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RE: The use of wikis in business
"... because it will help them remain valuable in a world where services traditionally only available through the IT department are now increasingly accessible outside the IT ranks." Exactly! You stated it better than I. A better developed business sense is required to protect oneself from corporate outsourcing. Many in IT don't believe in the core principle of the model and think feel that the longevity of their job is completely out of their own control. On the contrary. I believe that you will never see "business sense" (as you stated it) outsourced. There will /always/ be a need for someone that understands technology as well as business and can help lead the company in designing and implementing corporate & strategic goals. That skill set can't be outsourced.
Extending your last thought further I believe that a valuable IT person will be one that will drive simplicity into the technological areas of the business. IT has spent many, many years creating an environment that is unnecessarily complex and unmanagable and have gotten away with it because of the vast disconnect in technology "knowledge" that the business had. No businessman had a home computer, hardly knew a single "tech word", and had a false belief that more technology meant stronger profits. In today's world where everyone has some level of techological abilities (even my 5 year old knows how to use and modify the confirguration of my computer) these same businessman are now looking at IT and asking intelligent questions: why is it so complex? Why is it so expensive? They are demanding answers and they have the technical intelligence to judge the answers as reasonable or not. I think it is this increased awareness that is driving the outsource model - IT just can't justify the cost any longer. They are struggling with this new communication and knowledge that is coming from the business areas of a company. This is a new world, indeed.
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The use of wikis in business
I've had some experience with this of late. I'm an engineer, not an IT guy, but I've been working to get a wiki implemented at my employer (a large oil services company) to serve as a knowledge base. The idea of a wiki is simple and easily demonstrated by the success of Wikipedia, so I thought it would be an easy task. On the contrary, a whole change in culture is necessary for the wiki philosophy to work. Management must trust the employees enough to give them the freedom to create something truly useful. If they don't, they will choke the life out of the essentially social wiki culture and provide yet another service that is completely safe - and virtually unused.
Getting back to the point, however, the wiki represents an IT-based tool (in addition to blogs) that will, in my opinion, begin to dominate inter and intra-company communication. Given the critical nature of the success of communication in most any industry, it is easy to see the influence of IT in this arena.
It is interesting, however, to note the simplicity of these tools. I don't know that an IT professional would be needed to administrate such things. In fact, that's what makes the tools so useful - you remove the middleman. My point is, as the referenced article above indicates, the IT staff needs to develop a better business sense - not only because it will help the business, but because it will help them remain valuable in a world where services traditionally only available through the IT department are now increasingly accessible outside the IT ranks.
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