Working off the same page: based on the idea that more minds are better than one, wikis let you collaborate with colleagues and strangers alike.Wikis See wiki. have become such a big part of our information-hungry lives that many of us will soon wonder how on earth we managed without them. Most people think of wikis purely in encyclopedic en·cy·clo·pe·dic adj. 1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of an encyclopedia. 2. Embracing many subjects; comprehensive: "an ignorance almost as encyclopedic as his erudition" terms because of Wikipedia, the user-written and -edited online resource that some people call the best thing to happen to our always-on world. But if we could put aside the information-foraging aspect of wikis for a second and try to understand the underlying technology that makes them happen, we could tap into their awesome power. You don't have to have a geek A technically oriented person. It has typically implied a "nerdy" or "weird" personality, someone with limited social skills who likes to tinker with scientific or high-tech projects. The origin of the term dates back to the late 1800s. gene to start. Quite simply, a wiki A Web site that can be quickly edited by its visitors with simple formatting rules. Developed by Ward Cunningham in the mid-1990s to provide collaborative discussions, there are several "wiki" tools on the market for creating such sites, including www.editme.com, www.seedwiki.com, www. is a web site that encourages visitors to contribute to the content by editing the pages. Changes are archived and tracked easily. Unlike many other knowledge-sharing technologies (instant messaging Exchanging text messages in real time between two or more people logged into a particular instant messaging (IM) service. Instant messaging is more interactive than e-mail because messages are sent immediately, whereas e-mail messages can be queued up in a mail server for seconds or , for instance), a wiki can take on many different communication roles--from the "walled garden Refers to a network or service that restricts its users to its own content. Cable TV and satellite TV are walled gardens, offering a finite number of channels and programs to its subscribers. " variety that's appropriate for secure internal communication, to full-blown wilds that can handle global collaboration. Then there are wikis that cater to very narrow interests or constituencies, such as the one that allows users of the Motorola Q The Motorola Q is a Windows Mobile smartphone first announced in the Summer of 2005 as a thin device with similar styling to Motorola's immensely popular RAZR. Motorola in a partnership with Verizon Wireless released the Q on May 31, 2006[1]. Smartphone to create and edit their own user guide; the Motorola Q Wiki has diagrams of the phone's ports, links to software updates and more. Whether it's for a product or a project, a wiki can organize information and archive contributions much better than blogs, and users need very little expertise. Even grade-school students can create and maintain a wiki, which means that in the corporate world, it hardly requires IT support. A public forum The Utah-based political web site Politicopia.com is one of those that taps into the so-called Web 2.0 phenomenon sweeping the digital landscape. The best way to explain it would be to compare it to the similarly named Politopia, which calls itself "the land of custom-made government" but doesn't do much to allow visitor input. Politopia belongs to the read-only Web in the pre-wiki era. Politicopia, on the other hand, is a wiki created in Socialtext, an easy-to-use wiki platform. Politicopia allows Utah residents to join--or rather set--the political debate on issues such as the state's recent passage of a bill to allow universal school vouchers school vouchers, government grants aimed at improving education for the children of low-income families by providing school tuition that can be used at public or private schools. for all children. This kind of open-source democracy could only happen in a wiki format. It's easy to dive into and collaborate on Politicopia, giving it a sense of "open government." In February, when the bill passed, Politicopia founder Steve Urquhart credited it with shedding "sunlight"--taking private dialogue and putting it into a public forum. But it's the book publishing book publishing. The term publishing means, in the broadest sense, making something publicly known. Usually it refers to the issuing of printed materials, such as books, magazines, periodicals, and the like. business that appears to be really pushing the envelope in wiki-land. Wikibooks.org, for example, allows people to create open-source textbooks (as opposed to novels or creative works used in education). It is not an encyclopedia in the same way that Wikipedia strives to be; instead, it's a place where anyone can publish an online textbook on any subject. Wikibooks currently includes "books" on acoustics, reverse engineering, cryptography, a guide to The Lord of the Rings and a few books for grade-school students. Other great experiments are going on. In 2006, a group of people from the Wharton School of Business (University of Pennsylvania (body, education) University of Pennsylvania - The home of ENIAC and Machiavelli. http://upenn.edu/. Address: Philadelphia, PA, USA. ), Sloan School of Management (Massachusetts Institute of Technology Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at Cambridge; coeducational; chartered 1861, opened 1865 in Boston, moved 1916. It has long been recognized as an outstanding technological institute and its Sloan School of Management has notable programs in business, ), Pearson Publishing and Shared Insights, a community education service provider, decided to jointly publish a community-driven book titled We Are Smarter than Me. It was an ambitious project because it involved, by design, hundreds of thousands of authors. Between Wharton and Sloan alone, there were more than a million "invitees." Likewise, Penguin Publishing recently began the wiki novel A Million Penguins A Million Penguins was a collaborative effort to write a novel. The web site through which the novel was written used a wiki for the authors to add their submissions. Due to the overwhelming number of edits, over 100 every hour, Penguin had to impose "reading windows"[1] , an experiment in collaborative creative writing. In South Africa South Africa, Afrikaans Suid-Afrika, officially Republic of South Africa, republic (2005 est. pop. 44,344,000), 471,442 sq mi (1,221,037 sq km), S Africa. , the Shuttle-worth Foundation has started a wiki to take education and technology into the Web 2.0 era, with one project aimed at creating a peer-taught software engineering curriculum. Using Wikibooks from Wikipedia, the foundation has begun to create hundreds of textbooks. And the One Laptop per Child See OLPC. project has a wiki for educators and publishers who want to contribute to a curriculum that can be distributed to children receiving low-cost laptops See Classmate, OLPC and Eee PC. . Join the discussion Then there's a project that may be the definitive storyline of how wikis have moved into our business and marketing. Wikinomics, a real, printed book by Don Tapscott Don Tapscott (born 1947) is a Canadian speaker, author and consultant based in Toronto, specializing in business strategy and organizational transformation. Tapscott is Chief Executive of New Paradigm, which he founded in 1993, and Adjunct Professor of Management, Joseph L. and Anthony D. Williams, extends the topic into an online chapter, using (what else?) a wiki. The authors ask readers to write the chapter and join the discussion. I know what you're thinking: Wasn't that supposed to be the purpose of blogs? Sure, blogs are terrific, easy to start, and easier to manage and use to collaborate. But when you look at what the Wikinomics project is doing by organizing and collaborating with readers on constantly updated knowledge, blogs look almost dated. Wikinomics had barely hit the shelves at the time of writing, but on the wiki, readers are already co-authoring the final chapter called "The Wikinomics Playbook." If you visit the wiki, you'll see that the authors have written a bare-bones framework for the chapter--nothing more than a few paragraphs to introduce some sections--and some questions to stimulate discussion. The rest is up to readers, who can add new content, do some fact-checking and, if they wish, make the chapter relevant to their own experience. "Be bold," the wiki says, daring readers to shed their inhibitions and step outside their intellectual safety zones. "Share your war stories, or discuss how the issues raised in each chapter are playing out in your organization, sector or both." In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke" put differently , take control, create and have the final word. Which invites the big question: Can this open-source movement in content creation live side by side with other forms of communication where we like to have the final word? Wilds have shown us the art of blurring the lines between writers and readers, teachers and students, senders and receivers. Now that the firewall has been breached, a whole host of internal, external, brand and corporate communication will have to tiptoe in. Angelo Fernando is a marketing communications strategist based in Mesa, Arizona. wikinomics: a work in progress Instruction to co-creators for the 12th chapter of Wikinomics, by Don Topscott and Anthony D. Williams: "Since this is a community effort, we respectfully ask all contributors to observe some basic house rules. No obscenities, no plagiarism Using ideas, plots, text and other intellectual property developed by someone else while claiming it is your original work. , no advertising or self-promotion, and no secondary content without sources. Above all, please be courteous; this community is based on mutual respect and openness. But be bold too-don't be afraid to advance the conversation or push it in new directions. ... We monitor the blog daily, so post your questions--we'll respond." find it online Want to know more about the wikis and organizations mentioned in this column? Check out the links below. A Million Penguins www.amillionpenguins.com Motorola Q. User Guide www.motoqwiki.com One Laptop per Child wiki.laptop.org/go/Home Politicopia www.politicopia.com Politopia www.politopia.com Shuttleworth Foundation wiki.tsf.org.za/shuttleworthfoundationwiki We Are Smarter than Me wearesmarter.org Wikinomics www.socialtext.net/wikinomics |
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