An Almost Final Farewell to Desktop Word Processing

The era of desktop publishing is over, and I must bid Microsoft Word and several other desktop applications good-bye. In case you think I'm singling out Microsoft, it's not just MS Word, but also OpenOffice, GoogleOffice, or any application that makes what we used to call 'documents'. Nowadays, I'm simply using a wiki for collaborative information sharing and a blog for online reporting.

Albing, Bill. Carolina Communique (2007). Articles>Word Processing>Online>Wikis

Catalyze

Catalyze is a member-driven community for all professionals involved in defining business systems, designing software applications and creating websites. If you are a business analyst, usability professional, UI designer, information architect, interaction designer, product manager, project manager or anyone else involved in the definition process of software applications, this community is for you and will be worth your time.

Catalyze. Resources>Business Communication>Usability>Wikis

CMS Wiki

CMS Wiki is a knowledge base for Content Management.

CMS Wiki. Resources>Content Management>Information Design>Wikis

Folksonomies - Cooperative Classification and Communication Through Shared Metadata

This paper examines user-generated metadata as implemented and applied in two web services designed to share and organize digital media to better understand grassroots classification.

Mathes, Adam. University of Illinois (2004). Articles>Information Design>Metadata>Wikis

HBS Cases: How Wikipedia Works (or Doesn't)

An ongoing tension within Wikipedia is characterized as the inclusionists versus the exclusionists. The inclusionists argue that one of Wikipedia's core values is that it should be open to all ideas, that truth emerges from a variety of directions. Better to include than exclude. The exclusionists see Wikipedia's utilitarianism diminished if too much froth clouds the valuable information inside. These people delete material they consider inappropriate. The case offers students a chance to understand issues such as how online cultures are made and maintained, the power of self-policing organizations, the question of whether the service is drifting from its core principles, and whether a Wikipedia-like concept can work in a business setting.

Silverthorne, Sean. Harvard University (2007). Articles>Knowledge Management>Policies and Procedures>Wikis

Is a Documentation Wiki in your Future?

If we can solicit user participation in a Web 2.0 knowledge community (a volunter wiki documentation, for example), we might have a powerful means for creating high quality content. But how should this process work?

Hackos, JoAnn T. Center for Information-Development Management (2007). Articles>Documentation>Content Management>Wikis

Is Wiki Under Your Radar?

Your staff may already be using one of the most productive collaboration tools ever built.

Dickerson, Chad. InfoWorld (2004). Articles>Collaboration>Content Management>Wikis

Using a Wiki as an Organizational Portal

We explain why we chose a wiki-based content management system (CMS) as the basis for the portal for KeyContent.org. We compare various tools and discuss other sites that have implemented similar software for collaborative solutions.

Albing, Bill and Rick Sapir. KeyContent.org (2006). Presentations>Technology>Organizations>Wikis

Using a Wiki to Write About Wikis  

Academic writers are used to having their ideas encapsulated and enshrined in printed text (e.g., a journal article or a book), but publishing them in a wiki strips them of this protection. What happens when strangers change our writing? Since the traditional academic publishing paradigm has not caught up with the open-editing, peer-to-peer model, are we equipped to deal with the paradigm shift that wikis represent? These are issues we consider in this short piece.

Wilder, Hilary and Sharmila Pixy Ferris. Journal of Electronic Publishing (2007). Articles>Writing>Content Management>Wikis

What is Wiki?

Wiki is a category of web server software that allows users to contribute content. Collaboration is the key to Wiki, which is designed as a powerful system for online communities to build web pages and web sites. Unlike blogs and forums, all users are allowed to contribute and edit existing content. Wiki is derived from the Hawaiian term "wiki wiki" meaning "quick". The concept behind a Wiki is that collaboration on projects will move it along quicker.

Small Business Software (2007). Articles>Content Management>Web Design>Wikis

Wiki-fying Docs: Is Using Customer-Accessible Wikis for End-User Documentation Gaining Momentum?

While the effort to provide more interactivity and power to the end-user seems to suggest that we open up a wiki to allow them to add and edit content, the basic idea of a set of edited documentation is now challenged with a social network of participating customers, all of whom may now edit, add, and delete content. How social can you go? This article is an attempt to look at the process of evaluating the use of a wiki for end-user documentation, if such a thing can exist. Are the two types of customer content--wikis and end-user documentation--mutually exclusive?

Albing, Bill. KeyContent.org (2007). Articles>Documentation>Wikis>Social Networking

Wiki-mania  

Wikipedia may be the biggest technical document ever created, but it and other Web 2.0 elements present challenges. Read about the popularity of Wikipedia, then let Intercom know about your professional experiences using wikis, blogs, and other Web 2.0 applications.

Intercom (2006). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>Wikis

wikiHow

wikiHow is a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest how-to manual. With your contributions, we can create a free resource that helps people by offering clear, concise solutions to the problems of everyday life.

wikiHow. Resources>Documentation>Online>Wikis

Wikis for Supporting Distributed Collaborative Writing  

Wikis allow distributed teams to collaboratively write and edit documents through the Internet in a shared online workspace, without the need for special HTML knowledge or tools. The flexibility of wiki technology is a boon for increased cooperative work on large team projects. However, wiki technology also complicates notions of usable design as the information architecture of a wiki site may be created on the fly by all participants rather than by a dedicated technical communicator. This paper describes the basic technology of wikis, some advantages and disadvantages, and areas of concern with regard to information design.

