Home > Articles

This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book

Wikis

One of the most widely adopted Web 2.0 technologies at Cisco has been the wiki platform, enabling Cisco employees and teams to publish pages of web content, which others can edit and to which they can contribute. The Intranet Strategy Group identified a number of potential uses for wikis at Cisco, such as project and team collaboration and ideation, or the generation of ideas. As they rolled out the wiki pilot, they identified a need to develop templates to help teams develop wiki sites faster and to create consistency across various sites.

The Internet Strategy Group identified the importance of tool usability and ease of navigation, both in the tool used to create the wiki sites and within the sites themselves. The group also identified the need for integration with team spaces, Cisco’s document repositories, and other services.[11] Figure 10-6, for example, shows a wiki page meant to serve as an information source for the Manager Portal project. It provides a description of the project, a list of team members (linked to Cisco Directory), weekly project updates, and links to release status documentation, enabling the team to stay aligned and better manage the portal development project.

Figure 10-6

Figure 10-6 Manager portal wiki.[33]

The Cisco Customer Advocacy Remote Operations Services (ROS) team built a network operations–related knowledge base on a wiki-like framework, called a twiki. In 2006, solutions architect Craig Tobias came up with the idea of creating wiki pages, like file drawers, on every topic he could think of related to the complex task of proactively monitoring, managing, and securing complex network infrastructures. Tobias pulled together the team of individuals responsible for supporting this area within Cisco and asked them to leverage their knowledge and experience to add content to each topic.

The ROS wiki allowed the team to contribute content directly through their browsers, enabling multiple people to contribute content to a single document. It also facilitated continuous improvement of the content, enabling the team to refine each document over time, based on peer review. According to Tobias, wikis

  • Are a key part of a larger community platform.
  • Focus on consolidating fact-based information.
  • Enable users to contribute via their browsers.
  • Facilitate multiple people contributing to a single document, refining its content over time.
  • Embody the practice of peer review.

Tobias and his team developed well over a hundred pages of content, a knowledge base that saves customers and employees countless hours of network diagnosis and problem-solving.

Tobias also has a number of wiki best practices and lessons learned, as follows:

  • Information Architecture: Start with a solid framework.
  • Branding: Give your wiki an identity.
  • Navigation: Make your site easy to navigate.
  • Images: A picture is worth a thousand words.
  • Open: Be open; lock as little down as possible.
  • Purpose: Clearly state what you’re trying to do.
  • Support: Support users so they’ll contribute.
  • Training: Provide user training.
  • Drive Adoption: The more users contribute, the better your content.

The ROS wiki has been so successful and well-received that customers often subscribe to Cisco’s ROS just to gain access to the knowledge base.[34] Now let’s turn our attention to another use case, an example of wiki-driven collaboration and innovation.

In August 2006, the Emerging Markets Technology Group (EMTG) set up a wiki as a collaborative platform, called I-Zone. The site was designed to enable the entire company to submit and brainstorm on ideas for new businesses. The I-Zone initiative, led by Guido Jouret, vice president and chief technology officer in EMTG, has enabled Cisco to benefit from ideas from anywhere in the company, leveraging collaboration to drive new growth markets.[7]

Since its inception, the I-Zone team has reviewed hundreds of ideas and the process has already yielded success. In 2007, the I-Zone wiki led to the incubation of four new Cisco business units. In 2008, ideas captured through I-Zone led to the start of one additional business unit each quarter.

I-Zone has provided an open forum where ideas for new products, as well as new ways to use existing Cisco products, can be posted and others can comment or pose questions on the ideas. In this way, average ideas can trigger collaboration that yields idea improvement or an even better idea. Ideas are also kept on file for consideration at a later date because timing often plays a part in whether an idea should move forward, and today’s good idea might look even better tomorrow.

The team has recently moved I-Zone to a leading innovation social networking platform, Brightidea. The new platform enables employees to post their ideas, vote on and browse for ideas, and get the latest information on idea submissions. Now the I-Zone wiki legacy lives on in another Cisco organization.[35]

In November 2007, a group within Customer Advocacy (CA) decided to leverage a wiki platform to enable CA employees to collaborate more effectively. The initiative, led by Patrick Tam, operations manager in CA’s Office of Strategy and Planning (U.S.), is known as CA Collaboratory, as shown in Figure 10-7.

Figure 10-7

Figure 10-7 Customer Advocacy’s Collaboratory wiki site.[36]

Collaboratory consists of a number of wiki-based components:

  • CA Strategy: An interactive and integrated view of CA’s FY08 strategy.
  • CA Teams: A set of collaborative workspaces for CA teams organized by theaters, functions, and governance councils.
  • CA-pedia: An encyclopedia of CA-related content and knowledge, built by the community.
  • CA I-Zone: A future platform for CA collaboration on innovative ideas (similar to EMTG’s I-Zone).
  • Our Space: A social networking platform for peer-to-peer collaboration within the organization.
  • (Services) PMO: A comprehensive view of CA’s FY09 initiative investment portfolio.

