Selling Web 2.0 (again)

I haven't been posting as much as I would truly like. I've been so swamped with work, including trying to prepare our selves to get the LMS up and running. I have however been introducing a few more people to the fabulous use of blogs and wikis.

I have one friend that loves to write poems and has been using the Facebook feature of Notes to capture them. I suggested that if she wanted something a little more private then she could open a blog and use it as a private journal. She also writes collaboratively with another friend. The two of them take turns write a paragraph of a story and see where it goes and ends up. For this I suggested and set up a wiki for them to try out. This way they can go in and read each other's work, make edits and suggestions. They can also create a new page for each story or for each theme of stories and can keep it private or share it as well.

My final sell this weekend was using a blog for a newsletter instead of a paper based item. Currently they create a newsletter in Publisher and then email it out. They only send electronically and do not print it to paper. Sounds like a job for something webish. I took their articles from their last newsletter. Created a new post for each article starting with the last one first. This would allow a reader once they open the blog to read the first intended article as the most recent post of the blog. The last article of the paper copy would appear as the last post as well. The first post they open was titled "In this Issue", with the month and volume/issue number. Then a listing of the post headings as links to each article.

My arguments for them using this system were:

• articles can be tagged for reference and searching (ie: volume 6, issue 3, meeting, agenda)
• articles are all searchable by any word
• articles are all archived individually and monthly
• links on the main web page can be added to the newsletter blog and back to the web page
• because of the flexibility of posting, special articles could be added at times other than regular newsletter issuing dates
• members can subscribe to updates, rss feeds
• the blog can have stats tracked regarding usage.

I'm still waiting for responses on all 3 "new ideas" that I've put out for my colleagues. Now just waiting to see if I sold it all properly.

Generating Excitement for using Web 2.0 Tools

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".

My first wiki is created

One of the ideas I had after going to the eLearning Guild conference this year was to create a wiki. This wiki would be for new nursing staff hires at our hospital and would be a common place where they could comment on what it's like to be a new nurse. They could write about their first day, what it is like to work on a particular unit, and tips for studying (as many are grad students).

Well the good news is I successfully created my first wiki yesterday using PBwiki (thanks for the suggestion to use it for wikis Brent). Interesting though I started with wikispaces instead. I needed a wiki that was really easy to use as I am unsure of the familiarity of the users I am inviting to post to the wiki. Both were quite easy to utilize and format into my desired look. Also, I wanted a space where I could open it only to certain people to edit and both offered this.

So why the change from the wikispaces to PBwiki. Well the reasons were the same ones that came up over and over at the conference...

• what if someone posts something negative
• can people outside the organization see what is posted

I had to explain that the general thinking with wikis is that you trust that the providers of content that truly wish to grow and develop the wiki will police themselves and others within the group. If something derogatory is posted, someone else will surely edit it and remove the negative comments. At the conference an interesting video was shared showing the progression of a wiki from conception to a very robust document. The video was created by Jon Udell titled "Heavy metal umlaut: the movie". One very interesting point in the movie shows a period of time where vandalism takes place and there are some nasty postings that a placed on the wiki, then taken off, posted on again - but larger, taken off, on, off, on and finally off. In real time, when this occurred, it took place over the course of 4 minutes. The question then was..."is this the same author posting, editing, reposting. The answer was no. Within that time frame 4 or 5 different individuals removed the offending comments to keep the wiki information true and factual.

Straight from THE wiki (Wikipedia):

"Open-source wikis (such as Wikipedia) have been criticized for their reliability: certain individuals may maliciously introduce false or misleading content.[4] Proponents rely on their community of users who can catch malicious content and correct it. Wikis in general make a basic assumption of the goodness of people.[4]"

Secondly, the concern was brought to me...we don't want anyone outside the hospital to see the wiki. There was the concern of privacy here and again if something was said such as "I had a hard time finding parking" and someone read this, it may discourage them from applying for a position here.

That all being said, Wikispaces allowed for members only posting, but was visible to everyone. This can however, be altered for a very small fee. PBwiki allowed for a private wiki that only members could view. I also found that the wiki once set up has far little or no advertising on it as the wikispaces did. I found that I could manipulate the look and feel of it quite a bit better as well. One option that it doesn't allow, except if you pay a small fee, was for 1 administrator. Every participant has the same access/edit rights to the site. But here again is where you have to trust in the "goodness" of the participants posting to the wiki.

I'm now extremely excited to see if/how the content will develop. I have already had several of the invited members login and sign up for the wiki. I'm just now waiting and watching for the contribution to begin.

Another suggestion that was brought up at the conference was to utilize the wiki, once the content appears to be at its maximum, to create an online course from the material.

Hopefully by next year's conference I will have a year's worth of postings to this blog, more then one wiki, and several new online courses.

Weird what I get excited about now a days.

Collective Spaces for Groups

One task that was assigned to me months ago was to come up with a great collaboration space where members of a training and organization development network could share resources, info, speakers, templates and more together. We realized that we all were probably doing the same work (over and over), looking for speakers that we think had great messages for our staff, and we're probably developing the same template that 4 other members already have designed.

I googled and goolged looking for just the right egroup. There in fact use to be a site called egroups which I used years ago for a book club. I use to like it simply because it had everything I needed in a site and was simple to navigate. There was the typical member list, discussion board, file centre, photos, calendar and polls. It seems hard now to find all of these items in one location. Google groups is not bad but was seemed to be missing the calendar. You can use the google calendar, but when you have to explain to "non-techies" how to add it in, you begin to lose members. I know that the group I'm aiming for needs one simple point and click package. myegroups.com doesn't seem to have a file sharing area.

After the Boston conference I was convinced that a wiki was the way to go. Now I'm not so sure on that. I would love to see a great example of a "group collaboration" site on a wiki. I read through "The World of Wikis" by David Lenehan and tried out many of the suggested wikis here. I can easily navigate myself around the page, setting up new pages, adding headings, discussions, photos, etc. However, I know my audience and I fear that if it isn't simple from the beginning then I will lose them and their keen interest to get something like this up and running.

Items I have tried

• pbwiki
• wikia
• wetpaint
• collectivex
• myegroups
• google groups
• yahoo groups
• gather
• wik.is

I have until June 1st before I have to present my "brilliant" idea to them. Any suggestions here would be greatly welcomed. Pehaps I haven't found the right one yet or am looking at THE known wikis/egroups in the wrong light.