So Mike Cannon-Brookes of Atlassian Software (mentioned previously) has started a new blog — this one focused largely on wikis and Atlassian’s product, Confluence. I’ve seen how Confluence has transformed the way we work together. I know there is huge potential for wikis in the workplace, and Confluence is the best wiki I’ve seen. It’s going to be an interesting ride.
John Udell suggests here (link by way of Tim Bray) that technology products should use wikis as documentation and let users fill it up with tips, tricks, problems and workarounds; he calls it “Open Source Documentation.” He makes an excellent argument, and I can already point at one software company who has this nailed.
Atlassian Software maintains a wiki for both of their products, and as a customer I can vouch that they’re tremendously useful. (Take a look here at the documentation wiki for Confluence.) There are two reasons, I think, that they work so well:
As reported in the NYT, CNN has cancelled CrossFire, specifically referring to John's "Stop hurting America" appearance.
It's hard to know if this is the real story, or if Tucker actually got poached by MSNBC and CNN is just trying to save face. But in any case, CrossFire won't be missed.
As I was trawling around the net for info on SocialText, I also stumbled across JotSpot. It’s another wiki startup, this one run by some former Excite folk. There’s no product yet, just a demo, but the demo is impressive. There are three features, in particular, that I like:
1. It offers wysiwyg editing. This has been the biggest point of resistance in getting other people to adopt the wiki at my day job. A application-style editor would make it so much easier to get people to accept the wiki.
2. Every page has an email address, as well as a URL. So you can CC your emails to a particular page. Confluence does this also, but on a per-space level. I’m not sure which is actually the best approach. I can see the need for both.
3. They’re really focusing on pre-packaged wiki applications. Out of the box, non-developers will be able to do more complex things than just simply publishing info. I can’t see the application gallery yet — but I signed up for the beta, so hopefully I will soon.
So Ross Mayfield was nice enough to email and point me to an running example of the SocialText wiki. And today I found another example on John Udell's blog: http://www.socialtext.net/ourmedia. So if you're interested in seeing a real, live SocialText site, go check it out.
And thanks for the link, Ross.
I'm selling a couple of pieces of old gear:
1. [updated: sold] Acurus 100X3 Power Amp
If you're interested, do let me know.
BTW, I just wanted to point out that while Audiogon is a great service, their searching really sucks. They really need to focus some energy on usabilty.
I want to know why Ross Mayfield's SocialText doesn't have a demo site (like this one).
Some of the things that SocialText talks about sound really interesting. They say, "The first thing we've done has been to integrate Socialtext with email, instant messaging, and Skype." Sounds cool, right? I really want to see how that works. That'd be a compelling feature that we don't currently have. But there's no way to explore further without starting a "30-day free trial." There aren't even any screenshots.
SocialText talks a great game about openness, but they're not following through very well with their website. (Although I do give them props for printing real prices right on the website for God and everybody to see. I absolutely hate software that forces me to talk to a sales person to figure out what it costs. Yet another symptom of this disease.)
John Udell has declared that 2004 was the Year of the Enterprise Wiki (link via Ross Mayfield of SocialText).
Well, it certainly was for us. Here's what went down: Early last year, David and I, following what has now become standard operating procedure, installed a wiki at work without asking anyone. We used it pretty frequently, the other devs on my team used it sporadically, and the rest of the company didn't even know it was there for the first nine months of the year.
But this fall, we had some folks looking for better ways to coordinate projects across development teams. The second time I showed up at a meeting where different people had different revisions of the same Word document in front of them I decided enough was enough. I added all of the project managers (the Word document writers) and gave them each a short tutorial. I also added three project specs actively being developed to the wiki, and insisted that everyone start using that as the canonical reference.
There was some initial resistance, and some loud complaining about how "I'm not a programmer, so you can't possibly expect me to learn a markup language!" But within a week, the project managers had started to edit the documents online, and then quickly started creating new ones. Even those Word docs that were too complicated to turn into wiki pages were moved out of CVS/VSS and into the wiki: it has versioning and makes it possible for non-programmers to find and edit the versioned docs.
As they started CC'ing the wiki URLs to other people in the company I got more and more requests for wiki accounts. Within the month, we had to double our per-seat licenses. And shortly after that, we had to upgrade to unlimited licensing.
Other developers (some of whom I've never even spoken to personally) have been requesting new spaces for their projects. Documentation (valuable, critical stuff that I never would have known how to find) has been going in at a remarkable rate. I stared checking the "recently updated" page in the mornings to see what people were doing, and to make sure they were using the wiki in the best way. By mid-December, there were too many edits and additions to keep up with.
So our experience has been an enormous success. But we're not out of the woods yet. Here are the several issues that remain:
- The security guy is freaking out about the very existence of a wiki.
- There are still several people who want to use RUP, which would knock us back to the stone age of Word docs.
- There are people who would love to kill this project purely out of spite for my team.
But if I can hold these forces at bay, it may yet succeed. The day the first post from HR goes up, I'll know we've won.
I went into my local Barnes & Noble yesterday looking for a book on a specific topic. I was ready to buy one on the spot and take it home to read. I located the right shelf and started browsing. I found one promising title, and then another, and then another. There were at least a dozen that fit my category. And there was no way I could tell whether one was any better than the next.
And I thought: Amazon would give me the reader reviews that would tell me which book I should buy. I'd better just wait until I get back to the computer. And I walked out of B&N, my money still in my pocket.
As I walked away, this seemed to me a fairly significant and revealing sequence of events.
So I'm leaving for Christmas in Birmingham tomorrow. If you're in the area, ring me up.
Here are my plans so far:
- Thursday: Wheels down, 3pm.
- Friday: Panicked last-minute shopping, lunch meeting with Michael about business idea, pick up sister at the airport, dinner out with the fam.
- Saturday: lunch at my parents' house with the extended family. (First year of the new, experimental Not-So-Secret-Santa gift exchange. I'm buying for my Uncle — which was actually pretty easy. I suspect that the name-drawing may not have been strictly random.) Probably go see a movie that evening: The Aviator, Sideways, or A Very Long Engagement.
- Sunday: Church in the morning. Hanging out with John in the evening. (Where should we go?)
- Monday: The big party.
- Tuesday: ??? Another movie?
- Wednesday: Dinner with Abigail, Jill, Claire(?) & Lockett(?).
- Thursday: Hear Katherine and Allison at Workplay with my sister.
- Friday: Wheels up, 1pm.
My flight is at five bloody thirty in the bloody morning. Ugh. I should totally be asleep now, but sleep before midnight just doesn't happen for me. But I'll suppose I should go make an effort.
Jonathan Nolen 