Wikipatterns [Paperback]

Wikis are one of those "Web 2.0" applications that seem to be right on the edge of jumping into mainstream adoption. If your workplace is anything like mine, you've been spending more time lately answering the "what's a wiki" question than you have in the past. If you're starting to approach the point where you're ready to try one out in your organization, here's a good place to start your planning... WikiPatterns - A Practical Guide To Improving Productivity and Collaboration In Your Organization by Stewart Mader. Rather than a "do this, this, and this" instruction manual, Mader gets into the whys and whats of wiki adoption in the workplace, complete with case studies and real-life examples.

Table of Contents:
1. Grassroots is Best
Case Study: LeapFrog
2. Your Wiki Isn't (Necessarily) Wikipedia
Case Study: Johns Hopkins University
3. What's Five Minutes Really Worth?
Case Study: Sun Microsystems
4. 11 Steps to a Successful Wiki Pilot
Case Study: Red Ant
Case Study: A Conversation with a WikiChampion: Jude Higdon
5. Drive Large-Scale Adoption
Case Study: JavaPolis
Case Study: A Conversation with a WikiChampion: Jeff Calado
6. Prevent (or Minimize) Obstacles
Case Study: Kerrydale Street
7. Inspirational Bull****
Case Study: Constitution Day
Case Study: Peter Higgs: Using a Wiki in Research
Appendix - Questions and Answers
Index

Stewart Mader is the Wiki Evangelist for Atlassian Software, who also happens to be the creator of Confluence, an enterprise Wiki software package. But don't let that little bit of disclosure put you off. He is a well-known personality in the wiki community, and he's done the evangelism gig with many a company and organization prior to joining Atlassian. As such, the material is pretty vendor-neutral in terms of what you should and shouldn't be doing. You don't have to worry about sitting through a long sales pitch.

The book is designed to be used in conjunction with the website [...]. That site lists and explores a number of "patterns" and "anti-patterns" that come into play when launching and running a wiki site. Furthermore, it's split up into people and adoption issues. So as you're reading through the book, you'll see references (especially in the case studies) to patterns and anti-patterns that influenced the successes and difficulties of many of the projects. As the wikipatterns concepts are still evolving, the case studies didn't necessarily set out to follow and implement a certain set of behaviors. Quite often, the patterns are seen only in hindsight. But you have the benefit of being able to observe the patterns at work before you get started on your own project. This should help increase your odds of success at the start, or at least give you a clue as to what might be going wrong before it gets too messy to correct.

I personally am at the point where this information is *exactly* what I need at work. We've got a number of people who are ready to start a wiki pilot project, and the only reason I've put it off is due to some other higher-priority projects. But armed with Mader's wisdom, I think I'll have a much better chance of pulling off a successful pilot. I also saw some great ideas for taking the DominoWiki OpenNTF project and extending it (like with page templates) to make the software even more useful and easy to implement.

If you simply want to roll out a wiki for your own use, you'll probably see most of this information as overkill. But if you want to help lead the way to wiki adoption at your company, you could consider this the "teacher's guide" edition of the textbook. Not only will it ground you in the cultural aspects of wiki adoption, but it will establish you as the "go-to" person when it comes to this particular branch of the collaboration software tree.

Wikipatterns is the best practical guide to understanding how to harness the potential powerful and transformative effects of a wiki that I have come across in paper-print or via web.

If you're looking for a techno-speak on the mechanics of physically setting up a wiki (i.e., coding, servers, etc), this book is not for you (I'm not a "tech" guy). If you're looking for a guide that outlays why one would want to create a wiki, the benefits to be gained by one, how to invest and rally your organization to supporting wiki, and case studies from organizations and companies that have done it - this is book if for you.

I'm in the process of setting up a wiki and this book helped me anticipate potential adoption challenges, and build my site to account for those. The advice this book gives on how to roll out a wiki, including how to reach out to and manage the participation of early adopters is very much worth reading. I read this book in one sitting.

Do you need a "wiki" for your organization? Here's the concept: you can harness the vast base of information and lore that exists and use WIKI values to create cooperative groups that get a job done with a minimum of wasted hierarchy and organizational make-work.

The best part of the book, for me, were the ground rules or steps to setting up a Wiki pilot project. As with any project, these are the rules with editorial comments from my point of view:

1. Establish a time frame (all projects need an endpoint)
2. Make it representative (don't make it irrelevant by leaving out a group who then won't see the value of the wiki to them.)
3. Keep it compact (this is a pilot, not a giant undertaking)
4. Choose participants carefully
5. Decide "seek or be sought" Your organization may be more conducive to "push" to participate rather than "pull" by volunteering or curiousity.
6. Wiki with a purpose --this is not an academic exercise.
7. Define house rules: control conduct and content to achieve best participation and results.
8. Personal space: a place for the individual contributors to be reached and reach out
9. Never an Empty Page: if you find a page on Wiki without your desired info, there is a stub or a "this space for rent" template. This encourages people to fill in the blanks.
10. Make it a Magnet: get people in the habit of using it
11. Be firm, think long term --keep marching to your goal

Just this section will show you that the rules will help anyone to get started on a home-grown wiki. This is why I like this book, plenty of guidance and a framework to help you get to your wiki goals, and reasons why you'd want to do that.

The book includes case studies from Johns Hopkins University, interviews with wiki experts and more. A real resource and I think something that can really benefit anyone involved in organizational communications and knowledge base. Impressive. Read it.

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