The Bad: It was an uphill struggle from the start really, but I never really gave up. I was so confident that the idea was sound. I think, however, that was the main sticking point, I was the only one that was really convinced. There was little attempt made on my part to actively engage the other members. I could have had a meeting or run a remote session with elluminate or skype to bring other colleagues on board. I could have run a preliminary session to get everyone else’s ideas even before the social network was created. Lesson learned, next time better.

The Ugly: No one used it. Only half the company even bothered to fill out the surveys, a third of whom were dismissive and derisive from the start. My Manager never got behind the idea, and those colleagues who verbally expressed enthusiastic support never followed up. With colleagues and Manager actively discouraging my attempts to introduce the idea, what hope was there of the thing ever taking off?

What was the point?

This was only ever a trial, to see exactly how effective the introduction of a social network could be in enhancing the current business processes. As such, the trial was a success in that it revealed the plain a simple fact that the vast majority of the Company do not see the benefit. If they do not see the benefit, if they are not shown the benefits, they will not use it –and they didn’t. I formally believe that a social network such as this is a very important aspect of maintaining and enhancing the community within a workplace. But in order to be properly utilised, this feeling has to be important to the members; and that is something you can’t force upon anyone. In a larger company, there is a chance that the uptake would have been more. But the roll-out process would need to be improved. Let’s try again when the Company’s ‘grown up’ a bit.

A second survey has been created and distributed to all members of the social network and these responses will be collected and analysed together with the original responses, in order to gauge the success of the trial. Once this has been completed, the wiki will be closed and will no longer be available. If the opportunity arises in future to introduce such a technology again, perhaps when the Company has grown, a new wiki will be created but the design and roll out will incorporate contributions from other members.

The forum post was created and a broadcast sent out to all Company members that is was now available and ready for use. In the same Broadcast, I re-iterated the use of the blogs, the forum and the events diary. All have fallen on deaf ears, or perhaps maybe just idle hands in relation to this application. It does seem to go towards strengthening the view that 100% remote collaboration is not conducive to a complete community for everyone. If people do not desire a community feeling, as was indicated by the first survey responses, this cannot (and should not) be forced upon them. An initial face to face meeting to deliver the idea of the wiki and showcase its relevance to the Company would, I believe, have elicited a more positive and proactive approach to its use.

Whilst there was grudging agreement to go ahead with the forum post, the overall response from the Manager was “…don’t hold your breath waiting for anyone to use it”. I re-iterated that this was only a 12 week trial and there was no onus on any of the consultants to use the wiki. However, I also proffered to the Manager the benefits of the blog functionality ( to reduce his own workload of getting the consultants progress and then collating it and sending it out), the events (to have a central easily accessible area to show consultants’ availability), the chat functionality and also the RSS feeds. I think the light was beginning to dawn.

I have been adding links to important documents to the links page and sending out messages to the other consultants regarding this but this has not spurred any of them on to do the same. There may also be an element of workload in the lack of activity since the financial year end necessarily increases the number of issues and customer requests we receive dramatically this time of year.

This is very encouraging and the responses are more positive towards the potential application of the wiki in the Company environment. I will give it until next Monday and then draw a line under it for that survey. I need to be able to have some weeks between the surveys to analyse for any changes in mood or attitude after we have used it. I will send out a note to all towards the end of this week letting them know that the deadline for completing the first survey is to be Monday 22nd. On top of this I will approach the Manager and ask for his OK on a couple of uses I have planned which are related to following employees’ opinions of and ideas for the company –this will need the OK and the backing from the Manager before going ahead and inviting everyone to express their personal views of the business.

I still only have the one response to the survey I sent out. I have extended the deadline to Monday so that people can have the weekend to get to it, or Monday morning. I even sent out another broadcast message to all members of the wiki to ask them again to complete it since the wiki forms a major part of my MSc module. And then it occurred to me that the other members perhaps do not view the wiki with anything like the potential as I view it. I had some very positive initial verbal feedback, even a nice email from the Manager. Have any of these three actually completed the survey? Is it actually the Manager who sent those responses in the first survey feedback?

