Wikipatterns {ReadingNotes}

Wikipatterns by Stewart Mader - ISBN 9780470223628 - Wiley 2008

Reading

• Foreword
  • "Create an idea-sharing environment where incomplete can be linked together and from this, creative solutions emerge." by Ward Cunningham (p.xxvii)
• Introduction
  • "laid out a plan that shows you
    • how to make the case for a wiki in your organization,
    • run a wiki pilot that builds real, highly relevant Introduction examples you can use later on to grow wiki use,
    • drive adoption throughout your organization, and
    • minimize obstacles along the way." (p.xxxiii-xxxiv)
• Chapter 1 - Grassroots is Best
  • "Instead of giving people a job, and trying to control how they work, it’s better to let go: give them the job, and let them figure out the best way to do it. That’s the principle that guided Ohno and Toyoda, and it’s the same principle that guides wiki use. " (p2-3)
  • "The outcome is what matters, not the method" (p3)
  • "Collaboration is more important than ever to the success of organizations, growth of economies, and solving some of society’s most complex problems, but the knowledge tools in use today fall short of these goals because they don’t let groups efficiently work together, are too structured, and are built around a hierarchical, command-and-control structure." (p3)
  • "A wiki is simply a website in which users can create and collaboratively edit pages, and easily link them together. The basic idea behind a wiki is that anyone who can view a page can just as easily edit it and save his or her changes. " (p4)
  • "To start grassroots adoption, the best approach is to start with a pilot in which a set of groups is given early access to the wiki to start building their collaborative spaces. " (p6)
  • "Don’t mandatewiki use;make it available, and then let people find where it’s most useful to their work. If they find a new way of doing something, embrace it with an open mind. It may just be an incredibly valuable improvement. " (p7)
  • "Let people find their natural roles. Some may be interested in gardening the wiki, that is, maintaining and organizing the site; others may want to help grow its use. By letting people lead wiki growth and feel a genuine sense of ownership over theirwork, you lay the foundation for it to become a successful collaboration tool. " (p7)
  • "Human behavior is pattern-based, and wikis are designed to support the patterns of activity that occur when groups work together. " (p9)
  • "Wikipatterns.com [is] organized around two major strands of content.
    • The people patterns and anti-patterns [...] describe the various ways people interact with the wiki, and
    • the patterns detail roles that can be introduced to help a growing wiki. " (p10)
  • "patterns and anti-patterns on the site are looselymodeled on the concept of software design patterns - those recurring patterns of behavior that can be recognized and channeled for the good of the team. " (p10)
    • see the classic Design Patterns Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by the Gang of Four
  • "Patterns are the types of activity that one would want to happen on the wiki, and anti-patterns are the scenarios that should be avoided or fixed to keep the growth of wiki use on track. " (p10)
  • Case Study: LeapFrog
    • "Stoking what we variously call ‘‘grassroots,’’ ‘‘homebrew,’’ or ‘‘ad hoc’’ projects within the company - allowing innovation to flourish in all corners of the company, and employees to search for and recruit colleagues across the organization with the skills to bring their ideas to fruition. " (p21)
    • "branding is working - it’s becoming part of our standard lexicon, and a viral term" (p22)
      • see also Seedea:Seedea.VirtualAssistant
    • "The wiki has placed information front and center at a time when executive staff was searching for ways to make our decision-making processes more transparent and accessible. " (p23)
• Chapter 2 - Your Wiki Isn’t (Necessarily) Wikipedia
  • "It’s that ability to easily edit, refine, and even repair information that’s at the heart of not just Wikipedia, but the wiki concept. But it’s important to understand the significant differences between how the wiki is used as the foundation forWikipedia, and how it’s used in organizations. " (p28)
  • "In the wiki of a private organization, this kind of vandalism or erroneous editing is extremely unlikely to happen because the wiki is being used within an already established social and organizational structure. The fact is people just don’t abuse tools that are important to their professional work. " (p30)
  • "It might be useful to point out the Nature study [cf Nature Compares Accuracy of Wikipedia and Britannica p27-28] and its conclusion that Wikipedia is quite accurate. But it’s important to address Wikipedia and then put it aside to focus on your wiki. " (p30)
  • "The wiki is no more or less accurate than these other tools. It is simply a new mechanism. The social nature of the wiki actually offers the opportunity to have higher accuracy. " (p30)
  • How Will Your Wiki Be Used? (p30-35)
    • Build a Peer Directory
      • "Creating a wiki-based peer directory can be an ideal solution because it distributes the responsibility to update personal information to the people themselves. It also gives people a reason to come to the wiki in the first place - to put their information in the directory - and then they stay to collaborate. " (p31)
