Casey is another of the team that works in your office. Casey always seems to be up in the news and what's going on in the technology arena is something you overhear her talking about often. After a meeting you ask her what her opinion is on a solution that could deal with this problem.
Casey: Well, I've been thinking about it and chatting with some of my friends. I think the best approach would be to go to one of the on-line sites that offer hosting of wiki sites. I think a wiki could give us what we want without having to worry about installing software or getting those yahoos in the IT group involved.
You: Ok. I have a few questions. What are you talking about and what is a wiki? And why would we want to use something that isn't here in the company?
Casey: Well. A wiki is a web site that anyone can go in and update. We would want to use one of the services that would give us the ability to limit who can edit the information. So you, Wally, me, everyone in the office would have an account and we could go in and make changes to the information.
Casey pauses. She seems to see a lost expression on your face.
Ok. Let me start over. Let's say that we wanted to setup a wiki. We bring up our web browser and go to something like (this is just an example) www.wikis-R-us.com and we setup a wiki. It's like setting up a blank web page on their system. We setup accounts for all of us and we go in and just as if we were working with your word processor you would add or update information on the web pages. You don't need to know anything about how to make a web page. The wiki software running on the server does all of that. All you have to do is type in information just as if you were building a document on your PC. It's all typing and clicking buttons. And then you save the changes. And they are up there for any of us to see.
The neat thing about this is we don't have to install any software here since all you need to use on our end is just a web browser. And we've got that. It wouldn't take me more than ten minutes to show anyone in the office how to add and edit information on a wiki. Like I said it's just like doing a word processing document but it's saved to the server rather than on your PC.
So, another advantage is that all of the information is on their server. We don't have to worry about security or backing up the files since they already do that for us. Only people with the accounts would be able to make changes. And because this is web based you can be entering a new client while the rest of the office is looking up information or doing updates to existing customers, etc.
You: But that'll mean that all of our information will be out there where everyone can see it, right?
Casey: That's one option. But some companies do offer wiki services that are controlled as to who can see what. So we could get one of those if anyone is worried about it. I don't see any reason since it's not like the contact information to that group who does the sound and music work for us from time to time is secret or anything. They're all over the web; they are listed in everything from Google to MySpace to Facebook. So if someone stumbled across our wiki and found that to call those guys you just use this phone number doesn't matter. I can get the same phone number off of their company web site. We aren't trying to keep secret information here. We are just trying to keep the information in one place that each of us can get to and can update when we need. Not to keep it from outsiders.
You: Huh, so you think we can learn how to use a miki?
Casey: It's wiki, not miki. And yea. It's very easy to use.
You: Ok. So we don't need any software installed. Is there any cost for this? I can't believe that all of this is free. Why wouldn't just about everyone out there be setting up wikis all over the place.
Casey: Well, there are companies that will charge us for this. But those are more of the people who have additional setups (like limiting who can see the information). But there are a number of free sites out there that we can go setup a wiki right now. A couple of months ago some friends and I used a wiki to plan a camping trip. We not only used it to plan out where we were going, but also who was bringing what, and what we were going to do during the three days we were at the camp site.
You and Casey had to stop the interview as other people wanted to use the conference room. You continued to talk as you walked down the hall but it was just to confirm what she had already told you.
Now you can go ahead and look at a summary of lessons learned from your Casey interview.
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