Mingtiandi

The Centre Holds As Things Don’t Fall Apart

The RightSite Wiki in all its Glory

We are wrapping up a busy month at RightSite and the focus this month has been on team-building. We’ve added three new team members and interviewed more than 60 people.  But as always, we have tried to do all of this team building in an organised way that let’s us grow as quickly as possible without losing track of our goals and our core mission.

One of our major tools in keeping our company on track has been our RightSite Wiki.  While we put the super-trendy “Wiki” name on it, this is really just a site where we share information.  We store training materials and references on the Wiki, and documentation on how tasks should be performed at RightSite is all stored on the Wiki.  When a new intern shows up for work on their first day, their training program is stored for them to download on the Wiki.  If anyone wants to know the best way to write a description of an industrial zone for a new listing, complete guidelines are stored on the Wiki.

Our wiki is a pretty simple site created for free on Google Sites.  I am not sure that this is the best product for creating a wiki, but since it’s free and easy to use it meets my two most basic requirements.  On the downside, the formatting tools for pages are clunky – no tools for creating h1, h2 or h3 styles or other simple CSS type elements that I can get in OpenOffice?  Boo!  Hiss! Still, I continue to use Google Sites in the faith that they will improve the product soon.  Right after they take over the world.  In the meantime, you can feel free to look at competing products like Zoho.

Today’s entries into the Wiki (yes, even on Sunday) included

• Project lists for the week (our weekly set of tasks for everyone in the company)
• This week’s data entry goals
• Revised standards for creating complete industrial zone, property and company listings
• Guidelines for writing effective descriptions for industrial zone, property and company listings
• Guidelines for Mike to get a life and stop working on weekends (Ok, this last point is pure fantasy)

I don’t kid myself that documenting everything on the Wiki will solve all of our problems, and it does require an extra investment of time. However, taking this little bit of extra time to write down how things should be done will help us stay on course as we grow and make sure that the great intentions of our startup days get translated into a pervasive company culture as RightSite grows and prospers.

See you again soon on Mingtiandi!

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2. That Was 2008, Now Let’s Do This 2009 Thing
3. Made to Measure
4. Learning Some New Trix
5. Fun in the Sandbox