Corporate Positioning
Contents
Corporate Positioning Problem
Ray, lots of what you say makes sense, but the company doesn't seem positioned well (in its home page, name of the company, navigation, activity on the site) to be the place you go to 'make your own wiki'. If I go to Wikia they are FAR better positioned and are actively doing this. There is no design mechanism that is encouraging or even communicating to users that this is supposed to happen or can. There is also no simple way to isolate your wiki from the AboutUs wiki (logo)
I see this as a major issue for the company. The company does have to decide who it is, but that must align with how it operates. Do you have some ideas and thoughts about how you will compete with Wikia? and how you are different from them? This question will come up in every meeting you have with investors.
- I agree that our messaging can be improved (a lot) and we're working on that now. In comparison to Wikia, we are different in that we aren't trying to get people to start independent wikis, but rather trying to get people to focus on the commons, i.e. articles that everyone can use. - Ray
More about Corporate Positioning Problem
- Ray, lots of what you say makes sense, but the company doesn't seem positioned well (in its home page, name of the company, navigation, activity on the site) to be the place you go to 'make your own wiki'.
Ray, I read the above with much interest (prior posting). Currently I get confused when I talk to different people involved with aboutus, or read wiki content pages at aboutus, such as involving “vision”. Sometimes there seems to be the slant “we are a directory – that is our core business” – but then when I speak to Brandon, he talks in terms of a metaphor, of aboutus being like the soil with garden (the commons) that enables others with specific communities to grow their trees, and thus share common information or interests in the commons. Yet then to interest “tree people” such as myself, we have to see also “tools” that make our trees function better, as well as grow the commons – and I don’t see how this aligns with the core focus of being primarily a directory service? (probably my pea brain is the reason I don't see it).
I’ll give you my two cents worth on one area I see a market “gap” in terms of branding (probably not even worth one cent): There already exist web sites that offer free wiki hosting. Their problem is they do not have the tools “tree people” like me really need to customize our home pages and navigation experience (we want to create our own navigation experiences for our already involved communities). This is where the Homestead.com web site really shines (if you are not familiar, play with it). It is very user friendly in it’s drag and drop design capabilities and one with no computer expertise can very quickly create a very polished web site – as they want their involved community (in their tree) to see it and navigate through it.
Yet for people like me, that also want to facilitate more user input and exchange of ideas and communications (typical of the Wiki), homestead does not offer this capability (they are however aware of this new trend and their developers are working on it, which I follow). Thus with Homestead.com I must create a button, that when pushed by one of my users, links to a free wiki hosting site – thus my user community in effect ends up in a brainstorming room where many people can work. However this link process is not ideal for tree people, because at this free wiki site, they see lots of “noise”, extra stuff wiki enthusiasts see and want – but leads only to confusion for my community people (they rather see a blank page with few buttons).
From a Brand marking perspective I don’t think “this is the place to go to create your own wiki" is such a great idea, because the fact is the vast majority of the populace has no idea what a wiki is. In contrast far more people understand “go here to create your own web site”. However that too is not the ideal image, because it does not reflect the additional wiki group features that could be integrated. Thus perhaps something like, “go here to quickly create your own community” (we give you the tools to make this easy).
People have passion to “do their own thing” (what they already do, not what somebody else wants them to do) – yet on the back end it seems the trick is then to slurp (that is the word Brandon used with me) these different communities' (trees) content, so that automation can in some way put it in the commons, and in that way people or communities in different trees can discover what they have in common, and also to extract useful stuff from the commons, and use in their trees, that would otherwise be a big pain in the neck (as a tree person I'd be willing to pay for that service - becasue today it does not exist and to do it now one must patch together "stuff" that is not integrated seamlessly - a consideration in terms of generating revenue from the public).
Again, I am still confused, because I don’t know if you folks are only a directory, or a commons with tools to support trees, or just the latter, or both, or neither? And I try to follow AboutUs more than I suspect 99.9% of the populance, so if I am confused about this Brand as "the place to go" (for what?), then I can imagine so is lots of the populace.MartinPfahler
- Good post. Yes, I don't think we should call ourselves just a "directory of websites". Wiki pages for sites are building blocks for more organized content. The goal is to allow people to more quickly organize information into areas (portals, trees, or whatever we call them), by providing a quick start (pre-population, portal struture & slurping), overall moderation and other types of support to help that happen. - Ray
Potential Credibility Loss
I think with the public you can run into a credibility problem if not careful. From Brandon I have heard about this or that tools that AboutUs might be developed, that as a tree person I would find very useful (and willing to pay for), and that would attract me to spend more time on the AboutUs web site. However if those tools are always held out as a carrot and never materialize (for whatever reason), people tend to lose faith and interest – thus again I think it helps to give a clearer picture of what if any tools are going to be developed, and what are the time lines (2 days, 3 weeks, 2 months, 2 years – I’m talking orders of magnitude). MartinPfahler
- That's a fair question. We have a list of development projects we're working on, and we will be feathering in features as quickly as we can. We're probably talking "months" for some of the major items, but pinning down dates of course is hard. So to underpromise and overdeliver, we should be conservative in what we predict. We will be careful with that, thanks. - Ray
General public big picture?
From the general public's point of view perhaps the bigger picture issues might revolve around how does one use automation to enable like minded to more easily find each other, for groups to more efficiently collaborate, for large groups to do more significant “stuff” that matters (projects, etc.) “faster”, etc. – rather than the focus on “Wiki”.
Ten years from now we might all look back at newer modes of automation that enable efficient group processes and information utilization much better than today’s Wiki tools or modes – so to get real hung up on them could be stifling. If one has ever watched the old “Star Trek” movies with the “Borg” and their collective, one can see a much more efficient version of group facilitation technology than current Wiki technology – and also the potential downsides -I want to be able to unplug from the Borg collective whenever I want – even if that degrades the quality of the collective. As one that tracks lots of technologies I can make a good argument that improving the efficiency of group processes in the future will come just as more or more from the research fields of biomemetics/mimicry, neurosciences, and genetic engineering, than computer science (I think many wiki enthusiasts already understand today’s wiki modes are just a baby step and evolving and are not so hung up on today’s specific wiki modes – but some people are – as if today’s wiki technology state is already the holy grail). Food for thought.MartinPfahler
- Yes, but wiki is a mindset in addition to a technology and I think the wiki culture is fundamentally good and will be around for a long time to come. - Ray
