We had a meeting with a couple of potential clients this week that were quite eye-opening in terms of attitudes to wikis.
In both situations, the conversations had got around to the subject of wikis, and in particular how they could be used inside each organisation to capture some of the project-specific information that they have flying around. What was fascinating was the difference in perception of the freedom to edit that wikis provide – in one organisation the idea that wikis can (if you configure them this way) allow anyone to edit anything was accepted without a murmer. In the other, it was as if we’d suggested that they leave the petty cashbox unlocked out in the street outside with a sign saying “help yourself”. Even when it was demonstrated that it’s possible to provide the same layers of access control that you’d find anywhere else in the network, they were still unsettled by the idea that there’s a ‘free for all’ option.
Which got me to wondering if there are some organisations where it would be culturally impossible to introduce wiki technology, because of their attitudes to their staff. They’re the Theory X employers – the default assumption is that employees are up to no good and have to be policed, with sanctions to enforce performance. Presumably their attitude to wikis would be that things would quickly degenerate into anarchy.
The Theory Y assumptions are the opposite – explicit control and punishment measures aren’t needed because in general staff want to do a high-quality job. You’d assume that if this were the case then the ability to edit ceases to become a risk and is instead a benefit.
I’m going to test this out in future presentations – a quick proxy for employer attitude being how they manage web and email access. My suspicion is that if this is highly-policed, then there’s going to be a negative perception of a wiki’s freedom to edit. Presumably the need to police employee behaviour comes from a belief that there’s deviant behaviour going on, so following that logic through would mean that if you give staff the ability to edit wiki pages it will lead to problems.
Of course, Theory X / Theory Y has often been attacked for being over-simplistic, but perhaps there is scope for a ‘Theory X / Theory Y’ of wiki adoption?
