Most students know very little about wikis. If you fall into this
category, then you need to learn a bunch of basic concepts about them.
On February 15, 2006, I went to the Portland Society of Information
Managers club meeting, and about 25 percent of the after-dinner speech was
about wikis. The Society has identified wikis as a disruptive technology—a
new and unruly development likely to cause radical change. About sixty
managers were in the room, and they were asked via a quick show of hands to
indicate who was using wikis. About two-thirds of the people raised their
hands. Most of the wikis these people are using are internal wikis available
only to people within their organization – often the wikis are used to store
and maintain documentation about information systems projects.
Wikis are disruptive because they fundamentally change how ideas
are published: Rather than running ideas through an initial
editorial screening, they publish ideas immediately. Only later does the
real editorial process begin. Poor ideas are removed or improved. Good ideas
are extended. Outstanding ideas fork into new territory or spawn entirely
new partnerships. This lack of editorial screening means ideas do not get
filtered before making it to print. Traditional publishers find this
frightening and fret about hackers or misinformation. Other people find this
liberating.
Wikis are disruptive because they cut across traditional
boundaries. It doesn’t matter where people live—as long as they
share a common interest—they can work on a common wiki. Customers,
suppliers, manufacturers, tinkers, tailors, and candlestick makers can all
join forces without worrying about passwords or other administrative
details. Everyone can team up across time zones without the cost of postage
or phone calls.
Wikis are disruptive because their influence has been spreading so
rapidly. Wikipedia has more top-rated links from Google than any
other website – yet Wikipedia is a volunteer effort that is only a few years
old.
