 'Got social media?' As it's not about the technology, Dan rightly points out that agencies are "training their staffs and immersing them in the ways of blogs, social networks and podcasts [and] daylong social media immersion seminars for clients and potential clients."

Britannica has short-circuited the issue of taking clients and potential clients along with them by making bloggers the initial beneficiaries of its social media embrace. This is one of five social computing benefits identified by Rex Lee, namely: "A well designed social computing environment encourages interactive participation of the right people."

Britannica can never compete with Wikipedia. But its place as a by-word for expertly-researched and expertly-corroborated information, coupled with its social media programme, might just make it relevant again.

Michael Idinopulos writes that SocialText may have come up with the Facebook equivalent for the enterprise. It's SocialText people platform allows people to organise content around what their experience says about them rather than around people and relationships. It is in the flow and very much a part of everyday working life, and could be an answer to what is the killer app for E2.0.

The organisation of in-the flow content is vital. Seth Godin points out in What happens when we organise?: "Wikipedia works because so many contributors figured out how to self-organize into a group that produced something far more useful than a traditionally organized document."

Techcrunch underlines that the organising ability of SocialText is simple and compelling: "For a lot of enterprise employees, having a single dashboard with secure company information alongside fun or useful outside services on a single dashboard is exactly what they need. It also makes SocialText the center of a worker’s day, which means they far less likely to ever lose the customer."

If Facebook is the social media frontpage, has SocialText delivered the front page for business?

What is it with wikis?

Is the name one of those that managers can't take seriously, or have they been around (take that to read Wikipedia has been around) for so long now that there's no 'wow' factor?

Based on David Dalka's POST term, managing wikis in business should be one of the staples of a company's E2.0 policy:

• People - anyone with a computer can set one up and join
• Objectives - it makes relevant connections across a business
• Strategy - helps relieve information overload and extract information
• Technology - it can be free or in-house

All E2.0 systems - including Wikis - help companies do one thing, which Andrew McAfee states as "aggregating relevant knowledge in ways that were not previously possible. And this is where things get really interesting because as I wrote earlier, the Golden Rule for decision making is that decision rights should be aligned with relevant knowledge."

So, while all the attention might be on social networking, blogging and videos, maybe it's a wiki world.

Update: Just read Wiki wake-up call post from Ray Sims.