Note: This is the presentation material for the "
What is a Wiki and What Can It Do For You?" conference talk at LinuxWorld & NetworkWorld Canada, Toronto, Canada, 25 Apr 2006.
Slide 1: What is a Wiki and What Can It Do For You?
Writable webs empower employees to share knowledge effectively and to be more productive
- Wiki, a writable web: Communities can organize and share content in an organic and free manner
- If extended with the right set of functionality, a wiki can be applied to the workplace to schedule, manage, document, and support daily activities
- A structured wiki combines the benefits of a wiki and a database application
- This talk explains basic wikis and structured wiki, covers its deployment, and shows some sample applications using TWiki, an open source enterprise collaboration platform
Conference talk at LinuxWorld & NetworkWorld Canada, Toronto, Canada, 25 Apr 2006
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Peter@StructuredWikisPLEASENOSPAM.com
Slide 2: Agenda
- What is a Wiki?
- Wiki for the workplace
- Collaboration challenges at the workplace
- How to choose a wiki
- Structured wikis
- What is TWiki?
- Structured wiki examples
- Initial Deployment of a Wiki
- References
Slide 3: What is a Wiki?
- WikiWikiWeb = Writable Web
- As quick to contribute as e-mail
- As easy to use as a website
- Ward Cunningham implemented the original WikiWikiWeb in 1995 to collaborate on software patterns
- Inspired by HyperCard; some call it a Blog for groups
- The original WikiWikiWeb has these features:
- Read-write web, every page can be edited using just a browser
- HTML form based editing with a simple markup
- Pages are linked automagically with WikiWords
Slide 4: Blogs vs. Wikis
- Blog: (weblog)
- Key: Easy to publish sequential posts
- Media to express individual voice
- "Post media" (like e-mail), usually with feedback and trackback
- Typically hosted service (e.g. Six Apart's TypePad)
- Wiki: (WikiWikiWeb)
- Key: Easy to create and refactor content owned by group
- Media to express group voice, deemphasizing identity of individuals
- "Refactor media", content may change at any time
- Usually open source software, installed on own server
- Some Blogs have wiki-like features, some wikis have blog capabilities
Slide 5: Wiki Offerings
- Open Source wiki engines: Download and install
- Hosted Wiki services: Wiki farms
- Wiki appliance: Wiki in a preconfigured box
Slide 6: Wikipedia
- Wikipedia: Wiki + Encyclopedia
- A free encyclopedia that is being written collaboratively by its readers
- Project started in January 2001
- The most active public Wiki: 1,000,000 articles and 1,000,000 registered users in the English language Wikipedia; many more in other languages
- Anyone in the world can edit any page.
- Doesn't that lead to chaos?
- Domain experts contribute
- Well defined policies for contributing and handling content
- Graffiti gets removed quickly (many eye balls; rollback available)
- Content can be freely distributed and reproduced under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL)
Slide 7: Wiki Basics: Text Formatting Shorthand
- Wikis are text oriented
- Text formatting shorthand:
- Easy to learn
- More compact than HTML
- No standard on formatting shorthand
- Example TWiki shorthand
- Some wikis offer true WYSIWYG editing, such as MoinMoin and TWiki
Slide 8: Wiki Basics: WikiWords for Linking
- Easy to create hyperlinks within a Wiki, just use a WikiWord
- WikiWords are capitalized words, run together, e.g., WebCollaboration, IntranetTools
- To create a link to an existing page, edit a page and type:
-
For more info, see IntranetTools
- If the 'IntranetTools' page exists, it is turned automatically into a link:
- Some wikis do not autolink, MediaWiki (the wiki used at Wikipedia) for example links
[[text in brackets]]
.
Slide 9: Wiki Basics: Creating New Pages
- First, edit the page where you want to spin off a new page, and type in some text that includes a WikiWord for the new page:
-
For more info, see WebServices
- After you save the page you will get:
- For more info, see WebServices?.
