Wiki’s do beat MS Word

I read a post over at PHPKitchen that echo’s the same experiences I’ve had at work in pushing us to use a Wiki to collect knowledge and document processes. Some quick lessons:

  1. Word is too cumbersome for trying to whip out a document real quick.
  2. Word makes it too easy to focus on the presentation and not the content.
  3. Word locks up the information in a file (not easily searched) and is not available on all platforms.
  4. Wiki’s let you focus on the information, with the ability to control some formatting
  5. Wiki’s let you jot down or read a document anytime, from anywhere on the web.
  6. Wiki’s pages are easily searchable.
  7. A wiki will organically organize your documents via internal links. This will be a bone of contention for strict taxonomy/hierarchy minded individuals.