I started commenting on Angela White’s blog, but realized I was writing a little more then just a comment, so I’ll put my response here.
Angela was commenting today (Trying… to… nudge… the… Wiki… along…) on the difficulties of putting all the time and energy into laying out a wiki for her organization to use, but then what? Do they ever look at it? Do they contribute to it? Do they even care about it? And if not…..HOW DO WE MAKE THEM?!?!?
I’ve been struggling with these questions myself. It’s great and disheartening to hear someone else going through the same experiences. Here we are as designers, developers, trainers, etc. excited about the possibilities offered from some of these Web 2.0 apps, but trying to get the co-workers who are still baffled by email to even look at them is challenging.
After my “successful” wiki attempt last week, I put that in quotes because yes it did get input and some did jump in and really enjoy the new format, I heard someone today say they were afraid to use it. “What if someone changes what I write in?” “I was afraid I would mess it up.” “What if someone knew it was me that put in that comment?”
I’m lost in this process as well. As Angela pointed out from Tony Karrer’s piece today “Leading a Horse to a Fire Hose” just because we think it is important and point them to it weekly, daily, hourly, should we expect them to see as we do, the significant relevance of the tool or information. If we do expect them to “drink” up the information then as Angela ask how do we get them to buy in to the concept.
I’ll be interested to see if she does try the “this is the only option” method. Sounds good…a little dictatorshipish (word?) but a solid idea. I’m not sure if my initial method was a good idea either…starting small with a one page wiki. Get the potential users to submit ideas on a wiki for the next Staff Appreciation Day, or New Ideas for the Cafeteria Menu, or the Best Route to Get to Work. Get them use to the idea of what a wiki is, does and can deliver.
Get them excited or at least use to the concept and move them on to something a little larger. I actually had our CNO come to me today saying how excited she was to go to a conference yesterday with other CNO and suggest they use a wiki for something. You should have seen her beam with pride when she told me “I was the only one in the room that knew what a wiki was and I explained how we could use it.” Ahhh does my little training heart good.
I’m excited to see where Angela and I get in a year from now with our Wikis. Maybe you’ll see us co-presenting at an eLearning Guild conference on “Getting Your Staff to Use Their Wikis“.
There is a different approach you should consider using: a graphical Wiki, such as Kerika.
Kerika lets you sketch out your project on digital pages, then drag and drop your content (files, pictures, bookmarks) onto these pages, and share them with anyone you like. No need to set up a server; just download the application for your Windows, Mac or Linux computer and you are up and running in just a couple of minutes.
With Web 2.0 you cannot (easily) work offline and you have no privacy at all…
Thank you so much for the information of Kerika. I’ll have to give that one a try perhaps on our next project. We would like to get the management staff to use another wiki format of some sort while they still have some interest/excitement for the tool.
Hi Tracy,
Well, I’m getting my content up. I have my big presentation in two weeks. I totally get what you are saying about sounding like a dictator. 🙂 I think I was a little frustrated when I wrote that…
I’m actually hoping to have a value-added site which offers more than they can get anywhere else. I think most of our training web pages are so old that anything new would be welcomed. As for getting the SMEs to participate – well, that will be another thing!
I like what you said about seeing what we can do in a year’s time. That gave me some perspective – like it doesn’t all have to happen over night to be successful! Thanks so much.