I've found that the biggest "aha!" comes when people realize that their documents in Word are a barrier to wikification, and that the wiki provides a better solution than Word documents. I've been talking to people and if I see a Word doc printed on someone's desk, or better yet, on their computer desktop, it's an entre into a better way of doing docs. Although the Socialtext frontpage graphic shows how wikis get rid of email flooding, I'm finding that it's Word doc overload that is causing the most consternation. Following are a couple of ways I'm getting traction for wiki adoption outside of the programming department.

What I've been telling people is: "The ONLY time you should create a Word doc is if you care whether and how your text fits on an 8½"x11" sheet of paper. If not, put it on the wiki." Further, I've offered "If you find yourself opening Word, call me up and I'll help talk you out of it."

Meetings

Linda was hosting a meeting, and typed up her agenda in Word and handed it out at the meeting. I talked to her about how if that agenda was in a wiki page called "Foo Project meeting 2007-08-01", she could put the agenda there. Then, print out the page and hand that out at the meeting. It might not look as pretty as a Word doc, but did that really matter? Plus, it allows her to distribute the agenda easily beforehand with a link to the page in the meeting invitation in Exchange/Notes/iCal/whatever.

Then, meeting followup becomes new content on the page. Add a new H1 for Attendance, another H1 for Action Items, another for Meeting Notes, or what have you. The page becomes a history of the meeting, from before it existed until well after.

Ongoing status reports

I've been talking to our purchasing department, and keeping long-term status on problem vendors has been an easy sell. We might have one to three years of information about a vendor, and the ability to incrementally add to that status, in one central repository, made eyes light up.

These are really great suggestions, Andy. Thanks!

contributed by Luke Closs on Aug 1 7:22pm

Thanks, Luke. It's interesting to see the wiki uptake from the user side, not the programmer or sysadmin side.

contributed by Andy Lester on Aug 1 8:06pm

I agree! Fancy formatting doesn't matter for things like meeting agendas or drafts of documents written in collaboration. If the text needs fancy formatting later, then anyone on the wiki can grab that text, export it to Word, and make it pretty.

By the way, I'm editing this page with Socialtext Unplugged!

_ Liz Henry_

The switch from the idea of bolding and upsizing the font for headings, to simply using =heading= to denote structural meaning, is a big shift I'm finding. The rewards of having headings (automatic TOC, editable sections) makes it worth it, though, once I show them.

contributed by Andy Lester on Aug 3 8:15am