I participated in my first wiki during the Super Bowl three years ago. It was basically the score chart page that goes around many offices during the Super Bowl or the Final Four. Everyone purchases a square or two, and if one of your squares lines up with the final score, you win!!! (This particular Super Bowl wiki was all for charity, with the cash going to the winner's favorite charity.) With fewer than 50 people participating, this wiki was small and easy to use.

Compare that to Wikipedia, the behemoth online encyclopedia, which has more than 2.3 million articles in English alone. In that instance, wikis can be rather intimidating. But they don't have to be.

Shifting Careers, the New York Times small business blog, has linked to a fun and informative little video that explains a wiki in a very easy-to-understand format.

Wikis can fill many needs from social networking to education to business collaboration -- one of our favorites around here is smallbusiness.com -- but they don't have to be scary. They can be fun -- and even generous -- if you play your cards right.