Hey Miki!

Today we launched Miki -- a wiki platform optimized for mobile devices. As wikis are becoming an essential communications tool for enterprises, so to is being able to access and edit anywhere. Another first from Socialtext, this is an achievement in simplicity.

Initial user reaction to Miki from Socialtext customers is positive. "On a Blackberry sitting at a cafe downtown Beirut, Lebanon," said Martin Lindstrom, who works in Franchise Development at Inter-IKEA. "This is just great."

Try it now by dropping this link to Wiki Wednesday in your mobile web browser.
Enterprise Use

China Martens covers how Socialtext Optimizes Wiki for Mobile Users:

Europe-based investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein has been one of the beta testers of the mobile wiki. The bank has already deployed Socialtext's software enterprisewide, extending wiki usage outside of the organization to some of its trading partners, according to Mayfield.

The bank worked closely with Socialtext on Miki to give the company a better understanding of the needs of its users, according to Myrto Lazopoulou, Dresdner's head of user centered design. Dresdner is currently evaluating Miki; feedback from users within the bank has been excellent, she wrote in an e-mail interview.

Dresdner's official mobile device is RIM's BlackBerry. "The mobile version of the wiki supports our communications needs," Lazopoulou wrote. "With the mobile version you don't need to be in front of a computer to access the wiki, you can access it from anywhere. We have many users spending a lot of their time travelling so this is a great solution for keeping them up to date."

In general, adopting wikis has proved useful in many ways at Dresdner including developing documentation and coming up with marketing ideas, according to Lazopoulou.

"In many cases, the more simple the function the more valuable the wiki becomes, for example, simply collating meeting agendas through the wiki has been seen to greatly improve the quality of agendas, cutting meeting times and increasing productivity," she wrote. "People arrive at meetings knowing what they need to discuss, having added items to the agenda that might have been overlooked and removed items that are irrelevant."

Adoption

"A natural extension of Socialtext's wiki workspaces is delivering a mobile user interface to spur adoption among business users," said Peter O'Kelly, Research Director, Burton Group. "Wikis are revitalizing the collaboration software market. Their accessibility and intuitive user experience make them highly effective for many collaboration scenarios that are not well addressed by more sophisticated enterprise products."

Adoption is a key issue for enterprise wikis. When we were the first to introduce email integration, we did so to adapt to the information flow of the enterprise. It used to be that you had to design for the occasionally connected user, now it is more critical to support the constantly connected user. Miki should not only spur adoption, but curb email overload and help maintain work-life balance.

Personal Miki

Socialtext Personal, which is free for five users, gives you a private wiki as notepad in your pocket. Simply bookmark your miki in your mobile web browser to quickly take notes that you can access and edit anywhere. A workgroup of five, for example, could have one common wiki and five private personal wikis, all for free.

Catch us on the go this week at Wiki Wednesday, LinuxWorld, Software 2006 and the Innovation Journalism conference.

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