Wikipedia, the anti-cholesterol medication for knowledge management
Trying to find a document through the World Bank search engine (either externally or internally)? Good luck! You might want to pencil in an afternoon...
Instead, you could turn to Wikipedia, which has an excellent search engine. Some innovative staff in the Latin America region of the World Bank have decided to start posting comprehensive articles on topics like energy and water. The benefits? Easy to find, even years after the item is published, not subject to excessive review processes before publication, and free to the public. It's like an anti-cholesterol medication for knowledge management at the World Bank.
For an example, check out this article on the electricity sector in Argentina.
Comments (3)
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I really wish more organisations would do this. The BBC is doing an interesting project where they are linking to the Wikipedia page for an artist when they are displaying information on their own website about artists, and a colleague told me that the BBC also helps edit the Wikipedia article if it isn't up to scratch. An article about this here: http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029471,49300696,00.htm
We at Akvo of course have an in-depth water and sanitation wiki for MDG goals over at Akvopedia.org.
Best regards, Thomas, Akvo.org
Posted by: Thomas Bjelkeman-Pettersson | May 6, 2009 5:28:32 PM
That is somewhere between inspiring and horrifying.
Posted by: Alanna | May 29, 2009 2:47:42 PM
This is a fascinating idea and one which has real legs.
Personally, I don't find world bank searches as bad as the EU but my all-time bete noire was the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) where almost every link followed from google seemed to be broken.
I'm also seeing companies considering allowing customers to access their staff knowledge zones to allow them to self-serve their problems.
It does raise interesting (epistemological) issues in terms of objective v. subjective knowledge and this is where wikip. and various edit wars reflect this. Clearly organisations have their own ethos/policies which allow them to selectively interpret/emphasise the facts.
Posted by: Robin Gleaves | Jun 2, 2009 6:58:46 AM