Hello World! Announcing eSourcingWiki!
Add comment March 14th, 2007 David Bush - Iasta
Recently, Iasta launched a new knowledge sharing venture, named eSourcingWiki. Although this idea was hatched almost a year ago, we only recently got online due to two major factors. First, we spent about $200,000 in technology infrastructure upgrades in Q4-06 and I did not have a server allocated to me for this until late January. Next, it took almost 6 weeks to get the site to level that I considered presentable and useful while maintaining a quality level that people have come to expect from Iasta. This included site enhancement, rules, administration, design and most importantly - content.
Many will wonder, what the heck is a “wiki” and how does that have any affect on supply management?
Per Wikipedia: “A Wiki is a website that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove, and otherwise edit and change available content, typically without the need for registration. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for mass collaborative authoring.” Now, combine this with a focus on supply management topics and you have eSourcingWiki.
In building and launching eSourcingWiki, Iasta has made the commitment to publish information of best practices on topics within supply management. The wiki is devoted to building a knowledge/resource center for both Iasta clients and global purchasing professionals. eSourcingWiki began after Iasta made the decision to create white papers on corporate sourcing best practices. However, as the papers were being written, we decided to make the bold move of creating an interactive open environment of our published works. Our goal is to allow any one with the desire to increase the global community knowledge base (and gain a little personal recognition in the process), to have the forum to do so. We are putting our own ideas out first and welcome any one to come edit or publish their own thoughts. This will all be found in the section named: Wiki Series.
There is also a section named Supply Articles. This is a static area for republishing of quality content that is useful to the wide audience of supply chain professionals. Included in it will be articles from academia, blogs, and non-copyrighted independent material. Just like the Wiki Series, it will grow continually and I am willing to publish any donated material that meets some minimum quality levels. It is meant to be more of a resource center and the documents are not editable.
I hope the idea is embraced and grows. At the very least, it is a totally different way to distribute and share information. The web site will never be “done” and the Wiki Series will never be “done”. However, some will be advanced much further than others and need less direct editing. This will be a fascinating experiment to see how it grows and changes over time.
Entry Filed under: General, Supply Management Best Practices, e-Sourcing Marketplace
