How to hold meetings on a wiki

Some good ideas on…

How to hold meetings on a wiki « HiveTalk
4. Provide participants with tools to follow the discussion. Whether your software produces RSS feeds or simply sends email, make sure everyone knows how to set up frequent notifications. (Wouldn’t it be great to have wiki software produce Twitter feeds?)

Whlist at Ultralab, we started using Wikis (or online editable documents as we called them) for meetings before the web using FirstClass) to record and contribute resources, ideas and links on-the-fly. I remember often how when we had visitors in meetings people would often be phased by how everyone (except them) around the table was typing and talking at the same time.

Looking back, it was a bit rude, back then not everyone had a laptop and because it was a natural thing for us, we only made the smallest attempt to explain what we were doing tapping away whilst they were talking. Which was usually making notes, actions, emailing people for answers to questions then and there rather than saying we’d find out and organising the next round of meetings in our online calendar.

When I went to work at the OTHER media, they took a dim view of tapping during meetings, definitely not the done thing in the same way as emailing the person next to you wasn’t (unless passing on a long URL for example).

During a Ultralab gig last year, we used StikiPad as our meeting notepad and found that although it was good for gathering a lot of knowledge quickly, the concurrency issues of someone editing something that someone was in the middle of editing got in the way slightly. Some wikis are meant to be worked on at a glacial pace, with reverence and aplomb, some are seriously stress-tested being bombarded with edits in real-time.

If you don’t have wiki tools for you to try a few meetings in, try StikiPad. It has closed membership, email invites, comments and a clean interface. It’s not perfect but hark who’s talking.

Why would you want to use a wiki for a meeting in the first place?

• You get to collaborate on the agenda.
• You can answer questions BEFORE the meeting
• You can  share a lot of relevant knowledge, stuff to check out without boring everyone around the table with the sound of your own voice.
• Nobody is given what can be a demeaning job of writing up the minutes (that nobody will ever read)
• You don’t need to take (loads of) notes because you are all responsible (a job shared etc.)
• How often does your flash of inspiration happen AFTER the event, on the train on the way home? You can still add to the discussion whilst the dust is still settling
• You maintain a link with the people around the table. Have you ever been at a meeting and heard someone say something really fab then left forgetting to get their card?

So, lots to think about there, maybe not all relevant to you, or right even, but the main barrier to anyone using a wiki in a meeting is the social aspect. You have to propose to the meeting that you’d like to try using a wiki and in doing so you expose yourself for naysayers who will happily tell you why it won’t work or ask what’s wrong with paper. It’s a little bit like proposing that you try a 6 thinking hats meeting, people will either go along with you or, often out of embarrassment and anxiety, rib the shit out of you for departing from the norm.

If you don’t bump into those sorts of people you probably work in a geek company and already can explain the difference between Confluence and MediaWiki.

Wikis aren’t a cure all, but because they are different in such a small but fundamental way they can really shake things up, loosen the cobwebs and make things happen. A bit like an wildly embarrassing parlour game for the office that leaves everyone laughing, breathless and sitting on a different chair.