Want to get a content management geek fired up? Start talking about wiki software. The wiki can be a place to store definitions for our corporate acronyms and jargon, a spot to post reports and meeting minutes, and a space to store information about past projects. But what makes wikis so exciting is that they’re more than your average content repository. Wikis are collaborative—and this is their greatest strength and biggest weakness.
Once planted, many enterprise wikis either dry up like a desert (because people don’t contribute) or grow into an unnavigable jungle (because people contribute redundant, wrong, or irrelevant content). How can firms strike the right balance to create and maintain wikis that work?
APQC’s recent research on enterprise wikis finds the three key drivers of wiki success are:
- Strategy—building a plan for the wiki with purpose, audience, and use in mind
- Change management—crafting methods to get people engaged
- Measurement—establishing measures of success to show value, to know where to invest, and to maintain engagement
For more information, check out our new collection, Enterprise Wikis for Content and Knowledge Management, which includes the infographic below as well as key success measures, a diagnostic to help you assess the health of your wiki, an article on current wiki trends, and more.
