What's the best way to capture knowledge shared via a company email list?
Does anyone have any advise about how best to integrate an email list with an enterprise wiki? For example, is it worthwhile dumping a weekly or monthly archive of list postings onto a separate wikipage, making those emails searchable? Will people search it first before pinging the list again, and is there any way to encourage people to turn that dump into effective wiki content, e.g. by aggregating the best responses on related topics, even though they may be weeks, months or years apart?
Good Answers (1)
I wouldn't dump temporal bounded chunks of list postings onto the web - I'd extract threads instead.
A good email archive format I've seen has been the one for the IxD list. (eg. http://www.ixda.org/discuss.php?post=29073 ). Note how the underlying prototcol (ie. email) is pretty much besides the point .. you can not only read the threads online, but also contribute online. It looks more like a blog than an email list, but for all I know the discussion could be conducted via ye-olde nntp newsgroups too.
The next step would be to integrate some form of collaborative value-add, filtering, and weeding of the garden. Attaching a open-editable wiki summary at the top would be one way, as would a facility of tagging keywords to individual replies, rating usefulness of replies (eg. poor --> high), favouriting/watching of posts/threads, a simplified way of creating 'see also' links to other threads, and so on.
The keyword tagging could also be used to facilitate navigation to related posts, in addition to any manually added links.
Once you've got that system happening, feed it back into the email discussion environment by having the list server append a footnote link to every message to it's corresponding thread archive page. Not only would you drive traffic to the thread page (and hence editing of the summary et al), but by having the link in the email it might get manually quoted in other email threads (eg. as in a reply of the form "that was discussed last month, see this thread <url>").
I would advise against ditching the email list completely in favour of a wiki - you'd not only have a revolt on your hands, but you'd dampen discussions, and also drive discussion off the central list into private emails. There's also something ephemeral* about email which encourages participation, and you don't want to lose that (*despite the inevitable archives on the web).
More Answers (4)
The question is: do you actually want want users to distribute knowledge throught e-mail?
Is the information directly must-know or is a little bit slower dissamination also acceptable? In a time of e-mail overload one could agree with the team to use the wiki to share and discuss around a certain topic. Coworkers would then all receive less e-mails, replies-on-replies and e-mails -that aren't urgent after a day or so-
To my experience using e-mail AND a system -such as a wiki- does not improve the knowledge spreading process. There is a central repository, but users will probably not search in it. They'll search their e-mail box.
To achieve use of a wiki page an opt out stratategy for the e-mail list would be important. Than users with lesser priority to directly engage in the discussions can consume the knowledge on a moment of their liking.
Good luck!
I've seen this a few times before, and as Lex has alluded to, the secret is to remove email from the center of this scenario. Instead you could;
1. enter the topic in the wiki
2. send out email notification to the dist list identifying the wiki page and topic, asking people to contribute directly on the wiki
3. every week or few days send round another email summarizing the wiki contributions and requesting more
4. when the time period is over or the topic has been resolved, send round a full summary
5. when people start new topics via the email list, simply transfer to the wiki and advise everyone it's best to contribute on the wiki
I know moving away from email lists is painful for some, but that pain can be eased with good facilitation and if you have it RSS notifications. People can subscribe to the wiki notifications instead of expecting emails.
Scott Gavin
Links:
I like Gavin's idea, its just too much work. I've been running my own departmental wiki's for a couple of months now and you get to see that probably only 20% of the work force are the type that likes to "read" and even fewer likes to "write".
Having people jump through hoops just to create wikis will deter the audience.
The simplest solution lies with newsgroups which you can run off any windows 2003 service or free Open Source servers. Culturally, its habitual that users have been centered on the email client. To make the transition seamless, you have to bring the knowledge base to the user.
Subscribing to the newsgroup via the email client will present the users with the least path of resistance.
Honestly, I love wikis but the weakness is really in achieving the mass required for it to be successful.
While it is a digression, the best method for ensuring Wiki contribution that I've found is done through the "mentors" and "experts" you have in the organisation already. Ensure that they know that anyone asking them a question needs to submit the answer to the Wiki, and you can get a sufficient level of compliance to make it work.
As the value of the Wiki increases so folks will seek information there.
Good luck.
