The wiki meme

The famed biologist Richard Dawkins coined the term meme to describe an idea that was passed along in minds much in the same way that genes are passed along in bodies. As our wiki project has continued, I think the wiki meme is spreading.

Let me explain. Our wiki spans the length and width of a very large corporation. Employees are getting into the habit of working across departments, groups, etc. What matters isn’t where someone works, but what they can contribute to the discussion. Speaking personally, I really like to discuss ideas with individuals across the company, and the wiki makes that possible like no other tool. It’s Web 2.0 in the wild.

Someone once said the businessman has no country, and I’m starting to think that the wiki-empowered employee has no division. Our wiki is fostering a less parochial, more cosmopolitan view of our company in the minds of its employees. This, in short, is the wiki meme.

Most of our employees aren’t there yet. They’re still asking about how to upload documents and whether it makes sense to start a blog. But I predict that the wiki meme will disrupt, in an increasingly fundamental sense, how our company does business. Once employees get used to working across divisions, it’s hard, if not impossible, to put the genie back in the bottle.

As I like to say, simple ways of doing business always triumph over complex ways of doing business – eventually. Let me rephrase that: Companies that will survive the upheaval of Web 2.0 will have to be more agile. They need the wiki meme to spread to all corners of the enterprise.

How’s your company doing? Is the wiki meme spreading throughout your office?