Documenting Your Work
Earlier this year, Howard Weaver started a wiki called McClatchyNext in hopes of better sharing information. As a long-time user of wikis (what’s a wiki?), I loved the idea. Unfortunately for me, the site became more of a forum and I lost interest.
That does not mean, however, wikis should be ignored. The ability to document shared information in a shared location with shared resources is incredibly powerful. Know that spreadsheet with features you pass around? Why not pass an editable URL that everyone can update with status?
At Yahoo!, a team of people (still) manages a modified version of twiki.org’s fantastic free software. It has its limitations, as noted here by WikiMatrix, but for most shops its fits the bill perfectly.
Start with a Google search for “Free Wiki” to find something that works for you. Give it a couple hours, first by documenting who’s in your group and why you contact that person. Then break off into other groups, product pages, and processes that your producers can use to update sites. When someone new comes along to the team, you can point them to the wiki rather than some shared drive only available on the network.
Once you get used to the idea, give more people access to modify the pages and topics to increase the knowledge sharing. How do ads get from contract to display? What does a new developer need access to? How do producers use the new whatchamacallit on the site? Where are the meeting notes?
What started out here in Charlotte as two people (me & Dave) documenting in our version of twiki (the screenshot above) is now spread over 50 people across five divisions.
Speaking of which, I need to stop posting here so I can update the thatsracin.com, charlotteobserver.com, momscharlotte.com, and charlotte.com wiki pages on upcoming software releases.
Ciao.