TORONTO, ON - I love the wiki concept. Wikis hold a lot of power and promise. A wiki however cannot substitute for an entire intranet.

My colleague Shel Holtz takes issue, and with good reason, with SocialText CEO Ross Mayfield (makers of the leading wiki software) who has suggested that all intranets could become wikis (see The future of intranets). Mayfield makes his comments on the Blogspotting show of Stephen Baker, a BusinessWeek reporter and blogger (seeRossMayfield interview).

Look lets not confuse a social communications tool with a business ecosystem. I’m sure I need not redefine what an intranet. A wiki can be used for many things including creating policies, dialogues, knowledge networks, etc. But a wiki is a tool, and only a tool. For professional communicators and business managers, it is but only one tool that should be considered in a larger mix of options.

“Whatever shape they take, intranets are, at their core, the Internet captured behind the firewall,” writes Holtz. “That definition embraced the suite of TCP/IP protocols... also allows the intranet to perform all manner of functions, from communication to collaboration, from streamlined online work processes to the archiving of static information in a hierarchical, navigable format. No single platform can contain all of the purposes a class-A intranet can fulfill.”

Bang on. What else does an intranet or portal offer that a wiki can never?

• Employee directory
• Self-service applications such as HR tools
• Personalized portals
• Dynamically generated content
• Advanced security, controls and workflow

No, I love wikis, but this social communictions phenom will never substitue a complete intranet or portal. Nor should it.

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Selecting a wiki

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Sins and salvation

CHICAGO, ILL - Wikipedia.com is a perfect illustration of the power of a well executed wiki. Anyone with a browser can write an article or edit any article of anyone else. With 825,000 articles and tens of thousands of volunteer contributors, Wikipedia is now the largest wiki on the Internet and it’s extraordinarily easy to use – more simple than MS-Word.

A wiki can also deliver powerful value inside on the intranet. At my company, Prescient Digital Media, we’ve set up wikis for discussing and finalizing our company values and our investing in people strategy.

Ziff Davis, one of the largest publishers of technology magazines in the World, uses a wiki to speed-up software development producing huge savings. 1UP.com, the gaming division of Ziff Davis, uses a wiki product made by Socialtext. According to the customer testimonial on the Socialtext website, the development wiki has created a far more efficient environment for working together which has greatly reduced the reliance on e-mail, as well as the associated lag time. 1UP.com measures the savings to date as a result of the wiki at than $1 million dollars.

So how do you go about setting up a wiki of your own? Here are eight easy steps:

1-     Determine your subject matter (e.g. intranets)

2-     Define your target audience (e.g. intranet managers and consultants)

3-     Establish objectives and measurable goals (e.g. 1,000 viewers per day)

4-     Determine the required feature set and functionality of your wiki (page history, RSS, etc.)

5-     Select the most appropriate technology (e.g. SocialText, Confluence, etc.)

6-     Set-up the wiki and arrange hosting (e.g. ServerIntellect, Q9, etc.)

7-     Begin writing

8-     Invite other contributors

Most of you either have experience with steps 1-4 and 6-8, but selecting the technology might leave some question marks. After all, there are now dozens of wiki software vendors on the market.

There is however a great new website – a wiki unto itself – that is an excellent tool for sourcing which is the best wiki technology for your needs. Better yet, even neophytes with little or no wiki experience can make a very informed decision about the best technology for their project using Wikimatrix.org.

Select one or more different wiki vendors and hit the compare button to see an itemized table comparing the functionality and feature sets of those solutions you are considering. If you have no idea which vendors to start with then just play with the tool and select a few to get a feel for the technology.

Some of the popular vendors include:

• SocialText
• WriteBoard
• Confluence
• JotSpot

In selecting a wiki you’ll want to know and document many requirements and functionality including those that are often considered the most important:  

• Price
• Customer support
• WSIWYG editor
• RSS and Atom feeds
• Page history
• Change summary
• Comments and quotes
• Statistics (most popular pages)
• Operating system
• Database storage
• Security and encryption

If hiring a consultant to help you implement a large scale wiki is not an option then I’d suggest first experimenting with one of the free or open source products. Learn what you can and then find a permanent solution. If properly executed, a wiki can be a powerful collaboration tool for both employees and/or customers.

