Chapter 9. Harvesting the Information

9.1. User-Generated Content

One of the most appealing aspects of implementing a wiki is the prospect of getting feedback from the community that uses it. In the case of wikis based around corporate processes or products, this can mean getting contributions from people over whom you have no direct authority.

This concept of “user-generated content” is often cited as a potential roadblock to implementing a wiki, as it is felt that such “unofficial” contributions will devalue the information.

In fact the opposite is true.

As pointed in the introduction to this book, collaboration is often the key to achieving results that are greater than the sum of the efforts of individual participants. When it comes to products, the people who know the most about them are often your customers. Particularly in the world of software, although it applies to other products as well, it doesn’t matter how many scenarios you design and test for, your customers will find ways to use your product that you never thought of. They use your products regularly, and they will find both faults and new uses. They are creating information that is invaluable to you and your other customers.

The concept of user-generated content is neither new nor is it solely associated with wikis. In fact, for the majority of human history this has been the normal way that information is communicated. One person comes up with an idea, a thought, or a story; and as it is repeated each teller adds his or her own contribution. The tradition of oral knowledge sharing is an ancient one that readily accepts the axiom that the community will add and embellish to the benefit of all. (See my presentation, "Why Publishing is No Longer the Last Step," for more on these ideas.)

The modern belief in the sanctity and veracity of the written word is a relatively recent product of 19^th and early 20^th century thinking.

In the early days of written communication, prior to the development of the printing press, texts were copied by hand, with each scribe adding commentary and input. Even in the early days of the printing press, print runs were small and changes were often made to manuscripts and texts between printings in reaction to social and political changes.

Even Shakespeare used customer feedback, plus input from other writers, in his work. What we now consider the definitive works are in fact just snapshots of a particular version of each play. Modern scholarship shows that Shakespeare would change parts of plays, often on a daily basis, reacting to audience feedback and events of the day. In many ways his works were “The Daily Show” of Elizabethan England. Shakespeare wrote for the stage and his audience, not for the written word and posterity. He was open to ideas from his customer base, and we should be, too.

Within my two-decade career in technical and corporate communications, I have come across numerous examples of user-generated content that pre-date the wiki and web technology.

In the later years of high school, like many teenage boys, a lot of my life revolved around mending old cars. Most of my reading in those days was Haynes repair manuals. Tucked away in the back of those manuals was a postcard on which you could send in your own tips and tricks and corrections to the procedures. I don’t know how many of those greasy thumb-print covered cards my friends and I sent in over the years, but I do recall our celebration the day we found one of our tips included in an updated version of one of the manuals.

One of my first jobs in the technical communication industry was writing repair documentation for the Concorde supersonic aircraft. At that point the aircraft was only operated by two airlines, British Airways and Air France, both of which had the authority to make engineering changes. As a result, it wasn’t long before a British Airways Concorde differed significantly from an Air France Concorde. As we maintained and wrote the documentation for both airlines, they would submit the changes and we would put them into the manual, flagged as what we termed a COC (Customer Originated Change). Some pages would carry a British Airways masthead and others an Air France masthead. This was user-generated content, it just took time for it to be incorporated into the final product.

With wiki technology this basic idea of accommodating user-generated feedback has been made more explicit and the speed of incorporation increased to the point where it can be, but doesn’t have to be, instantaneous.