It’s okay to cheat off your neighbor.

I was curious to know, given the fact that Novotus employees, including myself, are very active on our internal wiki, how much hard drive space I was saving. So I compared the number of files and folders I used in four months here to the number I had used in four months at my previous job: I have created 28% fewer files at Novotus and 96% fewer folders.

Who cares? My colleagues. Almost every single file that is on my computer is also on the wiki, which is accessible to them, and all the notes I have taken are recorded there as well. Forget attachments. When I email someone a bit of information, I send them a simple link.

This quote by our CEO Mike Mayeux is what prompted me to dig deeper: “We found that it [the wiki] was great way to capture people’s knowledge so over time, the person coming in behind them can benefit from their experience. So as knowledge evolves, the new information is over written on the previous information so you can see the evolution of it.”

It’s amazing, the current and valuable information I have learned from my colleagues as well as the decreased training time I needed to do my job. It’s like a great big brain.

Coming from a company with a limited grasp on the power of a knowledge database, I see very clearly how a simple collaboration tool can improve the entire business process.

For a closer glance at how we use the wiki and operate as a business, visit this blog: Angel Investing in Austin: Mike Mayeux of Novotus – Purveyor of the Knowledge Base.

-Jada Brazell

Marketing Coordinator

Tags: business process, collaboration, database, novotus, recruitment, recruitment process outsourcing, rpo, staffing, wiki