Knowledge to go

In my role as a part-time HR Technology instructor I have been a user and quasi-administrator of a wiki platform called Confluence, a product of the Atlassian company based in Australia.  We have used Confluence in the class to organize the course content, share information on assignments, post readings and presentations, and provide the students the opportunity to learn in a more hands-on way, what a common enterprise collaboration tool looks and feels like. 

Thousands of organizations use Confluence for wiki collaboration, and there is an active and vibrant developer community surrounding Confluence that continues to produce useful and innovative extensions and enhancements. 

Last week I noticed a post on the Confluence corporate blog about the release of 'Mini Confluence', aImage source - www.miniconfluence.com new mobile client for either the iPhone or the Android, that allows enterprise users of the Confluence wiki and collaboration platform to view and update content, interact with colleagues via status updates, and tailor the interface to keep track of contributions and comments from key colleagues and teams while you are on the go. 

For enterprises that have adopted Confluence as their knowledge repository, collaboration platform, or organizational intranet, the ability to deploy a functional and effective mobile application to the iPhone and Android (BlackBerry is also supported via a mobile web interface), further enhances and improves the creation, sharing, and discovery of information and expertise anywhere employees happen to be.

And organizations that do elect to adopt and deploy modern, fast, and highly functional mobile versions of enterprise collaboration tools will likely further strengthen their ability to act, react, and execute on new opportunities and ideas faster and better than their competitors that are stuck in the old dispensation.

So if you are in an organization that has yet to materially embrace new ways of working and new collaborative tools like Confluence and others, it is certainly fair to say that you are behind your competition that likely has done so.  But don't forget that while you continue to rely on your tried and true methods (email, private instant messaging, labyrinthine shared network drives), your competition continues to move forward. 

It could be that they are not just collaborating and creating more effectively than you are while in the office, they are beating you from wherever they go.  And the longer you wait, the gap just keeps getting larger.

Innovation in the Classroom

This week I have the opportunity to participate and present at two sessions at the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Faculty Institute on Teaching and Learning (FITL).

FITL is an annual two-day conference, where faculty members at RIT present to other RIT faculty (and this year to selected faculty from Nazareth College, SUNY Geneseo, Syracuse and other local colleges) on new research and the application of technology in the teaching process, while recognizing, sharing and celebrating teaching excellence at RIT.

On Wednesday, May 27 I will be participating in a panel discussion, ‘Using a Wiki in Your Online, Blended or Campus Course: RIT Faculty Explain Why, When and How’.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am a huge proponent of wikis for use as a teaching and learning tool, and have made extensive use of the technology in my recent classes. In this panel, I along with three other RIT faculty members will discuss how wikis were used in our classes, offer some advice and recommendations for introducing wikis into a class, and finally do a brief demonstration of the wikis that were used in our recent classes.

As my last class did so many fantastic things in the wiki, I am really looking forward to the chance to ‘show-off’ their work a bit to a larger audience.

Then on Thursday, May 28 I will be co-presenting and facilitating a session titled, ‘Fostering Innovation at RIT: Best Practice Tools and Techniques’ with RIT Professor Donna Dickson.

This session reviews some leading theories on innovation, introduces some strategies and approaches that faculty may introduce to encourage increased student innovation, and finally discusses some specific tactics and methods that I personally have used in my classes to try and encourage more innovative practices.

My part of the session is mostly about the various ‘community outreach’ efforts that I have employed, facilitated certainly by use of social media (this blog, Twitter, SlideShare, etc.), to expand the depth and breadth of the course content. Some of the specific aspects I will discuss are my partnerships with the HR Technology vendor community, (SpectrumHR, Halogen, Tomoye), my use of this blog, and finally a bit on the vibrant community of HR and HR Technology professionals on Twitter that I have been able to ‘tap' for advice, support, and expertise that have all directly improved my knowledge, and the quality of the HR Technology course.

It should be a fun two days, and I am interested in seeing how the audience of faculty takes to some of the more unorthodox approaches that I have used in class. Hopefully, I can win some more ‘converts’ to the cause of technology, community participation, and transparency.

Trapped in a Box

The company organization chart.

Every company has one. There is an entire class of software applications to help companies generate them, (my favorite is OrgPublisher from Aquire), and maintaining them and making sure all the correct names are in the correct boxes and the lines are all connected properly can be a full-time job in larger organizations.

In some organizations the chart is sort of a sacred document, informing managers and employees of crucial information like who is in charge of what, how many folks do job 'XYZ', and who might be the likely successors for a given person if they were to move to a different position, or leave the organization.

But organization charts, can be limiting, and can effectively 'trap' individuals and teams by defining them in too Flickr - Stefannarrowly drawn roles. If the culture of the organization is not inherently 'open' or 'collaborative', then the chart is a tool that can also serve to maintain separation in the organization. If your position on the organization chart is Web Designer reporting to the Marketing team, then you do web design work for marketing, and may not typically get much exposure to the web designers that work on the company's internal sites or intranet, as the responsibility for those functions falls elsewhere in the organization.

With the growing popularity and increase in the easy availability of tools and technologies to facilitate collaboration and communication, it seems very likely that many medium to large organizations have multiple, and isolated activities underway to explore and deploy these kinds of tools.

A mid-sized organization that I am familiar with has at least four different wiki platforms deployed in various parts of the organization. These are all set up, maintained and administered locally, and some are successful and some are not. But even the successful ones do not really have much of a chance to impact or influence the broader organization, chiefly because of the culture and the strict adherence to the organization chart. The company does not have the ability to 'break free' from the constraints of the chart, and individual local administrators of these wikis are not allowed or encouraged to work with other parts of the organization to share information and potentially work towards developing a solution that may benefit the organization as a whole.

