We are all familiar with Wikipedia, and have come across it often as we search the internet. It is the largest encyclopedia ever compiled by man. The incredible thing about Wikipedia is that its content is entirely contributed collaboratively by volunteers – lay users like you and me. The reason why volunteers participate is the incredible simplicity of the underlying “wiki software” ( “wiki” is Hawaiian for “quick”). The site is comprised of web pages anyone can make changes to, as simply as typing into Text Pad. As soon changes are saved, they are available to everyone across the globe. Talk about simple collaboration!
Wikis and Your Business
The Wikipedia success story certainly has great lessons and applications for businesses – especially small businesses. Collaboration is the heart and soul of successful business in today’s age – to be able to work together effectively in a network of employees, teams, partners, vendors and customers. Wiki software allows companies to do this with incredible ease – as simply as getting on a collaborative group wiki web page, adding content, and saving it to be instantly available to everyone else in the group.
Of course, company wikis need to have more structure and policy controls than a public wiki, like Wikipedia. Only members have access to a workspace wiki, and there are tools to track the collaboration process.
Wiki Features
- Create highly customized group wikis with branding, HTML code, and collaboration modules.
- Create unlimited group wikis sites for internal or external groups with as many interlinked wiki pages as you like.
- Create policy controls around group wikis. Manage access permissions, and define role based access level.
- Track collaboration by automatically recording the history of changes to your wiki pages, and who made changes.
- Choose to get notified whenever changes are made to any wiki page.