Perhaps it is my fault. Perhaps I am expecting too much from a technology that no one in the company has used before or can see any specific application for. Do I need to get everyone together in a conference and explain the applicability of this and then ask them to complete the survey. Or do I just need to get the support of the Manager and ask him to pass the word?

all went together to really hit home and make me feel unappreciated and targetted for wasting company time even thinking about introducing this dumb wiki. I spent a good half hour being despondent and trying to identify exactly who had done this. I felt certain it was at least someone who did not normally get as many emails as I.

However, I then began to view the responses from a more pragmatic standpoint. The person also, rather crucially, said they had never used a wiki before. This is not an attack on me, per se it is the opinions of a person who has not had the exposure to the modern collaborative way of communicating. Education and training is required to open this person’s eyes to the possibility and application of the wiki within the business environment. So they do not feel it important to be in a community, fine. Many people like working alone and are very productive. This person’s views are actually very encouraging in helping me guide and monitor the development and application of the wiki. It would be very interesting to know this person’s views at the end of the trial, to see if they have changed. However, I chose to make the survey responses completely anonymous (and to communicate this fact) in the belief that this would encourage truly honest feedback. This does, however, mean that I am restricted in the level of detail I can go in subsequently analysing those responses to see if certain individuals have changed their opinions..

In order to guage the intial feeling at the genesis of this project, I created a survey on surveymonkey.com and have attached this to the front page of the wiki, giving everyone until the end of this week to complete it. Since it is an attempt to guage intial feelings, I didn’t want it dragging on before I got all responses.

In addition, I have been updating the initial main page of the wiki to lay down the rules of usage and emphasise the business-oriented role of this wiki. Authorisation roles have also been created, restricting member’s access to certain elements of the wiki, whilst allowing them to be able to make contributions in all the right places.

During earlier modules of the MSc in which I am currently engaged, I had begun to come across this idea of Web 2.0. I had also heard much with regard to its application and the tools to be used in order to achieve this. Web 2.0. Interactivity. Involvement. No longer a static consumer and regurgitator of cold hard facts, but the internet as a means of actually allowing synchronous or asynchronous discussions. And then there came the terminology: blogs, wikis, moodle, glogster, collaborative technologies –the list seems to be endless. And for me that is the point. I have decided that to enhance the  corporation for which I work and its appearance both internally and externally, one of the things that is required is more interactivity.

For now, the idea is to introduce a wiki that can be used internally by the consultants within The Company. We all work remotely and the nature of the work we do makes it necessary, and desirable, to frequently contact each other by email and phone. Normally this would suffice, but increasingly now, with all the differing aspects of administration and daily workload, it is becoming apparent to me that if we were to have one central ‘place’ that we could use to post information about what we are doing, or ask questions to all the other consultants easily, or even keep up to date with the fast-paced business in which we work, then work would not only be more efficient, but more enjoyable since we would all have the opportunity to add to it.

And so the idea for the wiki.

I had been told about a few different platforms offering the ability to create social networks, or wikis, but Ning.com provided what to me seemed the easiest and simplest to use option –it is free to. It is important for me to be able to replicate the functionality that we currently have in The Company. For example, we rely heavily on a spreadsheet stored on a shared drive to keep information on consultant movements and availability. The Events element of the Ning wiki works well for this. In addition to this, however, it was more important for me to be able to add functionality that would enhance what we currently have. A forum for consultants to post issues they may have which can then be seen and added to by any of the other consultants. Much easier to keep a track of the history of the issue in this way than have a confusing jumbled email chain of responses. The forum also offers the chance to reduce email traffic and clogging.

Of course I appreciate that there are limitations to web-hosted wikis, like if the system crashes you will lose everything you have worked hard to build, but this wiki is to be a 12 week trial to see if the idea is as beneficial to the company and the consultants’ working practices as I believe it will be. If it proves to be a hit, we’ll go for a permanent wiki we host on our own server.