First of all, a little bit history :), so
what is wiki? Wiki.org defines
wiki as "the simplest online database that could possibly work.", partially inspired by Apple's
HyperCard programming environment, the first wiki software was created in 1995 by Ward Cunningham and named after
wiki-wiki (it means
quick ''''in Hawaiian).' Basically wikis are web pages that anyone can create or edit (usually a person needs to have some permissions). Today the most popular use of wiki is
Wikipedia - the largest, free and quaity online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by volunteers (as of March 2008, Wikipedia has over 10 million articles in 253 languages, comprising a combined total of over 1.74 billion words for all Wikipedias).
I think that if you ever participated on a project that was using wiki, it will be hard not to use it anymore, though it's not ideal of course, it has it's cons and pros.
Advantages of using a wiki:
- Your central storage system - you can save everything your need, and all the document changes are saved as well
- The ease of use and the ease of linking - this makes your knowledge management and sharing an easier task
- It's online, constant awareness - available anywhere where you have an internet connection; as soon as you update the wiki page, everyone, everywhere in the organization, has access to the latest information
- Instant team collaboration - you don't need to send multiple emails with document updates or goal changes to the team.
- Ideal for distributed teams
Disadvantages of using a wiki:'* If projects are big, and a lot of people are contributing it gets messy
- Security - sometimes one password is used for workgroups, it makes easier to hack the online ducuments
- It's harder for non tech-savvies to get used to wiki syntax
- For some wikis installation and backups are confusing
- You need some maintenance in order to avoid "idea soup"
I personally think that you need wiki, and as you see advantages are more valuable, but it's up to you to decide. If you are a mad scientist, working alone, making the new secret design, maybe you don't need a wiki :), if you are not, take a quick look at some of wiki
features that Comindwork has to offer:
- Talk pages - this extremely useful for distributed teams, because manager and team can discuss documents, project tasks and any other pages created in Comindwork
- WYSIWYG editing
- Online document management - insert into pages, tasks any documents related to the project: PDFs, spreadsheets, word documents, slide shows; anything related to the project, don't need to keep it on your hard drive
- RSS feeds - you get instantly informed as changes are made. Effective information management and sharing is critical in today's crazy technology world
- Categories and tagging - advanced wiki features for content linking and tagging to keep team memory organized
- Versions - history comparison charts lets you review the changes made to the wiki page, who mage the changes and when exactly did it happen
- Subsection editing - Comindwork wiki allows editing of a subsection of a page (as identified by its header), this is very useful when editing pages with large amount of information and sections.
- Access - only registered project users can access the documents (roles-based permissions for workflows and wiki pages)
- Backups are made automatically
- Free and no installation needed - just register for a free account
Want to manage your information more effectively? Then come and join
Comindwork Project Management Software, completely free!