International Relations and Security Network ISN

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INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND SECURITY
NETWORK Managing information, sharing knowledge
The Practical Application of Blogs and Wikis The
ISN Case Study Jonathan Landau
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Introduction

• Why examine blogs and wikis? Why implement them?
• IT tools come and go
• What is the significance for the IR community?
• Because blogs and wikis are not simply IT tools
• They are a manifestation of a broader change with
  profound ramifications for our work
• What kind of changes are we talking about?

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• The companies that design their software, their
  systems, their Web sites ... to encourage
  participation will be the ones that draw the most
  users
• As the tools for individual uploading and
  collaboration become more diffused ... every big
  institution or hierarchical structure will feel
  the effects.
• Thomas L. Friedman The World Is Flat

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• The companies that design their software, their
  systems, their Web sites ... to encourage
  participation will be the ones that draw the most
  users
• As the tools for individual uploading and
  collaboration become more diffused ... every big
  institution or hierarchical structure will feel
  the effects.
• Thomas L. Friedman The World Is Flat

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Participation and Collaboration

• Blogs, wikis, and other tools are signs of a
  broad shift towards
• Individual empowerment
• More - and more effective - collaboration
• Increased two-way communication and user
  participation
• Online information management is no longer a
  one-way street, as individuals are increasingly
• Authoring their own content (blogs)
• Collaborating on that content (wikis)
• Distrubuting content on their own
• Information gathering and dissemination not
  anymore top-down its bottom-up and globally
  side-to-side (Friedman)

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Blogs, Wikis and the IR community

• This is impacting the work we do...
• Inside organizations
• Relations with partners and users
• ... our role as information providers...
• Notion of experts handing down information
  challenged
• Wikipedia demonstrates the possibilities (and
  limitations?) of collective expertise
• ...and the IR community as a whole
• Political blogs challenging traditional
  journalistic outlets
• Wikis in classrooms and universities for
  collective learning
• Academics and politicians jumping on blogging
  bandwagon
• Effects of 21st Century communication on intl
  relations

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Blogs and Wikis

• Blogging software
• Simple-to-use platform for any individual to
  publish his/her thoughts, ideas, opinions,
  recipes, jokes, etc
• Wiki websites
• Easily edit (add, remove, change) any content on
  Wiki websites, often without need for
  registration
• Effective tools for collaborative authoring

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Blogging at the ISN

• Internal blog (in development)
• Communication between ISN teams and team members
  (three buildings with staff working in various
  fields)
• Announcements of all kind - replacing tiresome
  CCs and email forwards
• Feedback for new services internal development
• External blog
• http//blog.isn.ch

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Why an ISN Blog?

• Provide an additional tool to promote the ISN,
  its mission, and its areas of expertise
• Communicate our activities comment on key
  debates show whos behind the ISN and the many
  things they know
• Improve two-way communication with ISN users
  partners
• Survey users on new and upcoming services
• Discuss key issues as well as projects with
  partners
• Strengthen the N in ISN
• The ISN as a network promote partners, endorse
  initiatives
• Examine and discuss research areas of interest to
  the ISN
• The impact of IT on IR, knowledge sharing
  management, network building, etc

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ISN Blog Challenges

• Initial response of some ISN staff cautious to
  negative
• Questioned value of blogging for ISN no
  need/demand for ISN Blog
• Management concern about informal nature of
  blogs, lack of editorial control
• Most posts by same group of people
• Confusion over what should/can/cannot be posted
• Inhibition to post - some people just too shy!
• People cant and shouldnt be forced to post
• Few comments so far

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ISN Blog Achievements

• Success in convincing many staff members of blog
  idea
• Incorporated them in development of ISN Blog
• Middle management understands potential of ISN
  Blog
• Number of visitors steadily growing
• Many subscribe via RSS
• Many referred by other blogs we have interlinked
  with
• Fears of inappropriate posting have not
  materialized
• On the contrary Many interesting posts on
  various subjects
• Only in existence for two months!
• More and more staff members asking for blog login
• Blogs take time to find their user base

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WikISN Internal

• Editorial Board Wiki
• Minutes, contact details, decisions taken (for
  future reference)
• Suggestions for dossiers, case studies and new
  partners
• Anyone can make, add to others suggestions
• Intranet replacement
• Resource sharing (possibly in conjunction with
  internal blog)
• Collaborative editing
• Preparation of documents
• E.g. vision paper, meeting minutes
• Customer management tool
• Free, easy to edit, accessible to anyone from any
  team

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WikISN External

• Dossiers
• Collections of regional and topical information
  drawn from ISNs various online services
• Wikis allow for simple yet powerful interaction
  with users and experts
• Easy to update whenever necessary (news, new
  publications and links, etc)
• Changes easily traceable and reversible
• Organic rather than static texts
• IR Portal (Wikipedia)
• Develop and expand an IR portal on Wikipedia
• Mirror on ISN website to position the ISN as the
  primary source for IR information

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Image 2 Wiki Dossier
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WikISN Issues

• Scepticism towards wiki idea
• Many unfamiliar with this kind of decentralized
  collaboration - who is in charge?
• Examples of vandalized articles on Wikipedia
• Especially in academia, aversion towards making
  content (e.g. dossiers) freely editable
• Wiki software includes features to deal with
  problems
• Can allow for strong permission schemes
• Changes can always be reversed, traced to author
  indeed, wikis enable ultimate accountability
• Must allow time for model of shared control to be
  adopted

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Conclusion

• Participation, collaboration, individual
  uploading - key concepts that are transforming
  our area of work
• This is true both within our organizations as
  well as for what we offer our users
• We must closely follow and adapt to these
  developments

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Questions?

• Any questions?
• THANK YOU!
• Jonathan Landau, ISN Editorlandau_at_sipo.gess.ethz.
  ch