- The '?' is a link, indicating that this page does not exist, yet
- Now, to create the WebServices page, click on this link, type in some text and save it
- If you return to originating page and hit refresh, the link covers now the whole WikiWord:
Slide 10: Wiki for the Workplace
- Perceived issues with basic wikis used at the workplace:
- No control; chaotic
- No security
- No audit trail
- A wiki system with the right extensions can be used at the workplace
- It can address some internal challenges:
- Maintenance of static intranets
- Taming internal e-mail flood
- Implementation of business processes
Slide 11: Challenges of Static Intranets
- Some content is outdated
- Incomplete content
- When was the page last updated?
- Difficult to find content
- Inconsistency across departments
- Special tools, knowledge and permission required to maintain
- Content is static, it has a "webmaster syndrome":
If an employee discovers a page with incorrect or insufficient information, the employee will often ignore it because it takes too much time to find out who the webmaster is and to write an e-mail requesting an update
Slide 12: Wikis and Static Intranets
- Move some/all Intranet content into a wiki
- No difference for readers to browse and search content
- Employees are empowered to fix content on the spot
- Ease of maintenance
- No need to install client side software
- Consistent look & feel
- Paradigm shift
- from: webmasters maintain content
- to: domain experts and casual users maintain content
Slide 13: Challenges of E-mail
- E-mail and mailing lists are great, but:
- Post and reply vs. post and refine/refactor
- Great for discussion, but ... hard to find "final consensus" on a thread
- E-mail is not hyper-linked and is not structured, content can't be grouped easily into related topics
- E-mail and attachments are not version controlled and it is difficult to determine the history of a document
- Not all interested people / too many people in the loop
Slide 14: Wikis and E-mail
- Move some e-mail traffic into a wiki
- Ease of reference (cross-linking)
- Flexible notification (favorites only, daily digest, RSS/ATOM feed)
- Pockets of knowledge made available to interested parties
- Audit trail / domain experts
- Paradigm shift
- from: post & reply
- to: post & refine & cross-link
- Send e-mail with link to content instead of content itself
Slide 15: Challenges of Business Processes
- Business processes are implemented in large scale by IT department (Sarbanes-Oxley compliance etc.)
- Rigid structure by design
- Teams follow formal/informal workflow to accomplish tasks, which is often a paper-based process:
- Roll out laptops to employees
- Status board of call-center
- Sign-off for export compliance of a software release
- No resources allocated to implement applications to automate those processes
- IT department has no bandwidth to implement lightweight applications for a variety of teams
Slide 16: Wikis and Business Processes
- A structured wiki is a flexible tool to support evolving processes
- in the free-form wiki way -- linked pages, collaboratively maintained
- and with a structured wiki application -- forms, queries, reports
- Content contributors with moderate skill sets can build web applications
- Paradigm shift
- from: programmers create applications
- to: content contributors build applications
- Similar shift happened with the introduction of spreadsheet programs
Slide 17: Requirements for a Wiki at the Workplace
- What to look for:
- Version control -- audit trail
- Access control -- security
- File attachments -- document management
- Ease of use -- productivity
- Ease of administration -- productivity
- Feature set -- create web applications
- API -- integration with existing enterprise applications
- Scalability -- room to grow
- Support -- get help when needed
Slide 18: How to chose a Wiki for the Workplace
- Type of deployment:
- Hosted service:
- Quick deployment
- Data sits somewhere else (backup, security, migration)
- Wiki appliance:
- Quick deployment
- Control over data
- Wiki engine:
- Longer to setup
- Control over engine and data
- Questions to ask:
- Total cost of ownership?
- Skill set of users (WYSIWYG editor needed?)
- Skill set of system administrators? (Windows/Linux)
- Who is maintaining the server? (IT, Engineering?)
Slide 19: Open Source Wikis for the Workplace
- PhpWiki: A feature-rich implementation with support for various databases (PHP)
- TikiWiki: A CMS and wiki, Slashdot-style forums, blogs, image galleries, chat, etc. (PHP)
- TWiki: Structured wiki and collaboration platform for the enterprise, many Plugins (Perl)
- XWiki: Feature rich Wiki implementation, compatible with some TWiki Plugins (Java)
- ZWiki: A Wiki implementation that runs on the Zope application platform (Python)
- Many more, compare them at WikiMatrix
- Learn more at 2006 International Symposium on Wikis in Odense, Denmark, 21-23 Aug 2006
Slide 20: What is a Structured Wiki?
