EndUserSharePoint.com: When to use a blog… when to use a wiki
The first installment of my new book SharePoint 101: Tricks and Traps went out in my Weekly Newsletter a little over a week ago. I have received feedback from many people that the Trick on how to choose when to use a blog and when to use a wiki was one of the most helpful.
I am recreating it here in its entirety. I hope you find it useful. — Mark
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TRICK: WHEN TO USE A WIKI – WHEN TO USE A BLOG
PROBLEM
My team is having difficulty choosing when to use a blog and when to use a wiki. Are there any guidelines we can use to help select the most appropriate one for our project?
SOLUTION
There is a simple technique you can use: Is the communication a “one-to-many” message or a “many-to-many” dialog?
Blogs are great when one person is trying to communicate to a team or group. Think of a blog as pushing out information from a single source to anyone who is willing to listen, “one-to-many”. The listener has the ability to participate in the communication through comments, but the main direction of the message is controlled by the person writing the blog posts. This is how EndUserSharePoint.com is structured. I control the message flow and the general public has the ability to comment on those messages.
By the very nature of wikis, many people will be adding content and that content can be consumed by any number of readers, “many-to-many”. At first, it seems like a free-for-all, but in an intranet situation, it is extremely useful for letting content experts participate by contributing in their area of expertise. In general, someone sets the basic beginning structure of the wiki by creating a table of contents and some starter pages. From there, user generated content drives the expansion of the wiki, based upon the needs of the participating audience.
Simple test: one or two people providing content, use a blog; many people providing content, use a wiki. Yes, there are exceptions, but this technique will get you up and running without too much analysis paralysis.
Level of User: Team Site Administrator
Original Source: EndUserSharePoint.com
Good…liked the idea…thanks for clearing…
To Add a line…blogs are mainly used for idea sharing where as wikis is a web based form of Microsoft Word. The person who generates the first idea has the control over the all the post.
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This set of tips has helped us generate internal talking points with our end users — and let’s them share ideas on when they would use a wiki or a blog. This allows them to think critically through the business problem they are attempting to solve and provide a tool that is most useful for the team.
We start by presenting the “one-to-many” and “many-to-many” ideas in a training or discussion session. Then we let the business users hash it out between themselves on where they would use each solution. It’s also very interesting to see the same goal being accomplished a different way depending on the personality of the team!
So, for all of those analysts out there, I really encourage you to present this idea to your teams and let them come up with the uses. Then you can focus on providing the solution to them that fits both the personality and needs of the team!
How should we decide when create a new Wiki Library in an existing team site or a new Wiki Subsite?
Dean
Dean – I used my response as Question of the Day on June 5, 2008. — Mark