Comments on: How (and why) to write a Company Bible http://nikku.net/blog/how-and-why-to-write-a-company-bible/ The Art in the Business of Theater - Collaboration Tools and Technology and the Storefront Theater Movement Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:15:10 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 By: One Year, One Day & One Hundred Posts | Theater For The Future http://nikku.net/blog/how-and-why-to-write-a-company-bible/#comment-631 One Year, One Day & One Hundred Posts | Theater For The Future Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:34:52 +0000 http://nikku.net/blog/how-and-why-to-write-a-company-bible/#comment-631 [...] How (and why) to write a Company Bible - A creative use of forums and wikis can help capture all that stuff you always seem to forget in tech [...] [...] How (and why) to write a Company Bible - A creative use of forums and wikis can help capture all that stuff you always seem to forget in tech [...]

]]> By: Scott Walters http://nikku.net/blog/how-and-why-to-write-a-company-bible/#comment-422 Scott Walters Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:57:48 +0000 http://nikku.net/blog/how-and-why-to-write-a-company-bible/#comment-422 Thanks for the kind words. I think your ideas are spot-on, and your use of the wiki is perfect. I have used pbwiki and recommend it without hesitation. Basic and easy to use. As you know, I am a college professor, and it just occurred to me that a college drama dept would benefit from just such a handbook. (Now how to get my colleagues to do it!) Thanks for the kind words. I think your ideas are spot-on, and your use of the wiki is perfect. I have used pbwiki and recommend it without hesitation. Basic and easy to use. As you know, I am a college professor, and it just occurred to me that a college drama dept would benefit from just such a handbook. (Now how to get my colleagues to do it!)

]]> By: Nick Keenan http://nikku.net/blog/how-and-why-to-write-a-company-bible/#comment-414 Nick Keenan Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:08:03 +0000 http://nikku.net/blog/how-and-why-to-write-a-company-bible/#comment-414 I do! Thanks for asking! I love going self-hosted in general, if that's an option. For forums, nothin' beats the new version of <a href="http://www.phpbb.com/" rel="nofollow">phpBB</a>. Many hosting providers will have handy install scripts for phpBB built into their control panel. Tons of permission control, and fantastic organization features. For Wikis, We've had great luck with using <a href="http://www.splitbrain.org/projects/dokuwiki" rel="nofollow">docuwiki</a> - click <a href="http://wiki.splitbrain.org/wiki:dokuwiki" rel="nofollow">here</a> for an example of how it looks. <a href="http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki" rel="nofollow">Mediawiki</a>, which powers wikipedia, is both the most powerful and the most difficult to use, so docuwiki fit our non-technical staff much more easily - but it wasn't *so* easy that the basic wiki cross-referencing features became crippled. At some point, I should write a tutorial for getting open source software - especially software requiring a database - working on your website. It can be tricky to go DIY, but most open source projects like these come with pretty complete instructions. phpBB is how I learned to set an application up on the web, connect it to a database, and launch, so that's the best place to start. If you're looking for a fully-hosted wiki, rather than one on your own domain, for simplicity's sake, there's <a href="http://pbwiki.com/" rel="nofollow">pbwiki</a>, which I haven't used... I haven't liked wikiSpaces from what I've seen so far, which is another one. One very promising development is the new Google Sites add-on to <a href="http://www.google.com/a" rel="nofollow">Google Apps for your domain</a>. I pretty much insist on Google Apps - a completely free way to add gmail-powered email, calendering and chat to your domain - for all organizations when I work on their website. Google sites has some basic templates that you can use for internal project management, or company intranets, and I think some of those can approximate wiki-like features. I'll try to play with Google Sites a little more in the future, and if anyone has some insight, speak up! I do! Thanks for asking!

I love going self-hosted in general, if that’s an option. For forums, nothin’ beats the new version of phpBB. Many hosting providers will have handy install scripts for phpBB built into their control panel. Tons of permission control, and fantastic organization features.

For Wikis, We’ve had great luck with using docuwiki - click here for an example of how it looks. Mediawiki, which powers wikipedia, is both the most powerful and the most difficult to use, so docuwiki fit our non-technical staff much more easily - but it wasn’t *so* easy that the basic wiki cross-referencing features became crippled.

At some point, I should write a tutorial for getting open source software - especially software requiring a database - working on your website. It can be tricky to go DIY, but most open source projects like these come with pretty complete instructions. phpBB is how I learned to set an application up on the web, connect it to a database, and launch, so that’s the best place to start.

