I realize some folks, at best, associate wikis with Wikipedia. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the wide variety of relatively cheap, if not free, wiki solutions out there making it a lot easier for teams to get work done.

Think of a wiki as an online "war room" where colleagues can organize their projects and strategies in a customized layout that optimizes keeping everyone on the same page (so to speak).

It's all about online collaboration: hashing out ideas, updating each other on progress made, organizing information maximizing accessibility for all, sharing a mutual project calendar and mapping out benchmarks and deadlines, etc.

Using a wiki as a business and communication tool has other benefits. Here are some of the advantages.

1. Remember those email threads from hell. Who needs 'em? Look forward to less email.
2. How much time do you waste playing endless phone tag? Wiki plus instant messaging plus RSS feed (letting you know when the wiki's been updated) puts an end to most of that nonsense.
3. Old way: wading through War and Peace- length memos looking for the one paragraph that impacts you. New way: tagged by topic, just search out what you need.
4. Avoid reinventing the wheel. Search through the wiki for previous similar projects and build upon them.
5. Be exclusive, by controlling who has access to the wiki.
6. Be inclusive, by opening it up to as many collaborators as warranted.
7. Easily track the history of changes and updates. Sometimes the evolution of a project is where the greatest lessons come from for the next time.
8. Use surveys and polls to build consensus or gather feedback.
9. Who sez so? Source everything: data, budgets, deadlines, feasibility
10. Use pictures, maps, graphics, tables, videos to engage and interact with the rest of the team. If a picture is worth a thousand words, what's a five minute training video worth?

Tomorrow... I'll look at some of the wiki solutions out there and key features to consider.