What is Working Wikily?
“Working Wikily” is a phrase that the Monitor Institute team coined (with a little alliterative assistance from our friend Lucy Bernholz) to describe the new ways that people are applying network theory and networked technology to do the work they’ve always done in a more collaborative form and also to begin working in new ways altogether.
The term comes from our paper, “Working Wikily 2.0: Social Change with a Network Mindset,” written in March 2009, which is the follow-up to our original working paper, “Working Wikily: How Networks are Changing Social Change,” which was drafted in the Spring of 2008. Over the past year, the use of social media tools has become increasingly mainstream, interest in both networks and leading with a network mindset has mushroomed (driven in part by the success of the 2008 Obama campaign), and the tools themselves have continued to mature. At the same time, the Monitor Institute’s knowledge of networks has deepened as we continued the work of the Philanthropy and Networks Exploration, our partnership with the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. This second version of “Working Wikily” is an effort to update and share our learning to date. If you haven’t read the first version of the piece, we encourage you to read this one instead. If you’ve already read the earlier paper, we hope that this iteration can take you beyond the basic description of networks and social media tools to provide you with some
helpful advice on how to start working wikily.
We are constantly developing our thoughts in this arena and would love to hear your comments, questions, suggestions, and additions. Please leave them in the box at the bottom of the page or elsewhere on the site. We promise to read them and give them consideration.
5 Comments to What is Working Wikily?
[...] to sit back and watch them find innovative ways to contribute collaboratively. In fact, in our Working Wikily paper, we summarized the principles of this new networked age—many of which were embodied by the Obama [...]
November 21, 2008
[...] months back the Monitor Institute and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation released the paper, “Working Wikily“. It’s a terrific overview for philanthropic efforts of working in connected way [...]
November 26, 2008
[...] Working Wikily [...]
December 25, 2008
Just a newbie on this “think network” thing, so here goes some, hopefully not too redundant ideas:
1. The update to the paper must definitely include insights from Obama’s online organizing success. Here’s a unique article by Umair Haque which should complement the many analysis of his web 2.0 campaign strategies: Obama’s Seven Lessons for Radical Innovators (discussionleader.hbsp.com/haque/2008/11/obamas_seven_lessons_for_radic.html)
2. Change the subtitle into How Networks Are Changing and Accelerating Social Change?
‘Acceleration’ is of course a subset of ‘change”, but something we need to put emphasis on as that’s exactly one main benefit of working wikily that we need to find and see more everywhere in the face of accelerating negative trends.
February 24, 2009
Here’s an upfront disclaimer – I don’t always remember everything I read and I like to think out loud. So I can’t remember if there is a place in this site or in all the work we did with Packard where the following question is answered, but I thought someone at Monitor or someone reading would be able to answer easily. Another disclaimer, I’m not sure when I’ll be back on the site so I hope I can find (and then, remember) the answer. 
When is “working wikily” and “network” practice not synonymous or even not compatible? An obvious example of course are those networks on the planet that might be community-based and a universe away from the internet (those these isolated places are disappearing quickly). Sometimes when I read about Web 2.0 I see so much about networks that they seem synonymous. Sometimes when I read about networks, Web 2.0 or social media are interchanged (even though networks have broader dimensions than the tools they use to communicate). The title of this site links these concepts very closely and probably for good reason and yet we have so many examples of where the digital divide can in many ways destroy some vital social networks (such as when a family member can’t get another family member off the computer or when predators look for vulnerable children via the internet). I’ll scan some more and I’m sure once I post this question to the site, I’ll find a brilliant answer that spells out the taxonomy and relationships of these structures, tools, processes, approaches or whatever we’re calling them.
November 12, 2008