I love wikipedia. I live there.
It's the reason my colleagues don't know the largest holes in my development knowledge.
A new term is mentioned in a seminar, I nod, discretely write it in my notebook and later wikipedia it (when did wikipedia become a verb?). Then I cross reference because everyone knows you can't always trust those damn editors to tell you the truth.
But I never knew what the wiki in wikipedia stood for until my manager came to me with his great idea. 'This year you're going to produce the annual report as a wiki!' He smiled at me expectantly, waiting for recognition of the great idea.
I discretely wrote 'wiki' in my notebook...
Wiki
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A wiki is software that allows registered users or anyone to collaboratively create, edit, link, and organize the content of a website, usually for reference material. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. These wiki websites are often also referred to as wikis; for example, Wikipedia is one of the best known wikis.[1] Wikis are used in many businesses to provide affordable and effective intranets and for Knowledge Management. Ward Cunningham, developer of the first wiki, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as "the simplest online database that could possibly work".
[2] Wiki Wiki (/wiːkiː wiːkiː/) is a reduplication of wiki, a Hawaiian word for "fast". Some have suggested that wiki means, "What I Know Is." However, this is a backronym. I know, I work in communication and PR. It isn't cool to be impressed and I should be over it by now but thank god for wikipedia etc.
I now know what a wiki is and have to admit that my boss's good idea is, in fact, a Good Idea. No more sitting around and talking about how comment should be coming from everyone. Now comment will be coming from everyone - at least everyone who can be bothered to contribute (I can see that this will be an issue but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it).
My next stage is to put together user guidelines and plan how this can work. And where it can work. Oh and there's the small matter of persuading a large academic organisation that this is the future of annual reporting. And briefing the designer who will have to then convert it into a printed document.
By the way my favourite new word of today is Wiktionary. My least favourite word is backronym - ugh!
1 comment:
If you think backcronym is bad try "crowd source" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing
"Crowdsourcing is a neologism for the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people, in the form of an open call." In some ways this is what you are describing in your approach to the annual report (although its not an undefined group). I think there's some really interesting stuff around how these new technologies relate to ideas around construction of "knowlege", and whose knowlege counts. I did a blog about this recently entitled "Web 2.0 tools, knowledge, power, professions and giant librarians" which I'd be interested to hear any reactions on. http://community.eldis.org/.59b55725
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