Today, Nokia estimates at least 20% of its 68,000 employees use wiki pages to update schedules and project status, trade ideas, edit files, and so on. "It’s a reversal of the normal way things are done," says Stephen Johnston, senior manager for corporate strategy at Nokia, who helped pioneer the technology. Where Nokia once bought outside software to help foster collaboration, now "some of the most interesting stuff is emerging from within the company itself," says Johnston.At Nokia, Johnston says, different business groups within the company frequently collaborate, so as soon as one team began using wikis, the others followed suit. "Pretty soon, it started to go viral," he says.
The wikis caught on so quickly with Johnston and other research & development types because they offer more than just a new way of handling old tasks. Johnston says it was a watershed moment to find a tool that orchestrates a virtual free-flowing jam session of ideas across different groups and units within the company—something that’s crucial for an organization that thrives on out-of-the-box thinking.
"Wikis are a very tangible expression of our open way of working," Johnston says. "Now, we can not only talk about openness, we have a tool that is at its core based on collaboration." Once his colleagues recognized that, Johnston says, wikis began popping up everywhere.
When your in college Wiki’s are absolutely critical if you want to get any group work done. I’m involved in a genetics project concerning mutations in flys; everyone submits their data and we assign roles and tasks to each other. It’s great since we get to work whenever our schedule permits.
Glad to see the folks at Nokia are using wiki’s in the same fashion.