Make a Good Legacy for the Future

Because social software like wikis are often a completely new piece of technology, users can tailor it to fit their needs — rather than demanding that users adapt to it, like with traditional enterprise software. With wikis, Callahan says, it's important to reinforce to people that documents will no longer be found in a tidy folder.

Instead, users will rely primarily on tagging and search. While search is like an online appliance, tagging does require a human element.

When it comes to tagging, Callahan says wiki administrators should encourage people to use human terms for their tags and try to avoid corporate jargon unless it's absolutely essential because it will make the site more reader-friendly. "Tag it with natural language rather than stuff that doesn't mean anything," he says

Be Patient

Callahan himself believes in the power of search over foldering. He has Google Desktop, a search appliance that culls through a user's Windows desktop, as his primary means of discovery.

"Browsing and folders were essential before you had index and search," he says. "I just have one folder, My Documents, where I search for everything."

But Callahan realizes everyone is not like him. After all, the construction of structured Windows folders was largely a legacy to how businesses stored paper based documents — in neat, separated cabinets.

"This is new mentality," he says. For some people, this shift will be more of a psychological adjustment than a technological one.

After the CoActive business development group's users add more content to their wiki, Callahan will show it off to other groups and have them build their own sites mirroring the same model. He is also experimenting with SocialCalc, a spreadsheet application that operates on wiki-like principles, where users can edit numbers and interact with different data sets. Socialtext released the product at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston a couple weeks ago.

"The goal is for this to become our intranet," he says. "We want to get more teams collaborating on wikis."