Comments on: Community tips for new leaders

By: Aydin Design » Blog Archive » Week 3, Reflections

Aydin Design » Blog Archive » Week 3, Reflections — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 08:46:28 +0000

[...] Cross has posted about tips for community leaders this week, emphasizing that its not about the technology, that [...]

By: Nicola Avery

Nicola Avery — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:21:53 +0000

I think wikis fail more than succeed so far because people don’t have time or find themselves in the right place with the right device when they do have time, audio wikis may change this e.g. http://cag.csail.mit.edu/commit/papers/08/kotkar-hci08.pdf
It would be interesting to get some stats from someone like SocialText (miki) re the effect or no effect that having mobile wikis as part of wiki solutions makes?
When I suggested this in last role, there was mixed opinion as to whether mobiles would make a difference and concern about audio file size, hopefully CSAIL and others will be able to provide more insight?

By: Dave Ferguson

Dave Ferguson — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 12:37:09 +0000

Jay, I did see the “9 out of 10″ figure as a metaphor, not a statistic. I think it’s good enough for metaphoric purposes, though I think the failure of some wikis to thrive can also come from the awkwardness of the technology and the unfamiliarity of the process.

E.g., the coding for some wikis gets in the way of what people want to say (the technology). Also, the nonlinear structure is a hurdle that’s hard for some people to clear: where’s the table of contents? Where’s the index? I have to MAKE them?!?

I’d add to the list the value of a small but working prototype (or demo project) — e.g., if my project team is able to work effectively using a wiki, then word-of-mouth and the actual example will serve as encouragement to others to experiment.

By: Stacy Doolittle

Stacy Doolittle — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:52:10 +0000

Thanks for this excellent snapshot of key points. I particularly liked:

Tools like wikis, when they hit a rich and latent seam in the organization, also have the scope to shoot through information silos.

In particular, I like the “rich and latent seam” part. That is a concept that hadn’t fully formed in my mind – thanks for giving it life.

By: Jay Cross

Jay Cross — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 05:13:05 +0000

Teresa, yes, I agree that ease of experimentation with wikis drives up the failure rate. Same as with blogs. It wasn’t that long ago that pundits used the rate of blog abandonment as proof that blogging wouldn’t last.

The “9 out of 10″ is more a way of saying many more wikis succeed than fail; don’t expect it to be precise. My source on this was Bill Bruck of Q2 Learning. Bill’s been at this as long as wikis have been around. Before that, too.

Harold, aide-memoire is a great term. I’ll add it to my list of performance support tools.

By: Teresa Ruano

Teresa Ruano — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:18:39 +0000

I think the ease of setting up wikis can be a strength — the fact that they are lightweight and somewhat unstructured jumpstarts “guerrilla prototyping” as you put it, so their failure rate may in part be a function of that kind of experimentation. Nevertheless, I’m wondering where your failure rate stat of 9 out of 10 came from.

By: Harold Jarche

Harold Jarche — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:30:42 +0000

It makes a good aide-memoire.