IBM Research © 2006 IBM Corporation Building Trust in an Enterprise Wiki Catalina Danis 1 and David...
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IBM Research
© 2006 IBM Corporation
Building Trust in an Enterprise Wiki
Catalina Danis1 and David Singer2
1 Social Computing Group, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center2 Almaden Information Services, IBM Almaden Research Center
www.research.ibm.com
IBM Research
© 2006 IBM Corporation2 Building Trust in an Enterprise Wiki November 4, 2006
The problem
IBM’s Research Division consists of about 3000 individuals in nine locations in five countries on three continents
–Plus remote workers
Two main stakeholder groups shape the research agenda:
–Strategists and senior managers who make funding decisions
–Researchers who propose and execute the research
Management and Strategists have a Lotus Notes database used to create the annual research agenda but…
–It is not updated during the year and is created afresh annually
–Most Researchers do not have access to this database
There is, in fact, no single place where Researchers can find complete information on the current research program
IBM Research
© 2006 IBM Corporation3 Building Trust in an Enterprise Wiki November 4, 2006
Goals of the ResearchWiki
Opportunity for an initial subset -- 1200 researchers distributed over 8 worldwide laboratories -- to collaborate around research projects
–Goal is to encourage early disclosure of planned research
–So that it may be evolved collaboratively based on identified synergies with worldwide colleagues
Replacement of the Lotus Notes database for this subset
Continued use of the ResearchWiki through the year and into subsequent years to provide continuity
Availability to all of Research, but initial emphasis on the “Software Strategy” area
IBM Research
© 2006 IBM Corporation4 Building Trust in an Enterprise Wiki November 4, 2006
Why a Wiki?
Enabling open access, contribution, and discussion of the research agenda throughout its lifecycle
Providing a single “starting point” to find out what is happening in research
It’s Web 2.0 – what else need we say?
IBM Research
© 2006 IBM Corporation5 Building Trust in an Enterprise Wiki November 4, 2006
Wiki design issues
Two complementary streams need to be brought into harmony to create a plan
–Strategy documents
–Project descriptions
Formally-defined taxonomy for project/proposal categorization must be surfaced
All pages are editable by anyone – caused some concern going in
–Modified the wiki engine to create “Discussion” areas on each page
–@SIG@ construct to “sign/date” entries – not frequently used!
–Page edit history shows userid of each editor
IBM Research
© 2006 IBM Corporation6 Building Trust in an Enterprise Wiki November 4, 2006
IBM Research
© 2006 IBM Corporation7 Building Trust in an Enterprise Wiki November 4, 2006
IBM Research
© 2006 IBM Corporation8 Building Trust in an Enterprise Wiki November 4, 2006
Why is trust an issue?
“Culture change” from the past model
–More openness – with respect to audience and nature of content
Distributed organization
–Lack of face-to-face opportunities
–Cultural differences
Research organization is a meritocracy and therefore competition is built into the system
Overlay of funding business process adds another layer of competition
IBM Research
© 2006 IBM Corporation9 Building Trust in an Enterprise Wiki November 4, 2006
Design decisions to promote development of trust
Decision to open it to Researchers only, not to the rest of the enterprise–Leverage shared identity–But currently an issue, as strategists want to give access to their non-Research
partners
Linked discussion area to each project description–Separate spaces for one topic – how will people sort their contributions between the
spaces?
No anonymous access–Although unless people sign contribution, requires effort to figure out who said what
Named contacts for wiki issues –not just “[email protected]” or a “Feedback” link
Open Trac/Subversion for issues and code
IBM Research
© 2006 IBM Corporation10 Building Trust in an Enterprise Wiki November 4, 2006
Experiences during early usage
First test of openness: Feedback being given to project descriptions by strategists
–Even we were reticent to disclose until we had a polished description–Strategists have received complaints through email about what were perceived as
overly critical comments
Developing norms about editing content created by others –Out of band negotiations precedes changes: asking for permission and alerting
colleague of changes
Can I trust that the work model has really changed? –Do all stakeholders understand the new content in the same way?
Degree of content attribution on the content page varies–Some are signed with full name/userid–Some only with first name – in vs. out group –Some choose to be anonymous though of course can be traced
IBM Research
© 2006 IBM Corporation11 Building Trust in an Enterprise Wiki November 4, 2006
Some early usage statistics
Total unique users: 832
236 individuals created pages but 346 individuals edited them
–About half the authors edited pages they did not initiate
632 pages have been created
–63 of these have active discussions
IBM Research
© 2006 IBM Corporation12 Building Trust in an Enterprise Wiki November 4, 2006
An early success story
From: S@IBM India Research Lab, New Delhi, India
To: M@IBM Watson Research Lab, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Hi,
I saw your proposal on <topic>; it is very interesting.
Is it possible to get your tool <version> 0.1?
From: M@IBM Watson Research Lab
To: ResearchWiki Team
aha, the research wiki is working... i don't think i ever got a note like this in 3 years with <previous system>.
IBM Research
© 2006 IBM Corporation13 Building Trust in an Enterprise Wiki November 4, 2006
Some future work to improve user experience
Hosted discussions by senior management and/or strategists
–Demonstrate to researchers that management is involved
–A “training wheels” approach – create opportunities for discussion, possibly among competitors, under “watched” circumstances
Visualizations of activity on project description pages
–Communicate “aliveness” of a page
–Enable page owners to see who is interested in their work