When I was younger, a common insult was to describe someone as a “tool.” It was an all around non-specific insult that encompassed a lack of social grace as well as some idiocy. It wasn’t a profanity, it also wasn’t a compliment.

PBWiki is a respected vendor of SaaS (Software as a Service) Wiki platforms, with a brilliant management team; and the much renowned in the blogosphere, Ramit Sethi, as the VP of Marketing.

Even brilliant people screwup on occasion.

PBWiki released a white paper today (available HERE for free) entitled “Seven Wiki Essentials: An Executive Guide to the 7 Must-Have Elements of Every Successful Wiki Initiative.”

By and large, its a common sense guide to successful adoption of the wiki platform for corporate knowledge management, collaboration, and focus. However, I had a significant problem with one little section that rubbed me incredibly wrong, and was quite heavy handed in its approach.

My response on the blog post at PBWiki is copied for your non-clickthrough convenience below. This mistake aside, PBWiki offers an interesting product and is worth your serious consideration should you be considering adoption of a wiki for your business.

My comment to the PBWiki team:

I downloaded your paper - some interesting thoughts in it.

However, someone forgot to check the Company-Customer Pact, PBWiki advocates.

In the adoption section you espouse “A carrot and stick approach.”

You must be kidding? Have we regressed to using draconian management styles in the context of new technology?

I understand you inherently want to push product, but have you forgotten the lessons of kindergarten as have so many other middle managers? Bees come to honey!

“Lets offer the troops a small prize for adopting our newfangled X (in this case wiki software,) or offer them punitive measures for not jumping on our latest collaboration hoohaa.” Come on, I am all for the sweeteners, but if my crew of malcontents resists a new system, I am at fault as a manager and leader for not having consulted the team and gained a culture of buy-in prior to the implementation.

I categorically object to the stick approach as adversarial in nature and contrary to the pact, not to mention it being anathema to best practices in management of workforce and corporate culture. At the very least this approach is manipulative I quote your paper, “tie usage to highly desirable results, the most popular of which is to include wiki adoption as a performance review metric.”

I have been dabbling with the concept of wiki implementation for a while, but if the best a wiki vendor can do is offer me advice on forcing it down the throats of an intelligent workforce; I really need to question why I feel it necessary to be “forced” on them.