6 Corporate wiki users and uses
This section of the thesis is concerned with answering the second research question. It will be shown why and how other enterprises are using corporate wikis. 64 The answer to the first part of why wikis are being used within corporations is somewhat difficult to answer. A deep root cause analysis was not undertaken. Instead common sense was used in order to point to reasons for wiki use in general. This was backed by scientific evidence. The main reason for corporate wiki use revolves around the objective and percieved usefulness criterion. Benefits of and barriers to wiki use gained from surveys and case studies will be revealed in order to narrow down the plentyful reasons. The second part of the second research question can easily be answered.65 Examples were found within numerous success stories and case studies on the webpages of enterprise class wikis. 66, 67, 68, 69
6.1 Reasons for Corporate wiki use
The why question presupposes that wikis are allready in use within companies. And in fact the use of these tools has become common place in corporations (Businessweek 2007). But why are they used? The reasons for using wikis vary greatly and most often revolve around the usefulness criterion. One can assume, that if a tool is not usefull, it will not be used. The usefulness in turn, is often a perceived usefulness. It depends for the most part on what you want to accomplish. To some extend it depends on the characteristics of the tools itself. Other factors of influence of the perceived usefullness are the capabilities of the people using the tools and also the specific environment in which learning of those tools takes place. Another part is the absence of other tools or the presence of more complicated tools respectively.
The perceived usefulness can also be influenced by other external stimulants like expert opinion or marketing.
Figure 14: Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, Gartner (2008)
One reason for using wiki tools in a corporate environment can be seen in the fact that the influential technology analyst Gartner and other sources of information for IT decision makers in the internet promote this kind of application. Figure 14: Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, (Gartner 2008) you see a snapshot of the maturity, and adoption of wikis in comparison to other specific business applications. According to Gartner (2008) Wikis are at the end of the phase 'Trough of disillusionment'. This could lead followers of Gartners hypothesis to the assumption that wikis will be productively used within the next few years and companies do have to invest in these 'technologies'. Another reason for using wikis can be seen in attempts to bring the success of knowledge building that takes place in other WikiWebs for example in the Wikipedia community into the corporate environment. Oftentimes this success has been attributed to the software rather than to the environment or other dimensions of communities.
Last but not least people use wikis for private reasons or have been using the tools at highschools and colleges and bring the experiences they gathered into the workplace and seek these tools. Since wikis are so easy to install and use people do use wiki tools to solve urgent needs even though these tools are not officially provided or supported by the IT department of corporations.70
Throughout the next two sections of this chapter additional reasons for using wiki software will become evident and be backed by empirical data.
6.1.1 Benefits of wiki use
In part the reasons for wiki use are manyfold, because the benefits or percieved benefits vary depending on different viewpoints and use scenarios. From a strategic point of view cost savings are seen as very important to survive as an organization. Since time savings often lead to cost savings directly, one should focus on the time traps that exist within many companies.
'Most of the time in an efficient enterprise is being wasted because one does not know a piece of something very important. Than you call people. But people in an efficient company are not on the phone, because they work. Und when they pick up the phone, they have no time, because they are efficiently employed. What I see, dear people is, that people in an efficient company have to get their knowledge themselves.'
Prof. Dueck, IBM, translated from (Computerzeitung.de 2008)
The time traps that exist within many companies described examplarily above where taken into account by Prof. Dueck when he started the initiative for the Blue Pedia? wi-
6.1.2 Barriers to Wiki use
6.2 How are Corporate wikis being used?
6.2.1 Case: IBM
6.2.2 Case: Bosch Rexroth Group
6.2.2 Case: Schaeffler
Quelle:Cogneon-Paper – Erfahrungsbericht Schaeffler-Wiki auf der Knowtech2009
64 Corporate or enterprise wikis are tools, that are installed in a corporate environment. Corporate WikiWebs share the core Wiki concepts that were described above. 'Corporate groups [...] can use these [collaborative discussion] servers to plan, execute, document, and follow up various projects. The servers may be teamoriented or work for the entire company or division' Leuf/Cunningham (2001, p. 9).
65 A good starting point for the recherche was the webpage 
http://www.ikiw.org from Steward Mader, who is a wiki consultant.
66 http://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/casestudies/
67 http://mindtouch.com/customers
68 http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Main/TWikiSuccessStories
69 http://www.socialtext.com/customers. There are over 100 wiki engines today and their functionality can be compared using http://www.wikimatrix.org. There you will also find the web addresses for these wikis. Many Wiki Webs? contain success stories.