      • "Later on, when they start collaborating with others, they’re likely to be more comfortable with making changes and seeing changes made to their work if they’re already proficient, confident editors themselves. " (p31)
    • Agendas -> Meetings -> Projects
      • "Keeping meeting agendas and minutes on the wiki can be the perfect foundation for project and task management. " (p31)
    • Manage Projects
      • "Give each project a page in your wiki, and keep all relevant materials there" (p31)
    • Product Development
      • "managing your organization’s products from development to production, marketing, and support. " (p32)
    • Knowledge Base or Support Site
      • "if you’ve built product documentation on a wiki already, a knowledge base can be the logical next step. Keep common FAQs and support questions on the wiki so they can be easily updated with new information. People inside your organization can update it with new information like questions, issues, solutions, and how-to guides. " (p32)
    • Event Planning
    • Intranet or Extranet
      • "The problem with the traditional intranet is it doesn’t encourage people to contribute often. " (p33)
    • Blogging
      • "Because blogging takes place on the wiki, it adds further value to the wiki as a central information source, and is a better way to distribute information" (p34)
    • External Communication
      • "a simple platform for internally editing content, then allowing an external audience to just read and comment on it, but not edit. " (p34)
    • Public Website
    • And Many More!
  • Case Study: Johns Hopkins University
    • "There is more collaboration between team members than ever before: People will quickly post an idea and others will promptly comment on the idea, elaborate the idea, sometimes invalidate the idea, and so on. " (p39)
• Chapter 3 - What’s Five Minutes Really Worth?
  • "The chief difference between the wiki and more traditional content management (CM) or knowledge management (KM) systems is structure.
    • Whereas most ECM and KM tools are built with defined structure in the form of processes, workflows, and architectures,
    • the wiki starts off with the minimum possible structure and grows a custom structure based on how each person, team, department, or project uses it. " (p41)
  • "Using a WYSIWYG editor is a good way to get started with wiki editing, butwikimarkup offers some valuable formatting options and the advantage of speed and simplicity and the two editing options used together pack a powerful punch. " (p48)
  • "Wikis shift the social balance away from control and closer to trust" (p49)
  • "Closed systems implicitly assume that people can’t be trusted and technology has to be relied on to control access to information. This encourages an organizational culture where people don’t trust each other and are concerned with maintaining control over information access. " (p50)
  • "Giving all employees the ability to access all spaces encourages everyone to be as transparent as possible about how they work, and to keep their work well organized so that others can easily find what they need and use it. " (p52)
  • "the wiki shouldn’t be a wholesale replacement for these tools [email, intranet, and shared drives], but it does perform specific tasks better than these other tools, and can free the others to be better used for their strengths. " (p55)
  • Case Study: Sun Microsystems
• Chapter 4 - 11 Steps to a Successful Wiki Pilot
  • "The pilot is important because it allows you to get wiki use started in a controlled environment, build examples that are extremely relevant to your organization, and develop the administrative and support structure that will keep things running smoothly when the wiki is a full production service. It also lets you work out the kinks that are inevitable with a major software project. " (p63)
  • 11 Steps to a Successful Pilot (p64-72)
    • 1. Establish a Time Frame
    • 2. Make It Representative
    • 3. Keep It Compact
    • 4. Choose Participants Carefuly
    • 5. Seek or Be Sought?
    • 6. Wiki with a Purpose
    • 7. Define House Rules
    • 8. Personal Spaces
    • 9. Never an Empty Page (templates)
    • 10. Make it a Magnet
    • 11. Be Firm and Think Long Term
  • "encouraging someone else to do it helps that person get more deeply involved in the wiki, and feel a sense of ownership in the content he or she contributes. " (p72)
  • Case Study: Red Ant
  • Case Study: A Conversation with a WikiChampion: Jude Higdon
• Chapter 5 - Drive Large-Scale Adoption
  • "Planning allows you to scale the guidelines and practices you’ve developed during the pilot, so that others can use them in a more widespread way." (p87)
  • "Because large-scale adoption involves so many more people, patterns bring a level of commonality and consistency to the many different spaces being created by groups throughout the organization." (p87)
  • "Too much control drives people away; every person must feel a sense of personal ownership for a wiki to be successful, and this can only happen when no one person asserts dominance. " (p88)
  • "think of your pilot as simply the first phase of a multiphased approach, and grow to full use in successively larger stages. " (p90)
  • "When you use awiki, the data on pages is stored on a server, and because you access wiki pages through a web browser, files don’t need to be downloaded and stored locally to be edited. The server itself is also better protected from physical and data loss or theft than a laptop because it doesn’t leave the data center. " (p91)
