The United Nations, notorious for endless deliberations, is trying a technological quick fix. Its Global Compact Office, which promotes corporate responsibility, has embraced a once marginal social technology—the wiki—in hopes that it will help staff in 80 countries share information and reach consensus with less deliberation and more speed. The office has done this by enlisting the public in its review of progress reports from more than 2,000 companies—an effort to make sure each is complying with established social and environmental guidelines. It's debatable whether encouraging public input is a good way to increase efficiency, but the move is the latest example of a quickly growing trend.
Wiki software—easy-to-use programs that let anyone with Internet access create, remove and edit content on a Web page—first gained popularity thanks to Wikipedia, the user-generated encyclopedia that has come to be praised as one of the Web's greatest resources. Now the technology is increasingly spreading outside the world of bizarre tech people and into the mainstream, being adopted by workplaces, corporations and even governments. In what's been called the "wiki workplace," a growing number of organizations have begun shifting from traditional hierarchical structures to self-organized and collaborative networks, using wiki software—a basket of technologies that include wikis, blogs and other tools—to foster innovation across organizational and geographic boundaries. Executives say the new tools make it easier for teams to collaborate and share information, and to get projects up and running on the fly. "Collaborative software has become a very important part of how businesses will invent and innovate," says Ken Bisconti, IBM's vice president of messaging and collaboration software.
That the United Nations is embracing wikis is an indication that organizations are beginning to get over their fear that this technology could introduce chaos into their operations. As Wikipedia has demonstrated, Web sites that are open to the public are vulnerable to deliberate injury, bias, inconsistency and other problems. But most corporate wikis are closed to the public, limiting access to employees inside the company firewall. These quasi-closed systems, say technology experts, impose accountability simply by keeping a record of every change and who made it.
IBM has used internal wikis since 2005, with an eye to selling the concept to its clients. One of its first applications was a wiki that employees could use to collaborate on writing a blogging manifesto: a set of policies for appropriate use of blogs in and out of the office. Thousands of employees contributed and edited that manifesto, which after receiving corporate approval—became the company's official policy.
注(1):本文选自Newsweek, 08/06/2007
注(2):本文习题命题模仿对象:第1-3题分别模仿2001年真题Text 3第1-3题,第4、5题模仿2004年真题Text 1第4-5题。
1. What is the passage mainly about?
2. The application of the wiki technology turns out to be _______.
3. The basic problem of applying wiki technology lies in that _______.
4. Which of the following is NOT the advantage of wiki technology?
5. Which of the following is TRUE according to the text?
篇章剖析
本文是一篇介绍维客技术的说明文。第一段先通过一个实例——即关于联合国采用了一项新技术——来引出话题,第二段具体介绍了什么是维客技术,该技术的优势及发展趋势等。第三、四段则进一步通过组织机构和公司对于维客技术的使用,来说明该技术的实用性。
词汇注释
marginal [`mB:dBVinEl] adj. 边缘的, 边际的
consensus [kEn`sensEs] n. 一致同意
enlist [in`list] v. 谋取(支持、赞助等)
comply [kEm`plai] vi. 顺从, 答应, 遵守
bizarre [bi`z`B:] adj. 奇异的,古怪的
hierarchical [9haiE`rB:kikEl] adj. 分等级的
难句突破
① Its Global Compact Office, which promotes corporate responsibility, has embraced a once marginal social technology—the wiki—in hopes that it will help staff in 80 countries share information and reach consensus with less deliberation and more speed.
主体句式
结构分析
句子译文
② Wiki software—easy-to-use programs that let anyone with Internet access create, remove and edit content on a Web page—first gained popularity thanks to Wikipedia, the user-generated encyclopedia that has come to be praised as one of the Web's greatest resources.
主体句式
结构分析
句子译文
题目分析
1.B. 主旨题。纵观全篇文章,主要是在介绍wiki这项新的技术。
2.D. 推理题。从全文来看,现在联合国和其他一些大的公司和组织机构都已经开始采用维客技术,说明其应用前景是令人看好的。
3.C. 细节题。文章第三段中提到“As Wikipedia has demonstrated, Web sites that are open to the public are vulnerable to deliberate injury, bias, inconsistency and other problems”。因此C为正确答案。
4.A. 细节题。该题的B,C,D选项都可以在文章第二段中找到答案,但是全文没有任何关于A选项的表述。而且从逻辑上来推断,即使该技术得到了联合国的承认,也没有理由认为它从此就成为了一种标准。
5.C. 细节题。C选项的原文对应信息为“a growing number of organizations have begun shifting from traditional hierarchical structures to self-organized and collaborative networks, using wiki software”。
参考译文
维客软件—这种软件让任何能够上网的人可以轻松地创造、删除和编辑一个网页上的内容—由于维基百科的广泛使用而变得流行,维基百科由于让网民来编写百科全书的内容,因此被誉为网上最伟大的资源。现在这种技术正在大规模地传播,并以冲破那些技术怪人的世界而进入了主流世界。在所谓的“维客工作场”中,越来越多的组织已经通过使用维软件开始从传统的等级架构转变为一种自我组织和合作的网络—维客软件是一组技术组合,包括维客、博客、以及其它工具—从而进行跨组织和跨地域的创新。管理人员们称这些新工具使得团队之间更容易合作和分享信息,或使得各个项目高效地进行。IBM 的信息和合作软件部门副总裁肯·比斯康蒂称“合作软件在公司如何创造和创新的过程中起到了非常重要的作用”。