Maybe someone could shed some light on this for me, but what's the value of this over, say, a wiki? Other than email support, which could or could not be worth it, the value to the organization seems to be the same: it's an easily searchable and editable knowledgebase.
If Opzi works like Facebook and Quora -- gently prodding people to answer with feeds and Bacn and Toast [1], and giving logical/browsable forms to activity -- it could get a lot more participation.
The wiki 'titled article' wasn't the end-all, but rather the beginning, of a universe of possible user-built-corpora organizational strategies. And the wiki 'recent changes' feed wasn't the end-all, but rather the beginning, of a universe of ways to report activity to, and stir activity by, interested parties.
Agreed with everything you say here, except I'd add one thing: It's not just for "average folks" either. From what I understand, there used to be a YC Wiki that was used actively among founders in each batch to share information with each other. This previous batch, nobody touched the Wiki after the first week. Everyone just used the YC Opzi. This was not out of loyalty: I've grit my teeth and used some raw, unpolished products of other YC companies, and this wasn't that. The Opzi was just much, much more convenient. No time was wasted formatting the page or organizing sub-topic pages. It was much easier to discover interesting content and get notified when interesting questions were answered, which was more often because the Q&A format does a better job of encouraging people to answer unanswered questions than a Wiki.
This is a space I've been thinking about and coding for.
I have not been able to test out Opzi, my comments are based on using Quora and the work I've been doing.
I think that the wiki model of aggregating knowledge has certain deficiencies that can be improved by systems implemented by companies like Quora and Opzi.
One of them is the identification of experts after the fact.
Take forums and wikis for example. A user is identified as an expert only after contributing to the system.
With systems like Quora and Opzi, experts and their knowledge is focused early on.
This is done formally by participants filling up their profile and expressing their areas of interest.
This is done informally by askers directing questions to other users of the system.
Identification of experts early on is really useful because it helps those who desire knowledge to pull that knowledge out of those who have it by initiating contact as opposed to a wiki where those who desire knowledge wait around for those experts to contribute.
Asking is a great way to pull knowledge. It is active as opposed to the passivity of waiting for the required information to just show up.
One could possibly add game mechanics to 'encourage' experts to contribute to a wiki or knowledge base. By why go the roundabout way. Why not just ask the expert? I believe most people within an organization would be willing to respond if asked to share.
Second, don't underestimate email support. Lots of knowledge is trapped in email. If I enter an email thread late, I would need to read a whole email thread to understand the context of the discussion. And imagine if a responder had deleted the previous email when replying. The previous thread is lost. That knowledge is 'lost'.
Being able to direct a question using email, collecting the responses and aggregating it on a single page will be very helpful.
After reading the post by PG about 'what goes on at YC', this article definitely has elements that feel like it was written by PG.
E.g. "Similar to Yammer, users sign in with their corporate email address and can then search for information by keyword. You can also ask questions, and answer directly from the platform. There are a variety of uses cases for the platform. For example, an engineering firm could use the platform as a way to sort through commands. And because most companies are tied to email as a main communication platforms, questions and answers can be distributed and answered by email as well."
They have a daunting customer acquisition mountain to climb. It took OpenTable 10 years and an IPO to have the capital to scale the SMB restaurant industry. Different but the same.
OpenTable had a global chicken-and-egg problem where they needed restaurants on board to entice customers to use the site, but needed customers on the site to convince lots of restaurants that it was worthwhile.
Opzi's chicken-and-egg problem is broken down in to many smaller sub-problems. An individual Opzi is used by a single company or maybe even a single team within a company. Having a bunch of other companies and teams who are already using Opzi may help your sales pitch but is not inherently necessary for your team's Opzi to function. So I'd say the customer acquisition problem is easier than OpenTable's - with the caveat that enterprise sales is never a cakewalk.
I like the idea of the product (haven't played with it yet though) and the pitch. Paraphrasing here, since I only watched the first half of presentation earlier: "companies spend a lot of money on people and their knowledge, but people leave and take it with them"/"a lot of answers are shared in a company but they're kept all over the place in email/IMs/etc" - again, really paraphrasing, but I think that pitch of keeping the knowledge you pay for inside of the company, in a central location, will push a lot of businesses to try it.
