« Digital Democracy Teach-In | Main | Tim O'Reilly on the Digital Democracy Teach-in » Ross Mayfield on WikisJim Cashel of Online Community Report interviewed Ross Mayfield about wikis, which are web systems for collaboration in relatively simple text environments which, as Ross says, "are deceptively simple, yet extremely flexible." Ross is CEO of SocialText, a company that makes social software for the enterprise. They've been evolving a wiki version that's easy to use and has rich features. I use SocialText wikis to organize and manage projects, and they're very effective once people get used to the idea that they really are simple to use. The simplicity actually throws people who are used to complex software packages. [Link] They are also cool because they are the antithesis of traditional enterprise software with its top-down design the imposes process, ontology and structure upon users. By giving users the power to create, link and form groups it serves the domain of business practice, the unstructured collaboration that leverages informal networks. A wiki can serve group activities quickly, so a project can begin with conversation and prototyping instead of waiting for a tool to be created or implemented. Work done in a wiki creates its own usable archive, rather than requiring a side-activity or having designated experts determine what is of value. The bottom-up approach also produces a dense link structure that has its own emergent patterns, with the best content and expertise rising to the top, to inform decisions based on what your organization actually knows. jon posted this at 7:12 AM |
read weblogsky! latest posts: |
Comments
cool
Posted by: amelie | June 19, 2004 7:04 AM