The site also features a Wiki of the Week and a top contributors list, related links, and Collaboratory usage statistics. As Figure 10-8 shows, Collaboratory has grown from 22,000 plus users, just after its launch in November 2007, to well over 165,000 users at the end of 2008, one reason the site has moved to its own, dedicated server.[36]

Figure 10-8

Figure 10-8 Customer Advocacy’s strategy wiki site.[37]

According to Tam, key Collaboratory facts include:

  • Serves as Customer Advocacy’s internal Web 2.0 platform.
  • Developed to present CA strategy in a multi-dimensional way.
  • Centralizes information about CA via CA-pedia.
  • Provides directory of 70+ CA teams.
  • 10% of CA employees contribute.
  • Had 26,000 hits within first two months.

The CA Strategy wiki, shown in Figure 10-8, is used to

  • Communicate the organization’s complex, multi-dimensional FY10 Strategy Architecture.
  • Support fiscal year planning.
  • Enable employees to visualize how their initiatives connect to other CA initiatives.
  • Provide the ability to click on an initiative and drill down to review initiative objectives, challenges, risks, milestones, and financials.

Within two months of its inception, more than 50 global CA teams had built workspaces as part of the Collaboratory community, sharing information on initiatives, projects, and team knowledge through a wiki-based knowledge base called CA-pedia. In June 2008, Collaboratory won the coveted Collaboration Across Cisco Award, mentioned earlier in the chapter.[38]

There are several other Cisco examples of wikis being leveraged as a community support platform. For instance, Cisco IT supports Windows-based PCs as official desktop hardware, so Mac users have established their own Mac-Wiki support community, Mac Trolls. The site provides a wealth of useful information, enabling new Mac users to become productive more quickly and offering experienced users the opportunity to learn and share their knowledge and innovative ideas as well. Mac-Wiki won the Collaboration Across Cisco Award in January 2008, acknowledging over 100 key contributors and distilled content from more than 40,000 emails at the time.[39]

Another example is the recently launched WebEx Connect Community wiki, providing links to

  • Best practices
  • Clearinghouse for submitting Connect feature enhancements
  • FAQs
  • Getting started information
  • Metrics reports on Connect adoption and usage
  • Program team and key stakeholders
  • Program tracks and status updates (metrics, performance testing)
  • Related blogs and initiatives across Cisco
  • Service alerts and resolutions
  • Support and learning resources
  • Tips and tricks
  • Use cases
  • Widget approval and governance
  • Widgets

Developed through a collaborative partnership between the Connect IT team, the US-Canada Collaboration team, and others, the wiki-based community site offers support to WebEx Connect users across the company.[40]

InformIT Promotional Mailings & Special Offers

I would like to receive exclusive offers and hear about products from InformIT and its family of brands. I can unsubscribe at any time.

Overview


Pearson Education, Inc., 221 River Street, Hoboken, New Jersey 07030, (Pearson) presents this site to provide information about products and services that can be purchased through this site.

This privacy notice provides an overview of our commitment to privacy and describes how we collect, protect, use and share personal information collected through this site. Please note that other Pearson websites and online products and services have their own separate privacy policies.

Collection and Use of Information


To conduct business and deliver products and services, Pearson collects and uses personal information in several ways in connection with this site, including:

Questions and Inquiries

For inquiries and questions, we collect the inquiry or question, together with name, contact details (email address, phone number and mailing address) and any other additional information voluntarily submitted to us through a Contact Us form or an email. We use this information to address the inquiry and respond to the question.

Online Store

For orders and purchases placed through our online store on this site, we collect order details, name, institution name and address (if applicable), email address, phone number, shipping and billing addresses, credit/debit card information, shipping options and any instructions. We use this information to complete transactions, fulfill orders, communicate with individuals placing orders or visiting the online store, and for related purposes.

Surveys

Pearson may offer opportunities to provide feedback or participate in surveys, including surveys evaluating Pearson products, services or sites. Participation is voluntary. Pearson collects information requested in the survey questions and uses the information to evaluate, support, maintain and improve products, services or sites, develop new products and services, conduct educational research and for other purposes specified in the survey.

Contests and Drawings

Occasionally, we may sponsor a contest or drawing. Participation is optional. Pearson collects name, contact information and other information specified on the entry form for the contest or drawing to conduct the contest or drawing. Pearson may collect additional personal information from the winners of a contest or drawing in order to award the prize and for tax reporting purposes, as required by law.

Newsletters

If you have elected to receive email newsletters or promotional mailings and special offers but want to unsubscribe, simply email information@informit.com.

