Raising Up the Wikivangelist

When reading chapter 11 of Groundswell: "The Groundswell Inside Your Company," I paid the most attention to the Avenue A/Razorfish case study about collaborating on a wiki. As the AFS-USA Returnee Initiative Communications Group Intern, part of my responsibility is to maintain and energize the Returnee Initiative Wiki Page on the AFS Wiki.

For anyone who does not know what a wiki is (hopefully everyone in my social media marketing class already does), I have turned to Wikipedia for a definition (a site not meant for academic citations, but given the circumstances I feel it is an appropriate resource):

"A wiki (ⁱ /ˈwɪki/ WIK-ee) is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor.^[1][2][3] Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used to create collaborative works. Examples include community websites, corporate intranets, knowledge management systems, and note services. The software can also be used for personal note taking." - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Want a little more clarification? Watch this:

Before my internship with AFS, the only wiki pages I knew of were Wikipedia and WikiHow. I never stopped to think that a wiki could be used for internal collaboration in a company. Now, of course, it makes so much sense. As Li & Bernoff suggest, a wiki is a fantastic venue for a "full-fledged collaboration environment" (p. 220). For AFS, as for Avenue A/Razorfish, an internal wiki is a great way for a complex organization to share, communicate, and collaborate internally.

Courtesy of http://parcepsocialmedia.wikispaces.com/Social+Media+101

The AFS Wiki is relatively advanced and developed already. Its main page includes its logo and banner, AFS' mission, and a relatively clear layout of where to start on the wiki: "Resources for Host Families," "Major AFS Functions," "AFS News," and "Other Menus." These basic directions, as with all well-built wikis, then lead users through a series of linked and connected pages.

The AFS Wiki Main Page

Through the search function, one can find the Returnee Initiative page - my jurisdiction.

My "Wiki-Territory"

As you can probably see, the Returnee Initiative page is not exactly snazzy. That said, it has a lot of potential for improvement and elaboration. I'm looking to Avenue A/Razorfish for inspiration.

Avenue A/Razorfish is one of the largest interactive agencies in the world, according to Groundswell, and its internal wiki has been incredibly successful.

The following slideshare by Shiv Sing describes the Avenue A/ Razorfish Wiki and some reasons why it was so successful, including its reasons for implementation, its features, and its results.

Avenue A | Razorfish Wiki Introduction

View more presentations from Shiv Singh

Besides its well-developed people and project pages, feeds, portlets, and blog features, one reason for the Avenue A/ Razorfish wiki's success is its level of engagement.

Avenue A/Razorfish knew a wiki would benefit its employees, but it didn't force it. As Li & Bernoff suggest, coercion does not work when attempting to engage employees in a wiki. Instead of mandating employees to participate, Avenue A/Razorfish encouraged employees to participate by recruiting "wikivangelists" in each department (p.228).

As Li & Bernoff rightly say, "Just as in external groundswell applications, you have to start by thinking about the relationships, not the technologies" (p.224). That is what Avenue A/Razorfish did with its wikivangelists. Wikis have to be intuitive and encourage participation before they can launch into an effective business tool. Avenue A/Razorfish recognized that its employees were bogged down and created a space where collaboration was easy and transparent. The wiki became the easiest place to communicate and share, and its wikivangelists spread the word organically.

AFS is already doing this in many ways, but in order to further encourage a dynamic wiki page, it will take more than fancy graphics (though I'm sure those would help too). Just as Avenue A/Razorfish created wikivangelists, so should AFS. And maybe I'll just have to be one of them.