  • "One great way to make use of the pilot examples is to create a tour of some or all of the pilot groups’ wiki spaces, highlighting key points such as the purpose of each, specific types of content different groups have used their spaces to collaboratively build, how groups organize their information, and the roles taken on by people in each. " (p91-92)
  • "showcasing a variety of uses that can give new users ideas as they get started. " (p92)
  • Apply Patterns (p93-99)
    • The Importance of WikiChampions
    • Invitation
    • StartingPoint
    • Personal Space
    • Welcoming
    • BarnRaising
    • SingleProblem
    • Seed It with Content
    • Intentional Error
    • ContentAlert
    • New Employee Wiki
  • Case Study: JavaPolis
    • "From a wiki perspective the social control actually results in ideal content control. " (p102)
  • Case Study: A Conversation with a WikiChampion: Jeff Calado
    • "people that used to keep everything in their head know they’ll still be recognized for the information now that it’s out in the open and won’t lose their expert status. " (p104)
    • "There is now an expectation that people take relevant information out of their head and share it on the wiki. The most valuable benefit from this has been the decrease in time and effort needed to get new employees up to speed as well as an improvement in the consistency of the process. The benefit of improving the knowledge and skills of the broader team is another valuable result. " (p105)
• Chapter 6 - Prevent (or Minimize) Obstacles
  • "anti-patterns as they relate to wiki use in an organization is that they’re mostly the result of ignorance about how to use the wiki, and not malicious intent. " (p107)
  • What Can Hinder Wiki Adoption? (p107-116)
    • Do-it-all
    • OverOrganizer
    • WikiTroll
    • Wikiphobia
    • Sandbox
    • BeanCounter
    • Empty Pages
    • All-wiki-all-the-time
    • Manager Lockdown
    • Too Much Structure
    • WikiPaintBrush
  • Case Study: Kerrydale Street
• Chapter 7 - Inspirational Bull****
  • "wiki isn’t going to change the world by itself. It needs you, and the people you work with, talk with, meet with, email, call, and IMto try it, be open to the changes it brings, and make it a hub for information and collaboration. " (p121)
  • "People and context matter much more than the technology itself, and the wiki exemplifies this by minimizing complexity and structure so that everyone has the ability - and responsibility - to build, maintain, and use information. " (p122)
  • "With the wiki, it’s better to think in terms of processes, not features" (p123-124)
    • see also the related wiki.process.io. the Process Wiki
  • "When features are added to software, they can limit how it’s used because people think of the software in terms of those features. Software that’s not defined by its features is more powerful because people in countless different situations can think in their specific terms about how to use it. " (p124)
  • "software often starts simple and becomes increasingly complex as features are added that can constrain its use. Because the wiki is simple and flexible, it’s easier to emphasize processes over features, which keeps the wiki simple, avoids that ‘‘feature creep,’’ and ultimately makes it more useful for everyone. " (p124)
  • Case Study: Constitution Day
  • Case Study: Peter Higgs: Using a Wiki in Research
    • National Mapping Research Project Wiki
    • "It is the psychology of the tool that is critical:
      • CMSs are used, configured, and controlled by technologists to support their objectives.
      • Wikis on the other hand are tools focused on the needs of end users and should require even less technical sophistication than using a word processor. " (p134)
• Questions & Answers
  • "Wiki is successful where knowledge management and content management tools have failed because it allows you to strike a balance between control and creative, organic growth. " (p145)
  • "content is put in the wiki during the project, not after the fact. This switch takes a little time to happen, but once it does, people see the wiki as the active hub for the project, not just a passive ‘‘file cabinet’’ in which to dump everything after a project is finished. " (p149)
  • "Anytime the technology is hyped as opposed to focusing on solving problems with collaboration, knowledge organization, it inevitably becomes a disappointment because it can’t live up to such high levels of hype. " (p149-150)

See also

• Tools.Wikis
• Tools.pmWiki
• Wiki
• Wikipatterns.com summary list
• Blog on Wiki Patterns (iwik.org), blog of the author
• Wikis in Plain English by commoncraft, 2007
• WikiMatrix, Compare them all
• the recently discovered concept of WebTank as proposed by Zann Gill
  • webtank (think tank on the web) and the management of organizational complexity, Zann Gill, International Conference on Complex systems (ICCS2002)
• TheStateOfWiki (2005) Whywikiworks Whywikiworksnot by Rune F. Halvorsen, 2005

Overall remarks and questions

• activity analyzer (based on changes + history) that detect patterns/anti-patterns
  • notify the appropriate user a link to the detected pattern

Vocabulary

(:new_vocabulary_start:) eschew to hoard (:new_vocabulary_end:)

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