The Challenges of Company Wikis
The Challenges of Company Wikis
Before I attended IE Business School I worked for The Boeing Company in the Space & Intelligent Systems sector. To quickly summarize my responsibilities, I helped design, build, test, and launch satellites for both commercial and government customers. Working in a highly technical field for a big corporation a significant portion of my time was spent on one of two things:
1) Documenting my knowledge or experiences on a specific subject.
2) Searching for information or knowledge on a specific subject using a variety of methods and tools (servers, internet, intranet).
I became an engineer to build, design, & create and as such, I found both of these tasks to be as boring as they sound. However, after spending years in the industry, I came to understand the importance of both of these tasks in order for a large company like Boeing to continually build successful high-tech products. In order to accomplish these tasks, most large companies, including Boeing, are moving towards web or enterprise 2.0 tools such as: internal knowledge-management databases, wikis, or intranets.1 These tools are all working to effectively and efficiently create a one-stop shop for employees to share or obtain information from past experiences in hopes of not “reinventing the wheel”, as the jargon goes.
The challenge I want to approach is how companies can build and manage one of these digital projects so that it succeeds in accomplishing what it was set out to do, specifically internal wikis.
As an intern in 2007, I was tasked with the job of conceptualizing and building Boeing’s internal wiki along with 3 other interns and a project manager. A wiki is a web application that allows people to add, modify, or delete content in collaboration with others.2 As interns, it was almost impossible for us to fully understand what users (employees) really wanted from the wiki. It was also a challenge for us to conceptualize a manner in which to design
Before I attended IE Business School I worked for The Boeing Company in the Space & Intelligent Systems sector. To quickly summarize my responsibilities, I helped design, build, test, and launch satellites for both commercial and government customers. Working in a highly technical field for a big corporation a significant portion of my time was spent on one of two things:
1) Documenting my knowledge or experiences on a specific subject.
2) Searching for information or knowledge on a specific subject using a variety of methods and tools (servers, internet, intranet).
I became an engineer to build, design, & create and as such, I found both of these tasks to be as boring as they sound. However, after spending years in the industry, I came to understand the importance of both of these tasks in order for a large company like Boeing to continually build successful high-tech products. In order to accomplish these tasks, most large companies, including Boeing, are moving towards web or enterprise 2.0 tools such as: internal knowledge-management databases, wikis, or intranets.1 These tools are all working to effectively and efficiently create a one-stop shop for employees to share or obtain information from past experiences in hopes of not “reinventing the wheel”, as the jargon goes.
The challenge I want to approach is how companies can build and manage one of these digital projects so that it succeeds in accomplishing what it was set out to do, specifically internal wikis.
As an intern in 2007, I was tasked with the job of conceptualizing and building Boeing’s internal wiki along with 3 other interns and a project manager. A wiki is a web application that allows people to add, modify, or delete content in collaboration with others.2 As interns, it was almost impossible for us to fully understand what users (employees) really wanted from the wiki. It was also a challenge for us to conceptualize a manner in which to design