It is actually very ironic that the recent availability and relative ease of adoption of tools to promote collaboration are bringing to light the lack of collaboration across this organization.

The number of tools for collaboration and communication are growing everyday, but if the organization still clings to the org chart, like construction crews cling to blueprints when erecting a building, then in many cases the full potential of these tools will never be realized.

Wiki Lessons

The third session of my HR Technology course is winding down, and the final class 'Wiki as intranet'project is coming together really well.  The students have really embraced the technology and have created some really outstanding content, and have extended the 'core' functionality by embedding video, chat rooms, polls, and presentations.

In my experience using wikis as a class tool as well as deploying wikis in the organization for faculty use there are a few key considerations and lessons learned that are important to understand if you plan on introducing wikis to your class or organization.

1. If Wikis are new to your program or organization, chances are 90% of the students and staff will have never 'used' a Wiki, beyond reading entries on Wikipedia.

2. Even though Wikis are touted as simple, no-training-required tools, doing more than adding simple text will initially require demonstration and review for most non-technical users.

3. Wikis that make as simple as possible the steps for embedding video, slide shows, Flickr images, chat, and polls (love Zoho Polls for this), will be most effective in the classroom

4. For the best chances of adoption of the Wiki as the primary class or organization communication platform, put everything on the Wiki. for your class this means Syllabus, course overview, assignments, presentations, and any 'sign-ups' should all be Wiki pages. Encourage the class to post questions and comments everywhere. For an organization wiki, meeting agendas, minutes, project plans, status reports and announcements should all be placed on the wiki.

5. For a class, old habits are still hard to break, you may need to 'cross-post' for a time in both the Wiki and the old course management system. Certain items like the gradebook still have to reside in the CMS. Try not to make the students have to bounce back and forth between the two platforms too often. In your organization, you may still need to resort to e-mail blasts to be sure important announcements are getting seen, while you are building wiki awareness and use.  If you do resort to e-mail, be sure to 'cross-post' to the wiki and provide a link the the associated wiki page in the e-mail message.

6. Keep the wiki alive even after the class or project ends. There's lots of good information there. Figure out a way to keep it accessible for students in the future. In an organization this is less of an issue, but be mindful of 'stagnation', many wikis start out with a flurry of activity, then sort of slowly die out as the novelty wears off.

I am absolutely convinced that Wikis are an incredibly effective tool for almost all class activities, with the added bonus of giving the students exposure and experience to a technology they will see in the workplace. In fact, a current student has already implemented her own company-wide wiki for here small business, largely based on the experience and lessons learned from using the class wiki.

These tips and observations are really vendor neutral, I have implemented wikis from Socialtext, Confluence, and PbWiki, and while they all have their individual strengths and weaknesses, they all support the essentials for class or organizational use.

What are your best tips, tricks and observations from using wiki?

Wikis for your Class (or team)

I am almost midway through a new HR Technology class and the 'Wiki as intranet' project is just starting to get going, I thought it would be a good time to review some of my key findings and observations on the wiki-based class project and some overall observations about Wiki use in the classroom.Flickr - cogdogblog

Honestly, these observations on wiki adoption also apply to any internal organizations as well, I have rolled out wikis for my faculty group and another internal workgroup and have seen many of these same types of issue.

Overview

I am on my third different wiki platform, (SocialText, PbWiki, Confluence), and while they all have their unique strength and weaknesses, the observations below are valid for all three, and I suspect any other platform you could use.  There are two main areas to consider for your class, adoption and administration.

Adoption

1. If Wikis are new to your program, chances are 90% of the students will have never 'used' a Wiki, beyond reading entries on Wikipedia. You will have to devote class time to 'teaching' wiki.

2. You should make wiki use 'required'.  Mandate use of wiki for specific projects, activities, discussions, etc.

3. Even though Wikis are touted as simple, no-training-required tools, doing more that adding simple text will initially require demonstration and review for most non-technical students.

4. Wikis that make as simple as possible the steps for embedding video, slide shows, Flickr images, chat, and polls (love Zoho Polls for this), will be most effective in the classroom.  Too much 'code' to accomplish these tasks will hurt your adoption plans.

5. For the best chances of adoption of the Wiki as the primary class communication platform, put everything on the Wiki. Syllabus, course overview, assignments, presentations, and any 'sign-ups' should all be Wiki pages. Encourage the class to post questions and comments everywhere.

Administration

1. Get yourself trained!  As the instructor or wiki evangelist, you need to be sure you understand, can demonstrate, and clearly articulate the use, benefits, and nuts and bolts of the tool. Students in particular will get quickly frustrated when they encounter technical issues that you can't quickly help them resolve.

2. Old habits are still hard to break, you may need to 'cross-post' for a time in both the Wiki and the old course management system. Certain items like the gradebook still have to reside in the CMS. Try not to make the students have to bounce back and forth between the two platforms too often.

3. While all students are used to group projects, probably none of them will quickly warm up to the concept of 'real-time' editing and  commenting on other's content that is the foundation of wiki. You may need to 'push' to get them more actively collaborating in that fashion.

4. Keep the wiki alive even after the class ends. There's lots of good information there. Figure out a way to keep it accessible for students in the future.

I am absolutely convinced that Wikis are a much more effective tool for almost all class activities, with the added bonus of giving the students exposure and experience to a technology they will see in the workplace.  I have had several students comment at the end of class that the wiki experience was the most beneficial aspect of the class, and that they had plans to implement wiki technologies in their organizations.

If you have used wikis in your class, post a comment and let me know your thoughts.