Wikis at Work
Where I work, we’re building a wiki to share knowledge. We want to use it to capture the information required to get new people up to speed and to document our process for developing web sites. I’d love to use it for more than that, but we’re starting small.
At places I’ve worked before, we’ve tried to do the same thing in a more official format — you know the drill: a printed document, a bastard project that that some poor soul was asked to put together in two weeks, “Because we’ve been trying to build this thing for years.” I’m anxious to see if the more informal, update-on-the-fly approach works better, or if it drifts off into a sea of forgotten bookmarks.
Below is a snippet from Andrew McAfee, my newest hero.
Within most organizations at present, the great majority of consultable digital information is either highly structured (customer order records stored in a database), a reflection of the viewpoints and priorities of the formal hierarchy (newsletters), and/or static (document repositories). As a result, this consultable information does not show the current state of the organization as perceived by its members, nor does it accurately represent their views, skills, judgments, experiences, activities, etc.
In fact, it is striking how few opportunities people have to generate, modify, and share information freely and widely on the Intranet, especially when compared with their abilities to do the same on the Internet. Since so many organizations describe people as their most important assets, it is puzzling why these opportunities are so constrained.
Nudging the Donkey
This helps me make decisions. I hope it helps you.
Imagine a donkey equally hungry and thirsty placed at exactly equal distances from sources of food & water. In such a framework, he would die of both thirst and hunger as he would be unable to decide which one to get to first. Now inject some randomness in the picture, by randomly nudging the donkey, causing him to get closer to one source, no matter which, and accordingly away from the other. The impasse would be instantly broken and our happy donkey will either be in turn well fed then well hydrated, or well hydrated then well fed.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Fooled by Randomness
Also, check out the origins of this concept.
Steve Balmer Doesn’t Get Facebook
Steve Balmer on Facebook:
There can’t be any more deep technology in Facebook than what dozens of people could write in a couple of years. That’s for sure.
He missed the point. You can throw bodies at a project for years and never create something simple. Facebook has done well because it managed to pull of simplicity, even in the face of “deep technology” which is so easy to create.
Catch-up Pictures
My sincerest apologize to all three of you who check my blog for pictures. This will hopefully catch you up on the last few months of the Graffamses, as random as they may be.
I went to Best Buy at 3am with Holly to get Katie a Wii for Christmas.
Katie and I went to Clarksdale to Ground Zero for the New Year. Happy belated 2008.
It’s official, Katie has a real job. This is her cube and everything. I think she used a level to hang that newspaper article.
Exceptin’ the fact that this one had a 289, this is what my first car looked like, color and all.
I am not sure what this was supposed to mean. Go into the bathroom to get your tickets? The boat show is for men only?
Katie went to San Antonio to visit some friends.
It snowed in early March.
Buddy liked the snow.
‘Tis the Season
The table’s set. Family is making their ways towards Memphis. The calm before the storm. Merry Christmas everybody!
More House Pictures
Not trying to tease you too much, but I’ll be adding some of the inside as we get them.
Buddysaurus Rex
It’s another Halloween in the Graffam household. Roooooaaaaarrrrrr!!!!
