Technology As Innovator

Friend: “Hey Tai, what is wiki? Is it a software or a website?”

TaiTran: “Neither. Wiki is a concept. It refers to a content which everyone and anyone can edit.”

Friend: “What? You’re confusing me!”

***

OK, so let me go into details on Wiki.

“Wiki” is a concept

“A wiki” might be explained as a computer software or a website. “Wiki” is a concept.

What’s the difference?

You may want to notice this difference: “A Wiki is a software/website” and “Wiki (without ‘a’) is a concept”. “A wiki” refers to a specific instance of the concept “Wiki”.

To make it easier to understand. It’s like we talk about “a person” and “person”. “Person” is general, has body organs, has character and personalities - but doesn’t have specific character and personalities. “A person named X” is specific, has X’ body organs, has X” character and X”’ personality.

Back to Wiki. So I say “Wiki is a concept. It refers to contents which everyone and anyone can edit.”

Basing on this concept, people may build Wiki software that put this concept into practice. Wiki software allows users to create different wiki websites.

Wiki is powerful

1. Collaboration

The major power of Wiki lies in its open nature to collaboration.

Anyone can edit Wikis, and it’s quick to do so. We have the power of the mass where every contribution is counted. That’s how within a short amount of time, the community has grown Wikipedia to be the world’s largest encyclopedia.

Does this work?

To some, the idea of “anyone can edit” is crazy. But it works!

You want to know that the edition doesn’t go away easily. All modifications are tracked and they are discussed by the whole community. If person A puts in an inaccurate or biased information, person B will point it out and the discussion will determine how to deal with that information.

While I agree that we can never have perfectly unbiased information, this open nature allows the whole community to reach a consensus that would benefit all.

“I’m a genius. They don’t understand what I wrote in the wiki so they removed it!” - Well if this is the case, I’d suggest you revert to your blog or your Knol whether you have full authority

2. High Linkage

Wiki pages within a wiki website link to one another through keywords. Therefore, when you read a wiki page, you are presented with information to other worth-knowing concepts.

Wiki management models

Power of the Mass

“No editor”, or “everyone is an editor”.

This is the original concept of Wiki. However, you may want to know that this is an idealism and no wiki is perfectly wiki.

People participation varies, people commitment varies, and people behavior varies. There may exist certain bias in many wiki pages.

Because of this “open” nature, many question the validity and authority of information on wiki. Researchers may need to cite from other sources accepted as “more authorized”.

Power of Authority… plus the Mass

To deal with the issue of validity and authority of wiki, Larry Sanger, former Wikipedia co-founder, has initiated a new model for Citizendium.

“Authorized editors are selected to be editors of Citizendium. The site is still open for everyone to edit.”

This model harmonizes the credentials from editors while still utilize the power of the mass.

Wiki in enterprise

Wiki is useful to teams within an enterprise to centralize their knowledge. Of course, people can write separate documents, but it will be hard to avoid duplication, hard to maintain and hard to search. Wiki solves all these 3 issues.

In Sum

Wiki is a powerful concept on which people in the last decade have built centralized massive amount of information.

Bibliography

5 ways to build effective Wikis

Wiki Software: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_software

List of Wikis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wikis

The latest content-creating product from Google, Knol, is heating the debates on whether it would directly compete with current content ecologies.

Below is my view toward Knol.

Knol vs. Wikipedia?

Knol is often compared to Wikipedia.

In fact, Knol is more centralized on authorship and authority in content creation, so I believe that Knol employs the top-down model which is closer to Citizendium than to Wikipedia.

However, to repeat, Knol is not wiki. It takes advantage of collaborative-editing.

Knol vs. Blogs?

More interestingly, some bloggers express their concern that Knol would interfere with professional blogs, which also aim at sharing knowledge.

My view is that Knol does not compete with Blogs, but rather offer an alternative to content publishing.

Knol is more on scientific/academic articles and how-to style, while blogs are more for expressing opinions.

For example, this post Tag of mine is more suitable for Knol, while this entry is more for my blog.

So Knol is another channel and platform to share your knowledge with the world, with more focus on authorization.

How will you use Google Knol?

Citizendium is an online wiki-based encyclopedia that introduces a new “editor” role for specialists in particular subjects. It is the new competitior of Wikipedia, founded by Larry Sanger - Wikipedia’s founder

Have you registered for it? I did!

Possiple Benefits

• Share your knowledge, receive addition and feedback, engage in discussion, and reach deeper level of insight on the subjects
• Build your network with specialists from the Wiki community
• Add up to your portfolio
• Become known over the net as world-class specialist

Biography used for registration

I am Tai Tuan Tran, a Vietnamese IT Business Analyst.
I got a degree in Software Engineering (with Distinction) from RMIT University, Australia.
I am working for First Consulting Group, whose HQ is in Atlanta, GA, US.
In current job’s everyday work, I work to assess client’s business needs and business processes, in order to propose IT solutions to their problems. I can also do programming, analysis & design and testing.
I join many NGOs; some may include charity groups and environmentalists groups.
I have strong interest in researching psychology, human relationship subjects. I am willing, and am working to sharing knowledge to other interested people, especially students.
I do best as a counselor, who guides and inspires.
In my information processing, I attend to the big picture first, before going to details.
I am committed and loyal to an organization, as long as my need for learning from colleagues and works is satisfied.

Bibliography

This is a terrific article on Citizendium, so good that Larry himself replied http://moderndragons.blogspot.com/2006/10/citizendium.html