Wikis?  Why would I create one?

There are many reasons to create a wiki...a place for collaboration, a place for planning, somewhere to save your favorites sites, a place to post documents, etc. for use by a group, and much more!  I have created several wikis in the past...for many of the reasons I mentioned above.  One of my very favorite things to collaborate with on a wiki is Grant Writing.  When doing a wiki for a team working on a grant, I make a separate page for each section/question that needs to be addressed...in fact, I copy and paste from the RFP right onto the wiki so that everyone can see each page in isolation.  Members can use this area for brainstorming as well as to do some of the writing.  In a perfect world, you could probably do all the writing on the wiki!  I I also like that we can even jot down ideas that we want to remember to put somewhere in the grant-very handy.

If you are creating a wiki for use with the staff of your building, there are loads of things you can include.  Naturally, you could post information, forms, etc. as mentioned above.  You could also have staff contribute to pages to solve "problems" or issues without having a face-to-face meeting-a real time saver!  Another good thing is that you can make the wiki private, so nobody else will have access to see or edit what you have.

I know you are asking, "Why a wiki?  Can't I do all these things on other tools such as webpages, Google Docs, etc.?" You can do many of these tasks on other things, but sometimes a wiki is best, quickest to create, easy to manipulate, and can be either permanent or temporary.

What are your experiences with wikis?  Which tool do you prefer?  I generally use wikispaces, but there are loads of other tools out there.  What are your ideas?