From A-Z to Organization2.0: Q - Quality takes time
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Writing blog posts, commenting on them and adding Wiki-pages does take time if you want to achieve good quality – meaning writing consistent, easy to understand articles about even complex topics, linking to other resources and sharing valuable experiences. But good quality takes time, where little time is available for the work overload and dedication rarely appreciated by management in many organizations.
Paradoxical resistance to social media There is often a strong resistance against blogging or introducing a Wiki (e.g. for a glossary) because either people are afraid of facing even more work or management wonders the benefit of such efforts. But paradoxically, a lot of time is invested on exchanging information and experiences through email. But these emails are, in most cases, sunken in mailboxes and often just read by a few or even only one person. But these exchanges could be all openly available and part of an organizational archive of wisdom through social media tools.
The dilemma of time vs. quality If, however, you want to make such content available to everybody, it needs sufficient information and a certain quality to be easily understood by colleagues. The better the quality, the wider the audience who can make sense of it. Particularly, if one thinks of a longer perspective, experiences must be provided in such way that colleagues can get the best out of it. But how much time is left in a daily hectic work to write a great wiki article? Often not much, and even worst, it has less priority than another urgent email.
But isn't a certain quality needed because otherwise there is simply too much information? For instance, a post linking to other sources might be helpful and interesting, but such a post has a not very long time value. Imagine you want to find information later on. It is either over the search engine or through tags. It would be of little help if you find just posts with outdated links.
Nevertheless, the time spent on formulating emails outweighs often the simplicity of blogging. For an organization, it is time to get over their shared folder system and find other ways to preserve knowledge over time.