ibm research © 2006 ibm corporation building trust in an enterprise wiki catalina danis 1 and david...

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

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© 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

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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

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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?

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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>.

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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

ibm research © 2006 ibm corporation building trust in an enterprise wiki catalina danis 1 and david...

Documents

ibm research

ibm almaden research

ibm corporation building

research management

annual research agenda

watson research center

current research program

research projects goal