- Goal of a structured wiki:
- Combine the benefits of a wiki and a database application
- Wiki:
- Organic content: The structure and text content of the site is open to editing and evolution
- Open content: Readers can refactor incomplete or poorly organized content at any time
- Hyper-linked: Many links to related content due to WikiWord nature
- Trust: Open for anyone to edit, "soft security" with audit trail
- Database application:
- Highly structured data
- Easy reporting
- Workflow (e.g. purchase requisition)
- Access control
Slide 21: Usage Pattern in a Structured Wiki
- Users typically start with unstructured wiki content
- Example: Call-center status board
- User discovers patterns in content
- Example: Call-center status board has fixed list of users and fixed list of time slots
- User or administrator builds an application, typically in iterations
- Goal: Automate tasks based on discovered patterns
- In other words: A structured wiki enables users to build lightweight applications
Slide 22: Example: Call-Center Status Board, v1
- Requirement for status board:
- Easily see who is on call at what time
- Easily change the status board
- Start with a simple bullet list for status board v1:
- 07:00am - 11:00am: Richard
- 11:00am - 03:00pm: Peter
- 03:00pm - 07:00pm: Sam
Slide 23: Example: Call-Center Status Board, v2
- Status board v1 does the job, but lets make it more presentable and useful:
- Convert the bullets into a table
- Use WikiWord links to team member's home pages for easy reference
- Add Backup person
- Improved status board v2:
Slide 24: Example: Call-Center Status Board, v3
- Status board v2 is presentable, now lets make it more user friendly:
- Improved status board v3, view and edit:
Slide 25: What is TWiki?
- TWiki started as a Wiki engine, and quickly evolved into a structured wiki for the enterprise
- Mission: TWiki is a leading-edge, web-based collaboration platform targeting the corporate intranet world. TWiki
- fosters information flow within an organization
- lets distributed teams work together seamlessly and productively
- eliminates the webmaster syndrome of outdated intranet content
- Large number of TWiki Extensions: Add-Ons, Plugins, Skins
- Open Source software (GPL) with active community, hosted at http://TWiki.org/
Slide 26: What is TWiki used for?
- The structured wiki is used at different levels:
- Shared notebook for teams: Projects, repository, scheduling, meetings
- Departmental collaboration tool: Processes, project reviews, QA tracking
- Intranet publishing tool: IT, HR, ISO standards
- CMS with focus on free-form collaboration: Requirements capture
- Knowledge base: Problem/solution pairs with attached patches
- Platform to create wiki applications, such as news portals, inventory systems, issues tracking systems
Slide 27: Who is using TWiki?
- Many corporations, such as 3Com, AMD, Alcatel, AT&T, Boeing, ... Xerox
- BT, Disney Corp, Motorola, SAP, TI, Wind River and others have submitted success stories
- Academia, such as Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
- Also Internet communities, such as Chandler wiki, Java.net's Javapedia, Mandriva Linux development community wiki, IntelliJ community wiki, Indymedia
- Many installations, 400+ downloads/day
- Browse the TWiki Installation directory to see who is using TWiki for what purpose
Slide 28: Who is developing TWiki?
