Wiki Adoption Part 4: Email Overload Killed the Businessperson

This is the fourth in a series on wiki adoption, based on my visits with organizations in the midst of wiki adoption. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. One of the things I consistently hear when I visit customers: reducing email is a key business case for the wiki. Email is one of the biggest time consumers in a typical workday, and usually extends far beyond the normal reaches of the workday, which is why you see so many people walking into traffic while looking down at their Blackberrys. I’m starting to think this is going to be a major public health problem if people don’t start to look up! (pun intended )
Fortunately, wiki can have a real impact on communication and reduce that email overload. Here’s how: Let’s say you email the weekly meeting agenda to your team. Seems harmless, right? Well, it isn’t, because if someone in the group needs to edit the agenda, they’ll be emailing you to ask for changes. There’s one more email in your box that needs a reply! However, if you put that meeting agenda on a wiki page, and emailed just the URL to the agenda page, that group member who needs to edit the agenda can do so directly on the wiki, without having to send you an extra email. Now multiply that by all the agendas and other documents that could be put on the wiki for team members to directly revise.