How to effectively collect information for a company?

Question

Hello,

Please feel free to move this to meta/superuser if this is the wrong place. But this is a developer related question.

I have a smallish company with about 10 employees (developers). Often when I am browsing the internet, I come across various techniques and methods which I would like to share with them. Now one way is to simply point them to those links, but that's not too effective as sometimes the link dies, our connectivity is down, people may want to add some comments/thoughts etc.

I am wondering what is the best way to organize all this data. Couple of questions:

Should I use a SO clone? Wiki? Digg clone? Personally I dont want to use a wiki. I find it to be a pain to create links manually. I just want to post stuff and links and select an appropriate category and people can then view and comment etc.

How to get everyone involved in this process? SO does it well by giving points to users.

How does your company manage information?

Thank you for your time.

Answer 1

Use a wiki or a blog. Preferably one with both. That way they can search for things and you encourage them to post their own information. Its not easy to get everyone on board but keep trying.

I find the best way to get people involved is by example. Post good stuff and not just 'stuff I found to day about blah....' I read pages out there that all do it link to some new announcement or another - waste of time I think. Better to post somethings of relevance, but not just links. Put some comments along with links.

Answer 2

I quite liked a process once upon a time.

Start a knowledge base within the company using Blog/Wiki/SharePoint. SharePoint is nice in the fact that it is basically setup and go. You can modify to specific needs down the line. With this you should allow your staff to add posts or blog entries etc, and then once a week/month/whenever you should have a half day "learning" session.

In this session everyone can share idea's and "nice-finds" and then share with their fellow staff; alternatively, you give each member of the team the opportunity to "teach" a session whereby they can share a technology they've found and basically pitch it to the team.

This gives the following:

• Adds to teamwork
• Gives opportunities to change the way they work, by introducing new technologies
• Active learning is always better than passive

The problem comes with people who are introverted, non-confident or simply do not have the time to give lessons, all of which can be overcome by lowering load, allow some to do written presentations, etc.

Hope this helps.