There are many products like this (basically any wiki software), but it's quite cumbersome for someone to go in and manually create/edit wiki pages. Every company I've worked with that uses a wiki usually has 1 person that has to go in to format and edit pages, because no one else will (or knows how to). Someone gets paid just to make and clean up the documentation. I think Opzi makes it simple for anyone to do that by just asking a question. I can't count how many times I've had to ask someone for info which they had in an email somewhere, and they'd have to dig around for it and forward it to me. Now they could just paste it into the answer section of the question I wrote, and when the next guy needs the same info it's all in one place. This software actually solves a real problem in both big and small businesses.
We've used Opzi this summer at YC and, as a user, I found myself wanting a UI that was as close to Quora as possible. I was surprised by that because it might mean that Quora is really onto something. And if this user experience really works, it makes sense for an enterprise-focused company to use what works in the consumer world.
13 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 33.4 ms ] threadIf Opzi works like Facebook and Quora -- gently prodding people to answer with feeds and Bacn and Toast [1], and giving logical/browsable forms to activity -- it could get a lot more participation.
The wiki 'titled article' wasn't the end-all, but rather the beginning, of a universe of possible user-built-corpora organizational strategies. And the wiki 'recent changes' feed wasn't the end-all, but rather the beginning, of a universe of ways to report activity to, and stir activity by, interested parties.
[1] See http://ifindkarma.posterous.com/pandas-and-lobsters-why-goog... for definitions of 'Bacn' and 'Toast' in context.
a) Game mechanics to drive participation.
b) Ability for contributors to be moderated by their peers in a simpler (lazier) fashion than your typical Wiki which is less transparent,
Sometimes structure adds value, and the most general tool is not the best.
I have not been able to test out Opzi, my comments are based on using Quora and the work I've been doing.
I think that the wiki model of aggregating knowledge has certain deficiencies that can be improved by systems implemented by companies like Quora and Opzi.
One of them is the identification of experts after the fact. Take forums and wikis for example. A user is identified as an expert only after contributing to the system.
With systems like Quora and Opzi, experts and their knowledge is focused early on. This is done formally by participants filling up their profile and expressing their areas of interest. This is done informally by askers directing questions to other users of the system.
Identification of experts early on is really useful because it helps those who desire knowledge to pull that knowledge out of those who have it by initiating contact as opposed to a wiki where those who desire knowledge wait around for those experts to contribute.
Asking is a great way to pull knowledge. It is active as opposed to the passivity of waiting for the required information to just show up.
One could possibly add game mechanics to 'encourage' experts to contribute to a wiki or knowledge base. By why go the roundabout way. Why not just ask the expert? I believe most people within an organization would be willing to respond if asked to share.
Second, don't underestimate email support. Lots of knowledge is trapped in email. If I enter an email thread late, I would need to read a whole email thread to understand the context of the discussion. And imagine if a responder had deleted the previous email when replying. The previous thread is lost. That knowledge is 'lost'.
Being able to direct a question using email, collecting the responses and aggregating it on a single page will be very helpful.
E.g. "Similar to Yammer, users sign in with their corporate email address and can then search for information by keyword. You can also ask questions, and answer directly from the platform. There are a variety of uses cases for the platform. For example, an engineering firm could use the platform as a way to sort through commands. And because most companies are tied to email as a main communication platforms, questions and answers can be distributed and answered by email as well."
That definitely sounds like PG's voice.
Opzi's chicken-and-egg problem is broken down in to many smaller sub-problems. An individual Opzi is used by a single company or maybe even a single team within a company. Having a bunch of other companies and teams who are already using Opzi may help your sales pitch but is not inherently necessary for your team's Opzi to function. So I'd say the customer acquisition problem is easier than OpenTable's - with the caveat that enterprise sales is never a cakewalk.
There are many products like this (basically any wiki software), but it's quite cumbersome for someone to go in and manually create/edit wiki pages. Every company I've worked with that uses a wiki usually has 1 person that has to go in to format and edit pages, because no one else will (or knows how to). Someone gets paid just to make and clean up the documentation. I think Opzi makes it simple for anyone to do that by just asking a question. I can't count how many times I've had to ask someone for info which they had in an email somewhere, and they'd have to dig around for it and forward it to me. Now they could just paste it into the answer section of the question I wrote, and when the next guy needs the same info it's all in one place. This software actually solves a real problem in both big and small businesses.