John Tropia says “What’s happening is that wikis are actually replacing a process, they are becoming a new way to do group work.” I think the explanation is simpler. To me, wikis represent documents and people understand documents. However, wikis store documents on a web page rather than within a file.

Wikis are tapping into a schema which people already use. After a little introduction it’s easier for people to understand wikis than other social software because they are based on something familiar.

So wikis aren’t necessarily replacing processes but they are replacing directories of documents (and improving navigation among them). People understand documents. They are necessary to get much of their work done. Documents are built into existing processes.

I may hate files, but I absolutely need documents. What I am hoping we will see is a redefinition of document.

Why wikis have more adoption?

What sparked today’s post is a post from Sameer, 2009 is the year of Enterprise 2.0? Hold your horses….

In his post we see that Wikis are gaining more traction. I think this is because they are more:

• group based tools
• based around a task (an environment of certainty)
• help with process failure, and
• don’t require network effects like blogs and social networks …ie. wikis and forums don’t need lots of people to take off, all they require is a small group of people.

Library clips: Do group tools get more traction due to not requiring network effects, and being in the context of certainty