I went along to another really interesting London Wiki Wednesday last night. The packed room I feel actually helped the discussion and brought out some really interesting discussions around things like Wiki Vandalism. References were made to a recent conference where a speaker asked the audience how many of them had witnessed vandalism on an enterprise Wiki ... nobody raised their hand. So, within a trusted environment it appears the openess of the Wiki means less of a security worry than some people may expect. I think the fact that the Wiki, being mainly text based doesnt lend itself to messing around within a structured and formal environment, especially if you login and your name is tagged against the changes you have made to a page. The real value of these discussions are in the stories people tell from their experience. They dont always agree but you tend to find a common story about how people have found using social tools within an organisation. There will be another meeting in August with a discussion around 'How do you get people to contribute?' which is going to be really interesting. My entry into this discussion is that most Wiki's look technical, if you do some simple things like increase the font size, put less text on pages and brighten the whole site up that will do wonders.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
July London Wiki Wednesday
I went along to another really interesting London Wiki Wednesday last night. The packed room I feel actually helped the discussion and brought out some really interesting discussions around things like Wiki Vandalism. References were made to a recent conference where a speaker asked the audience how many of them had witnessed vandalism on an enterprise Wiki ... nobody raised their hand. So, within a trusted environment it appears the openess of the Wiki means less of a security worry than some people may expect. I think the fact that the Wiki, being mainly text based doesnt lend itself to messing around within a structured and formal environment, especially if you login and your name is tagged against the changes you have made to a page. The real value of these discussions are in the stories people tell from their experience. They dont always agree but you tend to find a common story about how people have found using social tools within an organisation. There will be another meeting in August with a discussion around 'How do you get people to contribute?' which is going to be really interesting. My entry into this discussion is that most Wiki's look technical, if you do some simple things like increase the font size, put less text on pages and brighten the whole site up that will do wonders.