If you’re looking for a fully-hosted wiki, rather than one on your own domain, for simplicity’s sake, there’s pbwiki, which I haven’t used… I haven’t liked wikiSpaces from what I’ve seen so far, which is another one.

One very promising development is the new Google Sites add-on to Google Apps for your domain. I pretty much insist on Google Apps - a completely free way to add gmail-powered email, calendering and chat to your domain - for all organizations when I work on their website. Google sites has some basic templates that you can use for internal project management, or company intranets, and I think some of those can approximate wiki-like features. I’ll try to play with Google Sites a little more in the future, and if anyone has some insight, speak up!

]]> By: Lindsay http://nikku.net/blog/how-and-why-to-write-a-company-bible/#comment-412 Lindsay Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:21:34 +0000 http://nikku.net/blog/how-and-why-to-write-a-company-bible/#comment-412 Hey there, Nick -- Any suggestions about which wiki host to use? Hey there, Nick — Any suggestions about which wiki host to use?

]]> By: Nick Keenan http://nikku.net/blog/how-and-why-to-write-a-company-bible/#comment-402 Nick Keenan Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:02:04 +0000 http://nikku.net/blog/how-and-why-to-write-a-company-bible/#comment-402 That's why the forum and wiki solution are a nice solution... using them on a regular basis creates the same kind of knowledgebase without all the formalism of a step by step manual. I mentioned those mostly to walk through my own considerations in finding a system that worked for a small theater - we did the manual thing for a while, and it does work, especially for more technical procedures. But for a more holistic approach that easily includes everyone's input, Forum => Wiki is a great way to go. Editing this collected knowledge is a very tricky process. It's easy to undervalue the perspective of certain individuals based on your own perspective - especially when you have very different interpretations of the raw data. I think having a single editor archive all the captured information is not a sustainable way to go - that means that you're essentially creating a knowledge gatekeeper position, and you're ultimately subject to their interpretation of what the knowledge means and what knowledge needs to be stored. What happens when that person leaves the company, or when that person decides that a certain aspect of the company is less important than another (say, marketing is more important than the quality of the artistic product)? While it's more work and requires more scaling of the ol' learning curve, I think you'll yield better results in a small company when information is held and processed transparently by the entire company or at least the department heads. If you leverage the use of a forum in your collaborative discussions, it can be as simple as selectively cutting and pasting the things you've learned. That’s why the forum and wiki solution are a nice solution… using them on a regular basis creates the same kind of knowledgebase without all the formalism of a step by step manual. I mentioned those mostly to walk through my own considerations in finding a system that worked for a small theater - we did the manual thing for a while, and it does work, especially for more technical procedures. But for a more holistic approach that easily includes everyone’s input, Forum => Wiki is a great way to go.

Editing this collected knowledge is a very tricky process. It’s easy to undervalue the perspective of certain individuals based on your own perspective - especially when you have very different interpretations of the raw data. I think having a single editor archive all the captured information is not a sustainable way to go - that means that you’re essentially creating a knowledge gatekeeper position, and you’re ultimately subject to their interpretation of what the knowledge means and what knowledge needs to be stored. What happens when that person leaves the company, or when that person decides that a certain aspect of the company is less important than another (say, marketing is more important than the quality of the artistic product)? While it’s more work and requires more scaling of the ol’ learning curve, I think you’ll yield better results in a small company when information is held and processed transparently by the entire company or at least the department heads. If you leverage the use of a forum in your collaborative discussions, it can be as simple as selectively cutting and pasting the things you’ve learned.

]]> By: Director http://nikku.net/blog/how-and-why-to-write-a-company-bible/#comment-401 Director Sun, 15 Jun 2008 23:31:17 +0000 http://nikku.net/blog/how-and-why-to-write-a-company-bible/#comment-401 Excellent ideas. I'm gonna say the hardest part would be getting each team member to actually follow through on this project. The other big thing is that you would need someone on the team who actually knows how to write well to edit each person's manual. I know actors who are very articulate in their speech and can read a script all day long, but when you hand them a pen or pencil, they barely know which end is the pointy one. Good stuff. Excellent ideas. I’m gonna say the hardest part would be getting each team member to actually follow through on this project. The other big thing is that you would need someone on the team who actually knows how to write well to edit each person’s manual. I know actors who are very articulate in their speech and can read a script all day long, but when you hand them a pen or pencil, they barely know which end is the pointy one.

Good stuff.

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