Wiki adoption techniques

Sherif has created an absolute pearl with this post based on real live experiences of implementing a wiki for a “very large organisation – thousands of users”.

He refers to Nielsen’s research on participation inequality, in particular the 90-9-1 rule and claims that in his experience community participation can be much greater if the Wiki is strategically implemented in a way that works for the organisation … Sherif claims 60-20-20 participation.

Here’s a summary of Sherif’s 7 recommendations :

1. Pick a good Wiki

2. Let your Wiki ‘virally’ grow

3. Find and empower ‘Wiki Champions’ in each team

4. Start off as open as possible, worry about guidelines later

5. Refer people to the Wiki where you can

6. Bottom up, not top down

7. Training should not be more than one hour demo

I’d comment that point 1 should probably be phrased more “pick the right wiki”; in other words have a good idea of what you want to achieve before you start out… only then can you define the functionality you’re going to need.    I especially liked point 6 and 7.    Wiki’s and social tools need to get momentum from the community early on…