Out of the mouths of babes

He's three feet tall, with blond hair and blue eyes, and he knows what he wants. He's Timmy, my eighteen month-old son. And he has a lot to teach all of us, I think, about corporate wikis.

Every day, before and after work, Timmy wants to go for a walk. "Walk," he says when he sees me in the mornings or evenings. He doesn't care about how my day went, or how I'm hoping it will go. He just wants what he wants. Bottom line. Stop beating around the bush. Cut to the chase.

Corporate wikis are used by dozens, hundreds or even thousands of Timmies. These users know what they want to achieve using the wiki, and they could care less about what we have to do to deliver that experience to them. These aren't early adopters -- they're most of our users. They're like one of our sales managers, who told me, "I don't want this wiki to become a time sink for my guys." Translation: Wikiman, deliver real value to my team, or get out of the way.

As much as those of us championing wikis can get all hot and bothered about it and make fuzzy sounding claims about "community" and "communication" and "teamwork," what it comes down to for many of our users is this: I want to go for a walk.