Collaboration site: Stixy

Carol — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 21:25:56 +0000

Stixy is a shareable Web-based bulletin board where you can collaborate with colleagues. It’s a bit like a wiki – only more visual. It’s easy to drag n’ drop tasks, appointments, files, photos, notes and bookmarks on your Stixyboard – organised in whatever way makes sense to you. They say:

Stixy was created to serve people who need to organize their lives – that is, virtually everyone – but who don’t have the time or inclination to adapt their habits to a piece of software. Stixyboards are designed to be instantly familiar to anyone who’s used a regular bulletin board.

You can save your Stixyboard and invite others to collaborate. You can view a Stixyboard here or make your own here.

Below is a sample Stixyboard thanks to iconolith on flickr.

How can a wiki help your business?

Carol — Thu, 21 May 2009 03:06:44 +0000

A wiki is a web page that anyone can create and use to collaborate with other people. Although that might sound a bit daunting, they are actually really easy to create and they are free. Wikis are great for creating a simple website, organising a project or just storing online files. The idea of a wiki is that it can be set up so that several people have editing rights and you can work on project together.You don’t need any programming skills to use a wiki – it’s as simple as writing in a Word document!

This video gives a simple to understand explanation of wikis:

There are several good free wiki sites out there including PBWiki, Wetpaint, Wikispaces and
Google Sites. Basically all wikis offer the same features ie you can write, edit and collaborate on the website itself and you can upload files to share with others. Your wiki will look like a website with a front page and a number of ‘sub’ pages that you can access through a menu or index.

Here are a few ways that you could use wikis:

Project planning

A wiki is a great way for teams to share ideas and work on them without emailing files to and fro – and usually losing track of which is the current version.

Managing meetings

You can use a wiki to organise meeting notes, team agendas and calendars. Rather than emailing about to everyone involved, the information is posted to the wiki and participants check the wiki.

Documentation

Wikis can centralise all types of information that needs to be shared across your business. For example, your operations manual could be in the form of a wiki rather than a static document. It can be quickly updated and everyone has access to the latest information.

Learning materials

You can easily implement eLearning by using a wiki. It’s easy to incorporate videos, photos and links to other web pages from your learning materials.

Lists

Wikis are great for collecting lists of ideas and resources from a group of people.

Customer input

You could set up a wiki to work collaboratively with your customers. Imagine their delight to be able to input directly into your thinking process on their project or product.

Marketing

You might set up a public wiki to give yourself profile – think of it as a free website that you can edit anytime you need to update information.

In case you’re wondering about the funny name – wiki-wiki is the Hawaiian word for quick. Wikis are ‘quick’ websites! So why not set up a wiki or two for your business?

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