Get organized quick-like with a wiki
Jen Maney -- School Library Journal, 3/4/2009
You’ve got a lot of people working on a big project. No, a really Big Project (with a capital B and P). It’s one of those community-wide projects, which means you have the added complication that no one works for the same organization. Yet each person has a piece of the project, and they all need to know about each others’ pieces. Since they aren’t co-workers, they don’t have a shared area for files. How can they easily share their pieces? They could email the docs around to everybody, adding to our collective email misery. Please don’t. There is a better way. It’s called a wiki.
A wiki is basically just a community-built Web site, consisting of pages that anyone using it can modify or edit. The most famous, of course, is Wikipedia, and you probably have mixed feelings about it. Don’t let that stop you. Embrace the wiki! You’ll be glad you did. Wikis are super-easy to use. They allow people to create pages, share content, leave notes for each other, have threaded discussions, and in general, keep ideas, projects, and whatever you’re working on organized electronically.
There are many free wikis out there. One of the best ways to find a wiki suitable to your needs is to use Wikimatrix. Do you want to host a wiki on your servers? Maybe use a freebie online? Wikimatrix will allow you to compare the varieties of wikis available – start with the Choice Wizard.
My worksite has been using Wetpaint wikis to communicate, share and store information. We used a Wetpaint wiki to host a state-wide Learning 2.0 Project (yes, it definitely had a capital P), called Baker’s Dozen: Learning 2.0 Arizona. Some of the things I like about Wetpaint are:
Easy setup – So easy that others think you are some sort of magician or genius, which makes you feel sort of good, even if you don’t deserve it.
Clean interface – It’s attractive, and hey, that makes me (and more importantly, the people I need to work with) want to use it. Major plus.
Branding – My own header and logo at the top? I’m there!
Photos – We all love photos. Enough said.
Social networking stuff – User profiles, friending, messaging among users, sending compliments. This makes it fun. Fun = Happier people = More likely to work = More productive = You get the idea.
Embedding widgets – You remember widgets, don’t you? Wetpaint makes adding widgets for videos, chat boxes, games and slideshows easy-cheesy (adding to your status as the resident magician or genius).
Ability to be Private or Public – Keep your wiki hidden from search engines for those projects that you only want the committee to see. Or open up your wiki to the world by making it public.
Discussion – The discussion forum can get messy, no doubt, but I love having one place to go for discussion about a project, because I can get back to it easily and search it. It’s a lot easier than trying to find that email I remember getting a couple of weeks ago…
So next time you find yourself heading up a Big Project that seems a little overwhelming, think wiki, and get yourself, and others, organized!
Jen Maney is the Virtual Library Manager for Pima County Public Library in Tucson, Arizona. The motto of the Virtual Library is, "Designing for uncertainty."