Service Announcements

On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance we might send users an email. Generally, users may not opt-out of these communications, though they can deactivate their account information. However, these communications are not promotional in nature.

Customer Service

We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services and in regard to issues relating to their account we reply via email or phone in accordance with the users' wishes when a user submits their information through our Contact Us form.

Other Collection and Use of Information


Application and System Logs

Pearson automatically collects log data to help ensure the delivery, availability and security of this site. Log data may include technical information about how a user or visitor connected to this site, such as browser type, type of computer/device, operating system, internet service provider and IP address. We use this information for support purposes and to monitor the health of the site, identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents and appropriately scale computing resources.

Web Analytics

Pearson may use third party web trend analytical services, including Google Analytics, to collect visitor information, such as IP addresses, browser types, referring pages, pages visited and time spent on a particular site. While these analytical services collect and report information on an anonymous basis, they may use cookies to gather web trend information. The information gathered may enable Pearson (but not the third party web trend services) to link information with application and system log data. Pearson uses this information for system administration and to identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents, appropriately scale computing resources and otherwise support and deliver this site and its services.

Cookies and Related Technologies

This site uses cookies and similar technologies to personalize content, measure traffic patterns, control security, track use and access of information on this site, and provide interest-based messages and advertising. Users can manage and block the use of cookies through their browser. Disabling or blocking certain cookies may limit the functionality of this site.

Do Not Track

This site currently does not respond to Do Not Track signals.

Security


Pearson uses appropriate physical, administrative and technical security measures to protect personal information from unauthorized access, use and disclosure.

Children


This site is not directed to children under the age of 13.

Marketing


Pearson may send or direct marketing communications to users, provided that

  • Pearson will not use personal information collected or processed as a K-12 school service provider for the purpose of directed or targeted advertising.
  • Such marketing is consistent with applicable law and Pearson's legal obligations.
  • Pearson will not knowingly direct or send marketing communications to an individual who has expressed a preference not to receive marketing.
  • Where required by applicable law, express or implied consent to marketing exists and has not been withdrawn.

Pearson may provide personal information to a third party service provider on a restricted basis to provide marketing solely on behalf of Pearson or an affiliate or customer for whom Pearson is a service provider. Marketing preferences may be changed at any time.

Correcting/Updating Personal Information


If a user's personally identifiable information changes (such as your postal address or email address), we provide a way to correct or update that user's personal data provided to us. This can be done on the Account page. If a user no longer desires our service and desires to delete his or her account, please contact us at customer-service@informit.com and we will process the deletion of a user's account.

Choice/Opt-out


Users can always make an informed choice as to whether they should proceed with certain services offered by InformIT. If you choose to remove yourself from our mailing list(s) simply visit the following page and uncheck any communication you no longer want to receive: www.informit.com/u.aspx.

Sale of Personal Information


Pearson does not rent or sell personal information in exchange for any payment of money.

While Pearson does not sell personal information, as defined in Nevada law, Nevada residents may email a request for no sale of their personal information to NevadaDesignatedRequest@pearson.com.

Supplemental Privacy Statement for California Residents


California residents should read our Supplemental privacy statement for California residents in conjunction with this Privacy Notice. The Supplemental privacy statement for California residents explains Pearson's commitment to comply with California law and applies to personal information of California residents collected in connection with this site and the Services.

Sharing and Disclosure


Pearson may disclose personal information, as follows:

  • As required by law.
  • With the consent of the individual (or their parent, if the individual is a minor)
  • In response to a subpoena, court order or legal process, to the extent permitted or required by law
  • To protect the security and safety of individuals, data, assets and systems, consistent with applicable law
  • In connection the sale, joint venture or other transfer of some or all of its company or assets, subject to the provisions of this Privacy Notice
  • To investigate or address actual or suspected fraud or other illegal activities
  • To exercise its legal rights, including enforcement of the Terms of Use for this site or another contract
  • To affiliated Pearson companies and other companies and organizations who perform work for Pearson and are obligated to protect the privacy of personal information consistent with this Privacy Notice
  • To a school, organization, company or government agency, where Pearson collects or processes the personal information in a school setting or on behalf of such organization, company or government agency.

Links


This web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects Personal Information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this web site.

Requests and Contact


Please contact us about this Privacy Notice or if you have any requests or questions relating to the privacy of your personal information.

Changes to this Privacy Notice


We may revise this Privacy Notice through an updated posting. We will identify the effective date of the revision in the posting. Often, updates are made to provide greater clarity or to comply with changes in regulatory requirements. If the updates involve material changes to the collection, protection, use or disclosure of Personal Information, Pearson will provide notice of the change through a conspicuous notice on this site or other appropriate way. Continued use of the site after the effective date of a posted revision evidences acceptance. Please contact us if you have questions or concerns about the Privacy Notice or any objection to any revisions.

Last Update: November 17, 2020