I have been pushing wikis at work the last few months as I mentioned in a previous post called another wiki use case. Every time I mention the word to anyone outside of my architect team I either get blank stares or I get the rolling eyes followed by laughter. Today I even got a "I guess we'll see a blog about wikis" followed by laughter. What is so funny about Wiki anyways?
We are rolling out a new version of our brand new B2B portal in the near future. We were discussing online help and I recommended we use a wiki help system. We are currently creating another large user manual that nobody will ever read. We can take that manual, open it with OpenOffice Word 2.3 and export it to MediaWiki format. Then we can host it from an install of MediaWiki specifically for our B2B portal. Then from the Help function on the B2B portal we can link right to our wiki and just like that we have clickable online help at no additional cost.
Ok, I hear you laughing. Well if this is so funny then how come some of the most popular websites in the world have wiki-style help? They may be using more sophisticated technology like Adobe RoboHelp 7, but the look and feel is similar.
Here are a few screen shots of wiki-style help from some popular web sites.
So if wiki is not funny at Amazon, eBay, and Southwest, why is it so funny at my shop? I guess we need to get out more!
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My favorite sayings
"If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there"
"Before you build a better mouse trap, make sure you have some mice"
"Before you build a better mouse trap, make sure you have some mice"