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On the flight here to Chicago, IL (speaking at the 2005 Annual Ragan Web Content Management Conference – workshop + keynote) I thought of a great wiki idea... a travel wiki where consumers can post the latest prices for flights, hotels, cars, etc. as well as write collaborative reviews about their experiences.... anyone come across such a wiki yet? I’ve come across wiki travel guides based on geographic setting focused on site seeing, etc., but nothing focused on travel prices and experiences.

How do you know your intranet or portal is good? Or god awful? Yes, your intuition is probably a good clue; better yet is formal feedback from stakeholders and users.

Formally evaluating your intranet against a set of best practice criteria is strongly recommended. A formal evaluation in fact is necessary because there is so much that is required in developing and managing a successful intranet that you cannot possibly remember all that is required from day-to-day. In fact, Prescient Digital Media has developed an evaluation methodology that evaluates and scores more than 300 assets and heuristics in six broad categories.

Measuring the strengths and weaknesses of your intranet is a must – and it should be an honest and candid measurement. Hiring an outside, non-biased consultant is recommended. You wouldn’t want the contestants of American Idol to be there own judges would you? Without a non-biased view the evaluation may not be accurate and you may be doing yourself a disservice.

However, not everyone has budget to hire a consultant nor should they every time you need help. Step Two, the Australian-based consultancy headed by James Robertson, has developed a resource that any manager can use to take a solid, snapshot measurement of the current intranet or portal. The Intranet review toolkitis a guide that managers can use to measure dozens of site strengths and weaknesses. It contains a set of heuristics (guidelines or criteria) for conducting an intranet review focused on functionality and design.

“The Toolkit has been published as a Word document, designed to be filled in by the intranet reviewer,” says James, managing director of Step Two. “Space is provided for comments against each of the heuristics, and a total score is calculated for each of the sections.”

Very handy indeed! And if you’re down-under and need a strong strategic consultant to help you through stormy seas, James is the guy you want to hire. Step Two has worked with dozens of companies and government organizations in New Zealand and Australia.

This is truly fascinating if it is in fact true to the extent the propaganda would have you believe. La Prensa (the dogmatic left-wing media outlet that Commandante Che Guevera once worked for and which he helped promote as well use as his mouthpiece upon seizing power with the Fidelistas in the late 50s and early 60s) is reporting that the Scientific-Technical Information Center of Las Villas’ Central University in Cuba has “opened internationally” its scientific databases and its intranet.

Although the translation outright sucks, you kind of get their drift... (if you believe it):

Cuban University Kicks off Intranet

Havana, Dec 1 (Prensa Latina) - The Documentation and Scientific-Technical Information Center of Las Villas´ Central University opened internationally linked services that facilitate up-to-date information to its users.

With access to 12 world scientific databases, the new service is part of the Center´s development in its computing systems, reported Juventud Rebelde newspaper.

The Intranet´s extension, which is accessible for all higher education centers and eases searching of scientific magazines, specific articles plus the content of Las Villas University works, was materialized Wednesday on the occasion of the 53rd anniversary of this centers foundation.

This facility also has a Vertical File whose sources are on- line dailies and publications to offer extensive political, economic and cultural information.

According to Jose Rivero Diaz, director of the Documentation and Scientific-TechnicalInformationCenter, teachers are able to request certifications of documents through that net from now on.

At present, the Intranet enables consulting the catalogue of the University´s 11 libraries, gives wide and varied information and provides unpublished documents such as theses and dissertations, among other services.

I for one think it is so kind and generous of Fidel to open up his country’s research to the world and allow us access to his University’s intranet. You see, there's nothing to worry about, El Commandante is a knowledge worker just like you and me... so lets celebrate our kinship and spark up a big fat Cohiba! Viva la revolucion! Hasta la Victoria siempre!!

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OMG! I just about fell off my chair laughing.. check out La Prensa’s Gallery biography and the accompanying music (yes, music!) for Che Guevara. Now don’t be shy, really crank this music in the office!