How can I transition from an unsynchronized email-attachment world to a knowledge based way of working?
One approach that works: Start simply- Deploy TWiki, Create a page for a particular subject that you would like to share with other members of your team, department, organization within the company. Take the document that you were just about to send to folks via email and post it to the TWiki page. Maybe even take the huge leap of cutting the content from one of those proprietary formats (made by you-know-who) and paste it into the TWiki page. Then copy the link to the page and send it in an email as an FYI or invite others to improve (“refactor” in wiki lingo) the content. The amount of email (internal spam) will be significantly reduced, as will the number of documents created those closed applications.
