Private sector Wikis

Certified Twiki claims to be able to 'optimize your business', so I explored their site a little to see who was using it and how. They have some useful quotes from clients which do nicely for my purposes of brief summaries of how some big companies are using Wikis. Here are some examples:

Nokia: 'At Nokia we are always looking for new and improved ways of communicating. In use since 2002, TWiki has developed inside Nokia into a valuable tool for team collaboration, sharing of ideas and promoting innovation.' Harri Lakkala, Social Software Expert at Nokia

Motorola: 'There are many people at Motorola actively using TWiki for ISO 9000 compliancy, reporting, project management and other applications.' Kenneth Lavrsen, Engineering Manager, Motorola

Yahoo: 'We use TWiki internally to manage documentation and project planning for our products. Our development team includes hundreds of people in various locations all over the world, so web collaboration is VERY important to us. TWiki has changed the way we run meetings, plan releases, document our product and generally communicate with each other. We're great fans of your work!' Eric Baldeschwieler, Director of Software Development, Yahoo!

These are prime examples of the use of private wikis within an organisation, used to boost productivity and collaboration.

In August 2005, Ezra Goodnoe reported in his article 'How To Use Wikis For Business' in Information Week that ' Although wikis have been around for a decade, they're just starting to take off in business'. He later asks the question that I hoped he would ask: 'what companies are actually using wikis?'. He answers himself with the following paragraph:

'Nokia has been using Socialtext wiki software for a year and a half to facilitate information exchange within its Insight & Foresight group. Yahoo uses Twiki software to help its development team overcome the problems associated with working from a variety of separate locations. Michelin China also uses Twiki as a knowledge management tool. Jean-Noel Simonnet, from the company's IT department, writes, "Our purpose was to share ALL the information, procedures, setup documents, so that we were less dependent on a particular staff member knowledge, so that nobody in the team has any document left in a personal directory."'

Twiki also has a success stories page which looks in a bit more detail at what some of its clients are using Wiki for. I really don't think I can justify going into the topic too deeply because of my word count, so I won't bother to explore them at the moment, at least I've noted the link.