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The Many Uses of Enterprise Wikis

Google Sites, part of the Google Apps suite, allows users to create intranets and websites without any programming knowledge. Scott Johnston, product manager of Google Sites, talks about what it takes to make a wiki implementation successful.

By C.G. Lynch

June 03, 2008 — CIO — Back in November 2006, Google acquired Jotspot, a company that made wikis for businesses. But what Google did with Jotspot remained somewhat of a mystery until February, when Google launched Google Sites and officially added the Jotspot technology to the Google Apps portfolio.

Built on Jotspot's wiki technology, Google Sites allows users to work in wikis for projects and build intranets and externally facing websites with no coding experience. Though first made available for business users of Google Apps, the service was released to consumers last week as well.

CIO sat down with Scott Johnston, senior product manager of Google Sites (and former vice president of products at Jotspot) at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., last week to talk about Google Sites and what types of use cases for the product have emerged since it launched.

Scott Johnston, senior product manager, Google Sites

Johnston:There are a few top level cases we are seeing. One is Sites as an extension to the company directory. A lot of [organizations] are building profile sites for their employees with it. One customer, the District of Columbia government, has modified their HR processes so that when [employees] start there, they create a profile site, and that's where they add and modify all the information about what they're doing. So that's a really big use case, because I think it helps solve the "cube next door" problem. That's where you work on something, and six months into it you realize that someone who sits right next to you has a skill you needed all along to help you with your project.

For smaller businesses, Google Sites has been used to build intranet sites. As a small business, putting together an intranet has not been a trivial matter because only a few people can update them. With Sites, anyone [with access to the intranet] can have an edit button and update it. That helps the information stay fresh.

Another huge piece has been extranets, which is something I didn't expect as much uptake on this early. And yet, it turns out, I should have seen that coming. A lot of projects that cross companies, such as vendor management or a sales deal that has all the information about the sales engagement, can go into one place with Sites.

 

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