In recent weeks I have been reading the book ‘Wikinomics’ by Tapscott and Williams (http://www.wikinomics.com) and have been increasingly captivated by the concept. At the same time we have been discussing how ‘collaborative’ discussion is changing the way we work and the nature of political and communication campaigns. Some of our clients are opening up to the idea of using wikis (online tools where anyone can join the editing of a document) as a tool to ‘start a conversation’ with key target audience.

It is still a difficult concept to explain as most people believe that it will lead to chaos. My own experience with wikipedia thought me that it is quite a regimented and rule based approach and can lead to some very interesting results. We also tried our own experience by setting-up a wiki on wetpaint: http://hyperthinker.wetpaint.com – and although it was an interesting experiment I think people can be a little shy in getting involved.

Any experience with ‘collaborative online discussion’ that worked? Any thoughts on the subject?

Phil