Posts from — July 2009

Recently, I visited an office and was asked for some thoughts on MediaWiki’s value as a tool for collaborative editing. Surprised by the question, because I had been thinking about it recently, I probed a little bit more to discover his project’s requirements.

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Wikipedia propelled the term “wiki” into the public consciousness, however, wiki is internet slang for software that allows for online collaborative editing. Whether or not you know it, you’ve used MediaWiki every day (I’d be shocked if you didn’t). MediaWiki is the software originally developed to power Wikipedia, but has since been released as free, open source software for anyone to use and customize. The major drawback for “the rest of us” is that we don’t often have access to our own server to self-host, or we don’t have the patience to learn how to implement the software. If PHP, CSS, MySQL, and FTP intimidate or bore you, then self-hosting a wiki is probably not your best option.

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So let’s assume you’re like this person who’s working on an extensive project (multi-faceted document, a virtual binder, whatever), that needs to be kept secret, but multiple people need to be editing it. And, you don’t have the capacity to deploy your own MediaWiki (despite how familiar it is, it probably is overkill, too).

• What kinds of hosted Wiki software are available?
• What are their benefits and drawbacks to this project?
• How much do they really cost?

1. Writeboard

• Benefits: Simple. Password protected access. Easy to invite other participants. If project requirements grow, can integrate with other 37 Signals apps (like Basecamp, Highrise, or Backpack)
• Drawbacks: Not thoroughly exhaustive enough for enterprise deployments. Limiting formatting options, and you can’t upload or manage documents. Can’t self-host/integrate with an intranet.
• True Cost: 100% Free. 100% Hosted.

2. Google Sites

• Benefits: Gives users the ability to make password-protected/invite-only sites that are completely customizable with a suite of Google widgets. When you need to do more than just edit a document, and create a hosted company “intranet” or handbook, this is for you.
• Drawbacks: Editing Google Sites is a bit cumbersome, and allows you to edit probably more than you should. Almost like a glorified homepage editor (e.g. the late GeoCities).
• True Cost: 100% Free. 100% Hosted.

3. PBworks

• Benefits: Full suite of options. Different editions for different needs (legal edition gets you an audit trail). Very professional. Most of the pay-to-play options are things that make sense for enterprises but maybe not individuals or small organizations.
• Drawbacks: It’s difficult to find which edition works for you, and hard to find the “free” version. Once you do, you realize that all the features you might need or were counting on, like access control, cost you something. Basic users will have their wikis visible to the world, if that’s what they want.
• True Cost: “Basic” edition is free (and is very basic). The version comparable to Google Sites or some of the features on Writeboard costs you $96/user (and it isn’t clear if this is per month or year).

4. Etherpad

• Benefits: Good for the basic user, who just wants to create a no-frills reference document. Interface is clean and easy to understand. Like the upcoming Google Wave, all updates to the document are shown in real-time. Pretty slick if you and your team are working on a deadline, and don’t want to step on each other’s toes.
• Drawbacks: Only gives you basic email formatting (bold, italic, lists, colors, and sizes). Again, access control costs you something, so all your free wikis are naked.
• True Cost: $8/user per month (after 3 users). The free version only gives you a randomized URL to control access, providing the opportunity for anyone to edit.

5. WikiSpaces

• Benefits: A ton of features. Embeddable widgets like Google Calendars, file management (up to 2 GB), page histories, and email or RSS notifications make this a pretty full featured application.
• Drawbacks: Security and wiki customization, however, come at a price ($5/user per month or $50/year). Cheaper than most, this still makes it difficult to do your work in private, or without the distraction of banner/text ads.
• True Cost: $50/year sans eavesdroppers. Free if you don’t mind banner ads and visitors.

What am I missing? What do you use?

Yesterday my Dad and I met with a close family friend to talk about a couple business ideas I’ve been kicking around, and “my life”. That age-old, twenty-something “what are you gonna do with your life” question.

This conversation took a spin that I wasn’t prepared for, in that despite me being an advocate for “thinking outside the box”, our friend asked me to “close my eyes, and tell me where you see yourself in 10 years”. I replied with some statement on the type of job or work that I’d like to be doing.

“Open your eyes,” he says. “You’re thinking too hard. Let’s do word association: I say black–”

“White?” I reply after pausing for a moment.

“You’re thinking before you answer,” he says. “Josh. You’re censoring yourself. I’m asking you to dream, and give me a picture of the kind of life you’d like to have in 10 years. Let’s try this again. Close your eyes, sit on that mountain top, and tell me where you see yourself.”

