How to implement a wiki...

Interesting post today by Michael Indinopulos in his blog (http://michaeli.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/01/supply-and-dema.html) on how wiki's should be driven to creation by the demand side rather than the supply side. In sum,

"The way to do that is to structure or "stub" a wiki in advance--before you invite others to join the wiki. Here's a simple four-step process:

1. Get a small group of core community members to whiteboard a high-level information architecture in the form of a few categories (not more than 4-8) and subcategories (not more than 1-2 levels deep)

2. Create a series of blank pages or "stubs" hyperlinked to reflect the category structure

3. Assign each category to an individual member of the group to flesh out

4. Reconvene in 1-2 weeks to review what everyone has done, share learnings, and revise the category structure"

As a test of this theory, I have recently created a wiki (http://deltasigmapi.wetpaint.com) on wet paint for my professional business fraternity. Obviously, this collaboration tool is needed for synergizing the efforts of 60-70 students working together. I have provided the structure and will let the rest of the form be filled by the members.

Will let you know, how this theory works in implementing this technology to our organization.

Airlines In The Blogosphere

NYTime's article (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/business/29blog.html?em&ex=1201755600&en=bbc180f365e35f87&ei=5087%0A) cites the current use of travel blogs and blogs within the Airline Industry. I can see this being huge in the world of travel as it is a huge word of mouth business. Most interesting was the section where it spoke of Blogs as a vehicle to gauge customer reactions to policy implementations. The article cites "Blogs can also be a quick way to gauge customer reaction to policies. Early last year, Bill Owen, a schedule planner at Southwest, wrote in a post that the airline sold its inventory only three months in advance. But after an outcry online, it changed its policy and now sells tickets at least four months in advance" Interesting in that this mode of delivery, so to speak, is acting as a free test area for companies and also that it is free. One these blogs are attached to the main pages of companies web sites ( as it is at http://blog.delta.com/) then they will surely generate a sufficient amount of traffic and become more and more efficient vehicles to delivery company plans and get a good taste of how successful these implementations will be.

WSJ Article

While exploring the business and technology blogs on wsj.com an interesting CIO magazine article was found that cites one of the main things CIO's need to pay attention to is

" Find ways to integrate Web 2.0 information into BI. Web 2.0 data sources and other unstructured data do not obviate the need for traditional structured data, says Hatch, but they can be used to boost BI efforts. Amassing large sets of historical data reveals trends, performance metrics and specific business calculations: These are the foundation of most BI efforts. But the ability to enhance that historical data with relevant and timely information found in blogs, comments and competitors' websites is becoming more important for delivering actionable information throughout the enterprise."-CIO Magazine (http://www.cio.com/article/170201/Four_Tips_for_Better_Business_Intelligence_in_)

The WSJ article expands on this citing

"he Business Technology Blog agrees with this approach, but we think some fundamental steps also need to be taken within an organization well before the launch of such “intelligent” tools. For one, companies need to make sure that a commitment to business intelligence is adopted from the top down, starting with the CEO. Tom Davenport, a professor at Babson College and an expert in business analytics and intelligence, notes that the CEOs most successful with business intelligence–including Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos and Harrah Entertainment’s Gary Loveman–are mathematically oriented. (Loveman has a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.)

Once a committed CEO is in place, he or she can establish a tone within the company that encourages people to back up their assertions with data. Companies can also establish a formal education program to teach employees about the benefits of using business intelligence and its impact on the business. That CEO can also cite a competitor who is using data to its advantages. Nothing is more motivating than a rival’s success." -WSJ.COM (http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/01/10/intelligence-in-business-isnt-easy/)

Interesting points. It seems that these initiatives need to be started from the top down when really it is the bottom or "grassroots" so to speak portions of the companies that make the tools useful. From my research thus far, it seems the top levels (exec) of these companies have been slow adapters to the new technologies as employees began blogging etc. on their own long before company sponsored blogs appeared.

Some good blogs...

Yesterday, I found a great blog at from Andrew McAfee and the research that he has conducted over at Harvard Business School. His posts are spot on with the type of research that I would like to conduct via Enterprise 2.0.

Among, the more notable posts reveal a link to the recent blog of his friend (Michael Idinopulos) over at transparent office . One this was useful in discerning the distinct difference between "in the flow" wiki's versus "above the flow" wiki's. According to his post,

• In-the-Flow wikis enable people do their day-to-day work in the wiki itself. These wikis are typically replacing email, virtual team rooms, and project management systems.

• Above-the-Flow wikis invite users to step out of the daily flow of work and reflect, codify, and share something about what they do. These wikis are typically replacing knowledge management systems (or creating knowledge management systems for the first time).

Anther useful anticodote I came across citied a wsj.com projection for the amount of e-mail received per person per day and consequently the percentage of time spent managing that e-mail. The results are as follows....

Average number of corporate emails sent and received per person, per day:
2007: 142
2008: 156
2009: 177
2010: 199
2011: 228

Percent of work day spent managing email for the average corporate email user:
2003: 17%
2006: 26%
2009: 41%

This was most interesting to me because most of the research that I have read indicates for the most part a lot of this enterprise 2.0 technology will essentially enable e-mail to be reduced as work will be conducted via more synergistic platforms (such as wiki's). I doubt this projection took these emerging workspaces into effect and plotted e-mail usage strictly on a linear platform.
Back to the first post I mentioned, I just wanted to touch upon one more post that Professor McAfee has published concerning his time spent with heads of HR of various firms and their response to the Enterprise 2.0 technologies (see People, Computers and People People post). To me it was personally staggering that "HR executives uniformly felt that their companies would not allow their websites to include a ‘community’ section where customers could hold discussions, post issues, and help each other find solutions." This could be a consequence of the characteristics of the generations currently in those decision making positions not ready to "embrace" the change of bringing effective social interaction via the web. This will be interesting to see how perspective of HR change as the technology becomes more embedded within society (i.e facebook)

It has begun...

My name is Jason Bomberger and I am currently a eighth semester honors MIS major at the University of Connecticut. For my senior thesis I have decided to conduct an investigation into the emerging world of Web Enterprise 2.o and its implications. For the purposes of my research I will be utilizing this blog to track my progress as well as current research, sources, and conclusions as this project evolves.

Defined as "a term describing social software used in "enterprise" (business) contexts. It includes social and networked modifications to company intranets and other classic software platforms used by large companies to organize their communication. In contrast to traditional enterprise software, which imposes structure prior to use, this generation of software tends to encourage use prior to providing structure." For the purposes of this research I will solely focus on the blog, wiki, bliki, social networking tools, RSS signaling, prediction markets and podcasting tolls currently implemented in organizations.

Based on my initial research, I truly believe that these tools are going to dramatically change the business landscape concerning how it is conducted and the efficiency of information and communication inside and outside the business as a whole. There are however dramatic implications as well as cautionary measures that need to be strictly implemented as in any technological implementation. Nevertheless, the potential is there as these tools should be come more and more prevalent across the business landscape...