Comments on: ECM vs. wiki

By: Sandy Kemsley

Sandy Kemsley — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 14:10:00 +0000

Hi Carsten, good point about SharePoint. I suspect that’s functionality that was added in 2007, so that will require that a lot of companies get off 2003 sometimes soon!

By: Carsten Knoch

Carsten Knoch — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:55:24 +0000

Sandy – I was interested in reading, “it’s not clear that ECM and wikis will ever merge as a concept (much less within a single product platform).” Interesting to note that this is already out there, or at least in a nascent fashion. I work with MS SharePoint every day, and while no-one would claim that it’s a mature ECM platform (or, for that matter, a particularly ‘mature’ wiki , one of the important concepts in it that I like is that it treats a wiki page as a properly content-managed entity from the perspective of describing, versioning, managing its lifecycle, etc. I like to say to my customers that the value of SharePoint is as an end-to-end information management platform that can help them manage documents, data, etc. through their entire lifecycle, from creative inception to records management to archiving.
I realize it’s still a somewhat incomplete story, but it’s worth looking at.

By: Andrew Smith

Andrew Smith — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:11:27 +0000

I agree with Sandy re. enterprises being suspicious of wikis. I think it will be really hard to have a wiki move into an ECM environment.

On the other hand, I can see it being very very easy for ECM vendors to deliver wikis, and as such, bring along credability and appeal to enterprises…..

By: Sandy Kemsley

Sandy Kemsley — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:24:31 +0000

François, I think that the problem that wiki vendors will have moving into the ECM space is that enterprises tend to still be suspicious of wikis, and might not see a wiki platform as a suitable place for storing their documents. I have many conservative clients that still think of wikis (and mashups, and other social media-inspired technology) as toys, and wouldn’t consider them as suitable technology for storing any “important” information. These attitudes will change, of course, but I suspect that we will need to see the success of some of the large ECM vendors at introducing wikis in order to validate the market for the rest of the players.

By: Sandy Kemsley

Sandy Kemsley — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:19:53 +0000

Mike: I agree with that most business users will not update a wiki. For that matter, most Wikipedia users don’t update it either – that doesn’t mean that it’s unsuccessful. In general, if you can get 2-5% author participation in an enterprise wiki, consider it a success. In every business community, however, there are those who are a bit more tech-savvy (or more interested in learning) who are willing to try it out. I’ve recommended wikis to insurance clients, for example, for their underwriters to keep a collaborative discussion area for how to handle unusual situations that aren’t covered in the procedures manuals. In time, I could see the procedures manuals taking on a more wiki-like form, although there would likely be some restrictions on who is allowed to author certain content.

Even if most of the readers don’t contribute (or possibly don’t even have author permissions), using a wiki allows the authors to do quick updates more easily and without any additional publication steps.

I agree with Andrew that the project artifacts should go into the ECM: they would fall into one or more of the categories that I mentioned for determining if something should be in ECM. The wiki provides a good place to discuss them, or even to start collaborating on the content before it becomes a “document” project artifact.

By: Andrew Smith

Andrew Smith — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:27:47 +0000

Mike: In my own experience business users like to gather information rather than contribute, by that I mean, they search for the information / documents etc they need to use for a reason relating to their current task. They dont then want to update anything. This is where BPM with ECM solutions really help business processes and greatly increase staff efficiency….

I myself do to take a different stance on wiki vs ECM than Sandy.

http://andrewonedegree.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/wiki-or-document-management-ecm/

All your discussions and decision making could well go into a wiki, however any versions (however rough or draft) should be in your ECM solution. My own feeling now is that this type of wiki information (the discussion on how you came to a decision) should be stored with the ECM content, therefore a single user experience for both wiki and ECM for both IT and business users….But for me, starting point has to be ECM, not wiki

By: Oleg Shilovitsky

Oleg Shilovitsky — Fri, 29 May 2009 17:25:41 +0000

Some pros and cons for wikis.

http://plmtwine.com/2009/04/27/5-reasons-why-wiki-fails-for-plm-collaboration/

By: François Charoy

François Charoy — Fri, 29 May 2009 13:58:46 +0000

Check http://www.xwiki.com/

starts as a wiki, ends as an ECM and more. I’m pretty ure they are not alone on this market

(disclaimer : I have no interest whatsoever with this company)

By: Mike Kavis

Mike Kavis — Fri, 29 May 2009 13:31:07 +0000

Thanks for the article. As a startup, we are entering that decision point right now and this has led to a lot of discussion internally. We have a ton of Power Points and Visio diagrams which represent "finished products" of much collaboration and design. We feel that those documents should be versioned and put in ECM. All of the work and discussions leading up to those finished products are perfect for the wiki.

What are your thoughts about business users versus IT users. I tend to think that most business users (non-tech savvy) will only use wikis to search (read-only). I don’t see them collaborating via wikis. What do you think?

By: Sandy Kemsley

Sandy Kemsley — Fri, 29 May 2009 08:16:15 +0000

Glad that I could be an inspiration!