Striking a blow for a corporate wiki

People at companies large and small almost always roll their eyes in response to the prospect of setting up a wiki. Ask anyone. They’ll tell you developing and collecting knowledge and making it available to every colleague are major challenges. The sorrows are often about endless development times, complicated authorization procedures or lack of interest.

We went on a quest for something simple to implement and easy to fill with content. After a round of research we stumbled upon an article posted by 6wunderkinder – they faced the same challenges and built an elegant solution using Kirby in combination with Dropbox. Kirby is a file-based CMS that describes itself as “easy to setup, easy to use and flexible as hell”. In just four hours, the whole environment was established and a draft content structure outline prepared. Wiki content is stored in our agency Dropbox , meaning everyone’s invited to get involved – Elf Otterbach, our “People & Talent” Director, does her best in encouragement.

Screenshot of our wiki homepage

But how do you convince people like me (an Edenspiekermann-Partner and CEO) – who have no idea about web development – to contribute texts, find images to fit them and insert suitable links? And update to get it online immediately?

There’s a trick to it. All content is gathered and managed in a simple text document with the help of John Gruber’s ingenious markdown-syntax. With its help, anyone can actually create online content.

Meaning they can:

– format texts
– insert images and links
– refer e-mail addresses
– embed films from YouTube or Vimeo
– and much, much more

Our Scrum Master Andrea put everything together and added the Edenspiekermann look. And the wiki was there. The impact was positive, with many colleagues relishing the sight of their own content online immediately. The first release was already online in just six weeks and it was chock-full of content.

So what are the advantages of this kind of wiki? 

– Every editor can change anything at any time – that is a much-used feature
– Many morsels of knowledge mix to become a feast of wisdom
– Corporate knowledge always remains current
– Bringing new colleagues onboard is clearly easier
– Everyone can read our goals and content emphases
– And our own history gets written as we contribute

So are there any disadvantages to a corporate wiki? We haven’t found any yet. All we can say to agencies and companies that are considering introducing a wiki is that it is easier done than discussed – so do it!