Wikis and blogs—accessible, user friendly, and magnetic in their ability to garnerattention and amass information—are often characterized by viral growth. As theterm connotes, such rampant proliferation can be hazardous to enterprise health.
We’ve already explored wikis and blogs—what they are (see the AMR Research Alert article “Wikis and Blogs, Part I: Why Silly Words Mean Serious Business”) and what they’re used for in enterprises (see the Alert article “Wikis and Blogs, Part II: Make Room for Innovation”). Now we’ll look at the risks and the best ways to avoid them.
Wikis and blogs—accessible, user friendly, and magnetic in their ability to garner attention and amass information—are often characterized by viral growth. As the term connotes, such rampant proliferation can be hazardous to enterprise health.
We’ll separate the risks into two groups: Risks of Use, denoting the deliberate use of wikis and blogs by enterprises, and Risks of Existence, denoting the risks of unsanctioned use and use by constituencies outside of the enterprise’s control. The good news is that every risk comes with a reward counterpart, which we’ll discuss in Part IV of this series next week.
Risks of use
Compliance risk—Enterprises are extremely wary about adding new environments where employees are encouraged to freely and openly express themselves and communicate. Already struggling to address the high risk of e-mail and instant messaging, the introduction of wikis and blogs could further complicate the issues.
Relationship risk—Companies are rightfully fearful of alienating or angering constituencies, particularly when deploying wikis and blogs to customers. Open, ungoverned online conversations between corporate executives and customers, while well meaning, can escalate into an adversarial tone very quickly. And providing a forum where customers air their grievances can be extremely risky.
Productivity risk—Employees can get distracted by reading and participating in blogs and wikis to the detriment of their other duties and responsibilities.
Lack of adoption risk—Wikis and blogs carry a somewhat mistaken reputation for ease of use and adoption. Some communities are more likely to adopt and put them to use than others. And personal characteristics and motivations play an important role, as about half of the people introduced to wikis use them actively and adopt them quickly. The other half don’t—and it’s hard to convince them to do so.
Information proliferation risk—Do you or your employees really need another source/destination for information, one that in fact competes for their knowledge with existing systems already starved for employee use and attention? Are you creating new silos?
System redundancy and conflict risk—While they’re often implemented in parallel now, enterprise investments in wikis and blogs will either work with or against other established systems and initiatives, like portals, content management systems, collaboration platforms, and business-process-specific systems like CRM, contact center knowledge management, and collaborative design and engineering. Are you creating a wiki-blog monster, impossible to integrate and coordinate with other systems, and sapping their source of energy and power? (i.e., the people who use them)
Hidden cost risk—Wikis and blogs are new territory for enterprises, and yet to scale to widespread use, it’s painfully difficult to foresee the cost of supporting and scaling the efforts. The implications for compliance, security, privacy, IT, and business human resources are nearly impossible to predict.
Product and vendor risk—The software market is replete with small startups selling wiki and blog product and services, vendors in adjacent spaces see them as new opportunities to expand their business, and enterprise application heavyweights are promising to offer them as features in upcoming offerings. The market will surely consolidate, but when and how? Who will address issues today and still be around to address them tomorrow?
Risks of existence
Many companies are coming to realize wikis and blogs are no longer choices for the enterprise. They are a new reality of the business world.
Rogue use—Many of your employees and constituents are already using wikis and blogs, whether it’s to improve their productivity and your business benefit or not. Turning a blind eye to use of publicly available and hosted platforms for wikis and blogs will greatly exacerbate compliance and security concerns.
Reputation risk—Making web publishing more accessible to consumers and self-styled editorialists through blogs, wikis, discussion boards, and other channels raises the risk flag for many companies.
Bad news ignored—Companies can no longer ignore the external blogosphere as a source of information about potential problems. They’re being held responsible for information about product defects and such, readily available to them, as well as their customers, partners, and government watchdogs on the web. Ignorance, in the form of technical incapability to detect these problems, is no longer an excuse.
Misinformation ignored—How do you stem the enormous, irreparable damage that misinformation, unsubstantiated statements, or skewed points of view communicated in blogs and wikis can have on your products and services?
Conclusion
Lest you think that we’re trying to dissuade enterprises from using blogs and wikis, here are two points. First, we may as well dissuade the tide from rising. Like it or not, wikis and blogs—and other such gizmos under other goofy names—will be a reality of your business. Second, when wikis, blogs, and broader Web 2.0 trends are understood and more deliberately adopted, the rewards will outweigh the risks and present new opportunities for your business.
So, in Part IV of this series, we’ll discuss the reward counterpoints to each of these risks, and give some practical advice on how to effectively roll them out to your business. In Part V, with risks and rewards in mind, we’ll look at the broad landscape of wiki and blog providers.
© Copyright 2006 by AMR Research, Inc.
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