Slide 29: TWiki Basics: Version Control
- Pages are under revision control:
- See previous page revisions
- See differences between revisions
- See who changed what and when
- Roll back unwanted changes
- "Soft Security" - anyone can change anything, but changes are logged
- Complete audit trail, even for meta data, such as access control
Slide 30: TWiki Basics: Access Control
- Default - use Soft Security
- Avoid roadblocks to knowledge sharing
- Special applications - use access control
- Avoid write access restrictions - "If you can see you can play"
- Fine grained access control:
- Define groups in Main.TWikiGroups
- Set read/write/rename access restrictions to site, webs and pages based on these groups
- Complete audit trail of access control settings
Slide 31: TWiki Basics: Skins
- TWiki Skins change the look of a TWiki topic, for example the style of the text and the layout of the header and footer
- Separation of program logic, look and content
- Corporations typically create their own skin to match the corporate branding standard
- Many SkinPackages available for download at TWiki.org
Slide 32: Adding Structure: TWiki Variables
- TWiki Variables are what environment variables are to an OS, or macros are to a programming language
- TWiki Variables are text strings that get rendered at page view time, such as
%SCRIPTURL%
, %URLPARAM{"city"}%
, %INCLUDE{"OtherPage"}%
- Types of variables: Predefined variables; preferences variables; user defined variables
- Useful when creating wiki applications
Slide 33: Adding Structure: TWiki Forms
- Use TWiki Forms to add form-based input to free-form content, e.g., you can structure topics with unlimited, easily searchable categories
- A form is defined in a topic - (DB table definition)
- Forms can be attached to topics - (DB table row)
- The form appears in edit mode, and its content gets rendered as a table when viewing the page
Slide 34: Adding Structure: Formatted Search
- Use FormattedSearch to generate customized reports in list format or table format
- Typically used to query topics with data in forms
- Report is embedded in a page with a
%SEARCH{...}%
- Example applications:
- Example report:
Slide 35: Adding Structure: TWiki Plugins
- TWikiPlugins enhance the functionality of TWiki
- Growing Plugins repository - over 200 Plugins
- A great resource for administrators and web developers to tailor TWiki to their needs, such as:
Slide 36: Sample Wiki Application: TWiki Installation Directory
Slide 37: Sample Wiki Application: Employee News Portal
- Goal for Employee News Portal:
- Reduce e-mail flood to the corporate-wide mailing lists
- Reach a broader audience
- Intranet home page as a newspaper
- Specification:
- News channels: IT, Engineering, Sales, etc
- Each news channel has an editor group, responsible for releasing news
- Subscribe to news channels of interest
- Some news channels are "always on", e.g. employees cannot unsubscribe
- Aggregated news is shown on intranet and sent via e-mail
- More details at TWikiNewsPortal
Slide 38: Initial Deployment of a Wiki
- Grassroot vs. managed deployment of a wiki
- One central wiki more effective than many smaller wikis
- Plan content and rollout
- Build initial structure
- Populate initial content with help from early adopters
- Initial rollout with smaller group
- Train and coach users
- Do not underestimate inertia and time
- Expect quick growth after slow start
Slide 39: Overcoming Barriers to Adoption
- Users not familiar with a wiki usually have several complaints about why it won't work
- Management perceives wikis as chaotic; any employee can update any page
- Audit trail and "soft security" of peer pressure
- Wikis can be intimidating; the wiki pages appear "official" and corporate
- Overcome one's own internal resistance to edit existing content
- Paradigm shift: Content is owned by team, not individual
- Users want their contributions to the wiki to be "perfect"
- It is more effective to post content early and let the entire team revise it iteratively
Slide 40: Summary
- A structured wiki is a powerful platform for web collaboration
- Collaborate in free form; add structure as needed
- Use it as shared notebooks, a departmental collaboration tool, a publishing tool, a CMS and a knowledge base
- Use it as a platform to create lightweight applications
- Easy to share knowledge
- Corporate brain gives a competitive advantage
- Careful coaching is needed
- Viral growth after people "get it"
Slide 41: Questions & Answers
Slide 42: References
Slide 43: References, cont.
Slide 44: About Peter
- Peter Thoeny - Peter@StructuredWikisPLEASENOSPAM.com
- Founder of TWiki, the leading Wiki for corporate collaboration and knowledge management, managing the open-sourced project for the last seven years
- Invented the concept of Structured Wikis - where free form wiki content can be structured with tailored wiki applications
- Recognized thought-leader in wikis and social software, featured in numerous articles and technology conferences including LinuxWorld, Business Week, Wall Street Journal and more
- Software developer with over 15 years experience, specializing in software architecture, user interface design and web technology
- Graduate of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich
- Lived in Japan for 8 years working as an engineering manager for Denso Create, developing CASE tools
- Lives in the Silicon Valley, working on Wikis for the Workplace book, and consulting on structured wiki deployments
Notes
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PeterThoeny - 17 Mar 2006