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SharePoint or Wiki?

Archimedes famously told us that with a long enough lever and fulcrum to rest it on, he could move the world. The story of designing next generation intranets that are based on social computing principles, what some call, "intranet 2.0", is also locked in a similar paradox: in theory just about any Web-based collaboration or information sharing tool has the potential to be a social computing platform, if only we have enough time and budget for its development.

Microsoft SharePoint is a great case in point. Massively successful, the free version of the SharePoint 2007 family, known as Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS), has slipped into organisations and has found itself embraced by users and IT departments alike. In many organisations, SharePoint may have been the first collaboration solution they had experienced as an improvement to networked file shares and email.

However, Wikis have also grabbed the attention of many organisations. Despite being a decade old technology, it was against the background of the Web 2.0 that Wikis finally appeared on the corporate radar. They offered a revolutionary "every page is editable" alternative to expensive or rigid Web and document management systems. And just like Windows SharePoint Services, there are many 'free' wiki software options available as open source.

via headshift.com

You can now read the full version (with a few additional notes) of my recent Image & Data Manager (IDM) magazine article that compares Microsoft SharePoint with Wikis over on the Headshift Australasia blog. This article was published in the May/June 2009 edition of IDM.

Articles, Presentations & Papers

This is a consolidated list of my articles, presentations and papers:

Television Interviews

Presentations (Selection Only)

Published Articles

  • Social innovation gardening, Local Government Focus, August 2009 - The exciting dimension of Government 2.0 is the impact it can have on communities where Local Government is at the front line, along with other community service agencies and organisations.
  • Writing our own Us Now story - a guest post on the Pool, July 2009 - they asked me to blog about the Us Now film, the Sydney screening and how it all came about.
  • A case of the Twitters?, Government News, May 2009 - Councils are defined by their geographic areas, but the nature of the relationships with their communities has changed.

The following published articles have all appeared in Image & Data Magazine:

  • Rage against the machine, January/February 2010. Argues why a user-centred design approach is needed to effectively deal with the challenge of managing email in the enterprise.
  • SharePoint or Wiki?, May/June 2009. Looks at the best enterprise option when it comes to social computing - is it SharePoint or Wiki?
  • The Enterprise RSS Value Chain [also published under the title, Enterprise RSS benefits go ignored], November/December 2008 - Along the way, an important allied Web 2.0 technology has been largely neglected. This technology is Enterprise RSS and if you can understand how to harness it, the possibilities are endless.
  • Looking for Intranet 2.0 [also published under the title, Too Cool for School], September/October 2008 - Information and knowledge management "cool hunters" have been peering out over the firewall and observing how the consumer led innovation of Web 2.0 is changing the way we use, contribute and interact with information on the Internet.
  • Patrolling the Web 2.0 borderline (PDF, 180KB), July/August 2008 - So is the read/write web a friend or foe to information management? A look at the implications for corporate IS.
  • Knowledge Management: How to separate the wheat from the chaff (PDF, 108KB), March/April 2006 - The demise of knowledge management has been predicted by many, but while we may be uncomfortable with what has to be one of the most poorly defined management concepts, the fact is that the "knowledge" problem in organisations will not go away.
  • Small World! (PDF, 89KB), November/December 2005 - The influence of social network concepts continue to manifest themselves in many different areas of business. From understanding who knows who to viral marketing, organisations are finding legitimate uses for putting conversations and informal connections to work in the search for competitive advantage.
  • In The Know And On the Move (PDF, 89KB), July/August 2005 - It has been said that knowledge knows no boundaries. But as knowledge workers begin to access technologies like personal area networks, wireless broadband, Voice over IP and 3G, can we finally say the same about knowledge management and make it truly mobile?
  • Wiki - The New Facilitator? (PDF, 121KB), May/June 2005 - Is the wiki about to revolutionise team work, communication and how we collaborate in organisations? A wiki is a server program that allows users to collaborate in forming the content of a Website. Wikis are quick, simple and effective whenever people need to share information, but what exactly makes the wiki such a good collaborative tool and should mature IT applications, platforms and architectures be thrown out in favor of the new kid on the block?
  • Use it or lose it (PDF, 113KB), January/February 2005 - IT gets quite a rough ride these days. In recent years the failure and difficulties of rolling out major information systems in organisations have all received a great deal of attention in the media. Meanwhile critics, like Nicholas Carr, have also emerged as the champions of disgruntled end-users who challenge the competitive role of IT in business and argue that it is now just a commodity. But if this is the case, why do we still hear about innovative IT solutions that exceed expectations or achieve widespread adoption? Usability is claimed by some as the missing factor that can make or break a new technology but the real question is to ask if this is so, how do we know?
  • The Search for the Perfect Intranet (PDF, 108KB), November/December 2004 - Anyone involved with intranet development will confirm that they are very much a product of their environment. Every organisation leaves a distinct fingerprint on the design, implementation and management of their internal Web space. So is there a perfect intranet for your organisation? By James Dellow and Leigh Moyle.
  • A Meeting of Minds (PDF, 94KB), July/August 2004 - The technology to ease collaboration in business – both internally and externally – is readily available, but it seems the Australian business community is yet to be convinced of its merits.

 

Papers

 

Other Articles (Selection Only)

These downloads and presentations are kindly hosted by Box.net, Scribd and SlideShare.

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