There is a lot written about the challenges of wiki adoption, particularly in the enterprise. Looking at one of the most successful wiki implementations, Wikipedia, even its active user penetration is quite low as compared to overall internet usage. However, even with an overall low user base, Wikipedia still leverages the benefit of a having a wide pool of passionate and attentive users. This is something that enterprise teams do not always have when trying to get a wiki off the ground in an enterprise setting.

Being about four months into our team’s use of wiki software, we clearly have seen both the benefits and challenges of successfully using a wiki in the enterprise environment. At Dow Jones, we have an open wiki environment and when there is time (right, when is there time?), I take the opportunity to see some of the interesting ways in which other groups utilize the wiki environment for collaboration. And I have to be honest, there are some really great examples to see.

But with all the wikipedia success (and hype) and the great examples to mimic, the real challenge is winning over the teams to use the wiki rather than the work flows they’ve created for themselves. And this is where all the multi-angle debate occurs…

Debate #1: Will Enterprise 2.0 technologies such as wikis really take hold? Tom Davenport, President of Information Technology and Management at Babson, has a interesting article on the topic.
Debate #2: Is it any more valuable than what we have today? Are enterprises trying to use wiki technology simply for the technology’s sake? (This is a response I get often). Andrew McAfee has a response to Tom regarding this.
Debate #3: What is the best way to get wikis rolled out into an organization (not from a technology sense) but most importantly into a team environment where it will be used. As a manager, what strategies do you employ? Jerry Bowles, has a great post as to whether you want to become a wiki champion or wiki bully and how wikipatterns is here to help.

There are probably more than three debate lenses to take here and you may have stories of success and failure about trying to gain wiki adoption. It would be great to hear them…