Usability of MediaWiki in Enterprise 2.0

Editing interface of MediaWiki 1.7, showing th...

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Gil Yehuda’s blog post “MediaWiki limits Enterprise 2.0” boosted me to write a short post about the usability of the open-source product MediaWiki in an Enterprise 2.0.
Enterprise 2.0 means…first issue. Maybe an enterprise 2.0 is:
– a non-pyramidal organisation.
– who engage real conversation with customers
– who share information inside and outside to add value to the whole community.
Is MediaWiki useful and user-friendly to this kind of organisation? Here are 3 arguments as a response to this question:

1- A costless, wide-open document and information silo.
The wiki markup is a joke compared to the commercial text-processing software. From the MediaWiki markup you only need to know:
– Click on the “edit” tab and write, write and write.
– You want some bold or italic text, just select the word and click on the corresponding “edit buttons” up on top of the page.
– You need to insert a URL, copy and paste it
– You want some paragraphs to make it more readable, write the title of the paragraph and enclose it with one “=” or 2 or 3 depending of the level of the paragraph.
– DON’T forget to save at the bottom of the page.
Et voila! Some people then will ask for more but only if they need it and consequently they will learn it quickly as the first step was easy.
Storing document will slowly desappear as all the writing stuff will be saved in the wiki and retrievable as printed document (printed version of Mediawiki or PDF document thanks to a simple extension).
Of course stuff like important emails can be copy and paste in the MediaWiki.

2- As it is costless you can have as many MediaWiki as you need, wide-open or “wide-shut”.
The co-existence of the two kinds of wiki does’nt mean that NO relation or exchange is possible.
It could be convenient to let some persons manage private wiki (access controled by a login and password) but even in this case these persons would conveniently and quickly copy and paste what they want in the wide-open wiki.

3- Collaboration “mashup and boostup”.
MediaWiki is a versatile tool: it becomes what you need it to be. For example the enterprise have to keep an eye on the automotive industry so two ways:
– google alert
– twitter search
Results of both of them can be embedded as RSS feed in MediaWiki, always readable 24h/24 from anywhere.
It will boost the responsivness of the enterprise as all is in one place, quickly retrievable thanks to the Mediawiki search engine.
One more tip: you can embed safely all kind of stuff : blog feeds, youtube feeds, last fm feeds…

If you decide to use a MediaWiki in your entreprise, you also may open a blog, twitter, slideshare, youtube account…Enterprise 2.0 is just about conversation and you can store and see all in your MediaWiki.

PS1: if you are still reluctant to try MediaWiki markup, let me know and help you through Twitter with the hash tag #diwiki

PS2: As Posterous, you can feed your MediaWiki with email…let me know if you are interested comenting this post.

NB:Andrea Gohr wrote about Usability sessions during the RegioWikiCamp on September 25th-26th-27th

http://www.cosmocode.de/en/blog/gohr/2009-09/30-usability-sessions-at-regiowi…

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