Lien Nguyen's Blog

What is wiki? Wiki is a collaborative tool that is used to coordinate work more effectively instead of coordinating through email. Wiki is an editable webpage that could be used by anyone, as long they have permission to access the web pages. The application is similar to a word document, but has lesser features. People can add, edit or remove text and save the web page; this would update the information on the page. Therefore, people would not need to worry about having different versions of the same document or getting the documents mixed up. New pages can be generated while working on a separate document; this would allow more tasks to be done. Also, people can provide links to other pages on these documents.

I am currently using a wiki from zoho to manage a team assignment.

I signed in zoho projects to create a couple of wiki pages and to experiment with it. I found wiki very useful because if i wrote something wrong or there are some disagreements with my ideas, then my team members can edit that same document and add their input. This way, our document will stay consistent and we don’t have to get confused with different versions.

I have also experienced wiki from wikispaces. However it does not have much writing tools as the wiki in zoho. That is my experience with wiki.

Using wiki in an enterprise is a very good approach to have, especially if you’re working in groups or want to obtain inputs and ideas from work colleagues. Wikis can be useful for school assignments, managing projects, research and development, event planning, reference material, collaboration with external parties or public communities.

I think any large company could adopt wiki because they would always have some kind of collaboration happening; therefore adopting the wiki tool would be advantageous for the company as it enhances productivity.

For example, lets say Brisbane City Council Library(BCCL) organizes some kind of event in the library. They can have a wiki for other employees to see what they are organizing and have their input added to the page.  This would allow the BCCL to use people’s input to improve their event planning. Therefore the employees does not have to send loads of emails to show their input; this would also save less time going through the emails if employees have the same inputs.

In the meantime, I have not spotted any disadvantages for adopting wiki in an enterprise. Depending on the enterprise, their wiki could be implemented using external tools or internal tools. Most preferably, an enterprise would have an internal wiki.

Blogs

As mentioned in my previous blog, a Blog is a great tool to share your thoughts and ideas to the world; hence allowing better interaction within the community. Many companies are now considering the use of social networks to benefit their company and enhance their productivity with target customers. Meaning they can respond to people’s post simultaneously. Another great opportunity that blogging could offer is marketing. It can be used to advertise products and obtain people’s feedbacks. This would benefit the reputation of the company because the customers would be the voice for them. Enterprise blogging does not necessarily have to be external for the public; it can also be internal to share knowledge and information amongst other employees within the organization.

Blogging in HP and Accenture

HP is an information technology company that develops and manufactures technological devices, software and hardware. More information on HP can be found here. The HP has their own employeee business blogs; the blog index can be found here. 

This page shows different blogs from their employees. Each of these blogs serves its own purpose. For example, the purpose of one of the employee’s blog is to share and discuss about the research on technologies, standards, trends and IT services management.

I have gone through some of the employee’s blog post and found that the information they provide does not necessarily have to  be related to their company.  They were mostly about their experiences and interest on things related to the field of technology, which i thought the purpose of their blog is similar to Accenture.  

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology consulting and technology outsourcing company [1]. They have their own blog index that links to different blogs from employees. This is what is stated on the company’s blogging web page.

“Our blogs feature thought leadership on a wide range of business issues, with a particular focus on helping companies achieve high performance. Here you’ll also find blogs about emerging technologies and career experiences from select employees. The opinions of the writers do not necessarily reflect the position of Accenture on these subjects.”

Therefore, what i found with blogging in these two businesses is that they have their employees to share information based on their knowledge, experiences and interest and does not necessarily has to relate to their company. Which I thought is one advantage to improve the reputation of the companies. Some of blog posts are very handy and informative when giving some tips or technical advices. Here are some examples

http://blog.claudiobartolini.com/2010/04/so-far-so-good.html

http://hpdba.wordpress.com/

The only downside i found within these blog posts, especially with HP is less community interaction. I found less comments on some of the employee posts. After reading a few blog posts, i found some information was not as useful and this detracts customer’s interest. For example in this blog

http://blog.claudiobartolini.com/2010/04/so-far-so-good.html 

Microblogging

Microblogging is similar to Blogs, instead microblogs are short messages that informs people with updates on any subject matter.

Twitter is one of the known examples of microblogs, where people can simply post updates, in 140 words or less, about their daily activities, short messages, advertisments or links to information. This tool is becoming a popular adoption in businesses such as Graco, H & R block, General Motors Company, Ford and much more. 

Microblogging in H & R block and Graco

H&R Block is a tax preparation company. More information can be found on their website H&R block. H&R Block utilises social networking tools to assist their company with customer services. They have their own twitter page and facebook wall to provide links and updates with taxation information.

I have read roughly through the facebook wall to see how they are using this social tool to enhance their customer services. Here are my findings.

When people are connected to the HR Block facebook wall, they can request for information relating to taxation from H&R Block. The H&R Block will also post links or updated information about taxation. One interesting thing i found is that someone asked for the details about a job position in the company. This came to my mind that microblogging could assist company into finding the appropriate person for employment. Facebook contains millions or profiles,  since the company is connected to people that are looking for jobs in the company, they can simple go to that person’s facebook page to investigate the person before further employment approval.

Graco is a baby brand company. They utilise twitter and facebook to advertise their products and to interact with their customers. This is a good approach to build trust with customers as they are the one that would help promote the products for the company.

References

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accenture

Image References

http://oceangrand.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/nicetwitter.png