Wei, Carolyn, Brandon Maust, Jennifer Barrick, Elisabeth Cuddihy and Jan H. Spyridakis. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>Collaboration>Writing>Wikis

Wikis for Supporting Distributed Collaborative Writing  

Wikis allow distributed teams to collaboratively write and edit documents through the Internet in a shared online workspace, without the need for special HTML knowledge or tools. The flexibility of wiki technology is a boon for increased cooperative work on large team projects. However, wiki technology also complicates notions of usable design as the information architecture of a wiki site may be created on the fly by all participants rather than by a dedicated technical communicator. This paper describes the basic technology of wikis, some advantages and disadvantages, and areas of concern with regard to information design.

Wei, Carolyn, Brandon Maust, Jennifer Barrick, Elisabeth Cuddihy and Jan H. Spyridakis. STC (2005). Articles>Documentation>Collaboration>Wikis

Patterns of Revision in Online Writing    

This study examines the revision histories of 10 Wikipedia articles nominated for the site's Featured Article Class (FAC), its highest quality rating, 5 of which achieved FAC and 5 of which did not. The revisions to each article were coded, and the coding results were combined with a descriptive analysis of two representative articles in order to determine revision patterns. All articles in both groups showed a higher percentage of additions of new material compared to deletions and revisions that rearranged the text. Although the FAC articles had roughly equal numbers of content and surface revisions, the non-FAC articles had fewer surface revisions and were dominated by content revisions. Although the unique features of the Wikipedia environment inhibit strict comparisons between these results and those of earlier revision studies, these results suggest revision in this environment places unique structural demands on writers, possibly leading to unique revision patterns.

Jones, John. Written Communication (2008). Articles>Editing>Online>Wikis

Baselining Documentation on a Wiki

The dynamic nature of wikis can cause a few headaches when you need to baseline documentation that's on a wiki to correspond with the release of your product. This blog post looks at some ways in which you can try baselining wiki content.

DMN Communications (2008). Articles>Documentation>Technical Writing>Wikis

Musings on User-Generated Documentation

User-generated documentation is a big issue in technical communication circles. If properly done, tapping into the knowledge of users can improve the quality and breadth of your documentation.

DMN Communications (2008). Articles>Documentation>Technical Writing>Wikis

Can Lightweight Markup Languages Be Used for Documentation?

A lightweight markup language uses syntax that is similar to wiki syntax -- keyboard characters are used to define formatting. This blog post argues that if your documentation needs are simple, and you have a low or non-existent budget, then a lightweight markup language might be worth investigating.

DMN Communications (2008). Articles>Documentation>Programming>Wikis

Whikibility Cultural Key Drivers: Quickness

The fact that a Workplace could be considered 'quick' is not properly linked with the easiness to find information or with the speedy level of the communications: in this context it is linked to the Wiki feature of assuring a real-time updating access to contents and resources (data, information or knowledge and physical resources).

Cammarata, Vincenzo. Grow Your Wiki (2007). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration>Wikis

Wikibility Cultural Key Drivers: Flexibility

A flexible workplace is characterized by the capability of individuals to manage not only their work, time or resources, but also the possibility to influence and operate in an active way inside the community (from team to organizational level) and for these reasons to be part of the operational process.

Cammarata, Vincenzo. Grow Your Wiki (2008). Articles>Content Management>Workflow>Wikis

Wikibility Cultural Key Drivers: Collaboration

The true collaboration occurs when people have the possibility to co-work on the same sub-task, activating a mechanism of new knowledge creation. Collaboration is not so obvious if is not clearly supported: the risk is to exchange this 'together' learning process with a simple cooperation process, producing not new knowledge but only a simple addition of individual regress knowledge.

Cammarata, Vincenzo. Grow Your Wiki (2008). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration>Wikis

Wikibility Cultural Key Drivers: Sharing

The possibility of sharing improves an effective distribution of common resources (meeting room, projector, corporate car...). In a more general acceptation of the term, the availability to ideas or previous solutions useful for different use is an advantage that make co-creation of new knowledge and a healthy circulation of knowledge possible.

Cammarata, Vincenzo. Grow Your Wiki (2008). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration>Wikis

Wikibility Cultural Key Drivers: Peering

A common element between Wiki philosophy and innovation successful case histories, is the partial or total absence of structure or, saying better, of hierarchy. The possibility, in fact, to contribute in the same way, indifferently at which level you are involved in the organization, is one of the first steps towards the reduction of barriers to collaboration, participation and involvement in the organizational life.

Cammarata, Vincenzo. Grow Your Wiki (2008). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration>Wikis

Wikibility Cultural Key Drivers: Openness

Strictly linked with transparency concept, openness is at the base of the principle that people work better if they have access to the right information and possibility to assume that all over the organization. The simple access to other group member data or the possibility to know activities scheduled also in other groups are normal operations in a mature context such as is allowed to look to other team solutions or results in order to decide something for the own team.

Cammarata, Vincenzo. Grow Your Wiki (2008). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration>Wikis