Sep 16th, 2009 |
Emily Gusba, Systemscope“Let’s give ‘em something to talk about:” Discussions of GCpedia on the Internet
Getting people to use Web 2.0 takes more than just having a great new tool – the buzz around social media is key to its success. And while access to GCpedia may be limited to public servants, discussion of it certainly is not. Most of the buzz around GCpedia is positive, but more importantly, a slice of the discussion offers TBS and users some very concrete ways to improve the Wiki in terms of what went right and what needs to change in the deployment of future Web 2.0 tools. That’s why the public service needs to pay attention to what people are saying about GCpedia – especially outside of its walls.
Here are the top 5 things to know about how GCpedia is discussed on the web:
1- Wikipedia’s take on its GC cousin – Oddly enough, the Wikipedia article on GCpedia is an orphan, as “few or no articles link to it.” It is also tagged as a stub – there isn’t much about GCpedia on its closest public analogue. As is Wikipedia’s aim, the language about GCpedia is neutral – so, one has to wonder why TBS hasn’t taken advantage of what is potentially a good, and at least a cheap and easy opportunity to tout the goals of GCpedia. (Who cares about GCpedia outside of the public service? Taxpayers, quite possibly,)
2 – GCpedia will save the public service! – David Eaves makes the point that GCpedia is an excellent way to capture all of the tacit knowledge that will walk out the door when senior management retires in droves. Used properly, GCpedia could serve as a wealth of go-to information for those who will advance to mid-level and senior positions. Government departments and agencies need to be willing to endure the temporary pain of dedicating staff to interviewing almost-retirees and posting the findings to GCpedia, to avoid a longer term consequence: losing the collective intelligence getting ready to exit the public service.
3 – GCpedia remains the domain of GCgeeks? – Peter Smith is worried about how well GCpedia lends itself to use by newbies. The level of technical knowledge necessary to using GCpedia is one of the reasons Eaves cites for why soon-to-be-retirees aren’t likely to post what they know themselves. Smith is right – the interface is confusing, and could easily intimidate anyone with techno-trepidation. What is the solution? One is likely more training than what is largely available thus far, especially if TBS is sold on the MediaWiki platform.
4 – Lots of talk on Twitter – Interestingly enough, many public servants have turned to Twitter to talk about GCpedia. This isn’t surprising, just important. Remember that Twitter may well be the easiest real-time resource for anyone who wants to take the pulse of the Web-2.0-crowd’s feeling about GCpedia.
5 – Mostly love, but some concerns, too – Overall, the talk about GCpedia is overwhelmingly positive. And where challenges are discussed on the Web, so are solutions, which gives GCpedia’s owners and users an opportunity to engage in in-depth and strategic discussions about the role of this communication channel. That discussion is vital if GCpedia is going to live up to its potential.
3 Responses to ““Let’s give ‘em something to talk about:” Discussions of GCpedia on the Internet”
Thanks for linking. My concerns still hold- many of my peers in the GoC communications world are very turned off from actually making contribs to GCpedia since it involves learning “techie” stuff (I’m thinking it’s really more about IM than IT but hey). e.g. frustrations remembering the arcane deets of wiki markup or not knowing when to create a subpage rather than a new page or category. Part of it is training, but mostly not enough resources dedicated to wiki gardening. The ideal would be for them to be able to contribute their knowledge and then have gardeners come by and clean it up for them. But it is a struggle to resource that kind of background activity. Sigh.
If you’d like to get your knowledge up on GCPEDIA but are unsure about the markup and layout, please contact me through my user page (click the link on my name). I’m more than happy to teach you the markup, show by example by formatting and arranging the data as you need it, or even edit it with you live and in tandem during a phone call. This is, above all else, a collaborative tool. Those with content but no software knowledge can help and be helped by users with the technical knowledge but no new content to share. With Web 2.0, one person need not–and should not–do it all.
The core engine that drives Wikipedia is verifiability. That means everything has to be verifiable with reliable, third-party sources. And Wikipedia prefers sources like newspapers and magazines to blog postings. With very little information about GCPEDIA publically available, and with the site itself GC internal only, there’s not a lot that you can put about GCPEDIA in Wikipedia. And since the references to GCPEDIA are likely to be other GC internal sources, it’s not surprising that there aren’t many other articles in Wikipedia that link to the GCPEDIA article.
Organisations need to understand that Wikipedia is not a marketing platform. It’s a collaborative space to share and refine verifiable (i.e. public), neutral information. If you want your article to do well, seek out reputable third-party sources to reference.