If you use the security features of a content management system, consider that Wikipedia's success demonstrates the value of using security sparingly. With a few exceptions, Wikipedia allows almost everybody to edit almost everything, a policy which works surprisingly well.

Comment from Gregory Kohs

I work for a Fortune 100 media company, and before that for a 100-employee research firm. Internal collaborative effort to create and edit content, I hear, works well in some corporate cultures; however, I've yet to be exposed to one.

I believe the business culture in most corporations fosters an environment where the CEO, or the COO, or whomever the communications “Big Cheese” is, holds the reins on “messaging” and “customer-facing” materials. In that environment, there is an element of fear among content creators — they're very concerned about staying within what will be deemed the acceptable “message”, or “tone”, or “style”. And so the creative risks that inherently undergird a wiki (you really don't know how it will turn out) are stifled from the outset, and these things never get tried.

Meanwhile, it's important to say that probably not every business NEEDS a wiki. My car mechanic, the pizza shop, and probably even a highly specialized surgical device manufacturer… wouldn't get much return on a wiki.

I'll close in saying that I'm almost finished writing an e-book entitled “Your Business and Wikipedia”; however, I won't provide any links or such, since I don't want to run afoul of the spam restrictions here.