Wikis Change The Meaning Of "Groupthink"

January 10th, 2007

Erica Driver

With contributors:

Claire Schooley , Lucy Fossner , Charlene Li , Connie Moore , Robert Whiteley III

Summary

Wikis have the potential to streamline a diverse range of business activities: developing documentation and policies; creating meeting agendas and minutes; writing course syllabi; preparing reports; doing competitive analysis; developing new products; brainstorming ideas or strategies; and much more. Early adopters use wikis internally and with customers and partners to do what no other widely available collaboration or content authoring tool allows them to do: seamlessly capture the output of human minds working collectively toward a common goal. While wikis are not suitable for authoring documents that require a high level of precision, auditability, and rigor, wikis will transform how information workers capture knowledge and collaborate. Wiki technology adoption will accelerate rapidly during the next 12 to 18 months, but wiki software products will not survive as a standalone segment of the technology market. Wiki technology is already beginning to function as the basis of basic business applications and is being absorbed into enterprise content management (ECM) suites and enterprise collaboration platforms.

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