I close my eyes, pull the burlap sack off my imagination, and start describing what I see. “Flying on an airplane to Paris, taking the Chunnel to London, running for the Anchorage School Board.”

“We don’t dream enough,” he tells me. “We get caught up with what we can’t do, that it keeps us from dreaming about what we could do. I can only work around obstacles if I’m helping you get somewhere.”

I haven’t been able to stop thinking that when I dream, it’s vocational in nature. What kind of job I’ll have, what kind of salary, who will I be working for, what projects I’d like to develop.

If I stop for a moment, take the burlap sack off my head, close my eyes, and describe what I see things start to fall into place. If I want to do something, I’ll know where I’m going, what I need to do to get there, and who I’ll need to work with.

• What haven’t you done because a burlap sack was still covering your imagination?
• What do you see when you close your eyes?
• Where do you see yourself?
• What are your dreams?

I’ve been reading several articles advising me to get involved in forums, post comments on other blogs, in order to create community around a blog or brand. Facebook even rates the quality of your page on how many interactions it sees on average over the course of the week.

This raises some questions for me.

• How do you make polls, forums, and other forms of community interaction work?
• How do you make community interaction relevant to your organization, blog, or website?
• When is community interaction actually useful?

This is the first (of what I hope to be many) guest post for this blog, written by Mindy O’Neal — an engager of young Alaskan professionals, and progressive radio maven. She comes to us with an insightful, thought-provoking piece looking at engagement for 21st-Century needs through an 18th-Century lens. We hope to see more of her on this blog in the future!

Benjamin Franklin was an engaging man. From creating the first fire department in Philadelphia to currency with anti-counterfeiting techniques for New Jersey, to establishing the first hospital in the United States, to extreme political commitments worldwide, he was a man who made things happen based on the ingenuity of his own mind and the deliverance of his own ideas.

But how did he make all those things happen? He didn’t single-handedly make the brick and build the hospital, or print and distribute the new currency, or gain a political position just by asking. No, Franklin knew that in order to do what he needed to do, he surrounded himself with people who could help make those things happen.

Franklin embodied a culture and lifestyle engaging to human beings from across the globe. How could one person generate so much common interest and faith in a world that was arguably more diverse than even today? Autobiographies and recollections of his life mention his tolerance and acceptance of religion, a very hot topic and cultural matter of the day. He found a common ground here and people saw in him what they wanted to reflect in their own character and values.

Which bring us back to being engaging. Benjamin Franklin is one in a long line of people who exemplify what it means to engage others. What are the common factors of each individual?

I wonder what Benjamin Franklin would think about virtual engagement. How would he have reacted to the Facebooks and the Tweets of today? Think of the difference between Franklin’s funeral in 1790 with 20,000 people, and Michael Jackson’s funeral with an estimated 5 million people viewing through technology. The way we are engaging people is changing…or is it?

Franklin, an inventor, created the common law so he could marry his adolescent love-interest after she had already been legally married. He signed the Declaration of Independence for our country, and he traveled around the world and had friends by the names of Louis XV, David Hume, and Joseph Priestley- all living in the time of Enlightenment, as scientists and as a piece of real social movement in the 18th Century. I don’t know much about these fellows, except that they were incredibly smart and forward-thinking individuals. From what I do know, each of them was somewhat of a character, and all experienced some reservations and even abolishment from their respective societies. That being said, they all share name recognition in foundational building blocks of the world as we know it.

Today, Ben Franklin, his ideas, his tolerance, his innovation, and his robust passion for life are alive more than ever. Think of these 13 virtues he lived by:

1. “TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.”
2. “SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.”
3. “ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.”
4. “RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.”
5. “FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.”
6. “INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.”
7. “SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.”
8. “JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.”
9. “MODERATION. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.”
10. “CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.”
11. “TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.”
12. “CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.”
13. “HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.”

Then think about engagement.

It’s not just about the people who are popular, or the ones who are screaming the loudest. I see people looking for something more than passé rhetoric and doing things that are community-minded, civically engaged, socially involved. Sounds like a lot of work? Benjamin Franklin would agree. But if you think about it in the simplest context it’s really quite simple.

Curiosity in people and in the world is engaging. Showing your spirit is engaging. Wearing your heart on your sleeve is engaging. Speaking your mind and listening engages people. Smiling at someone on the street is engaging. Sending a friend request or inviting someone to dinner is engaging. Music is engaging.

There’s no time to waste, and there’s no time like the present. Seek out whatever it is that engages you, however large or small, or whatever it is you feel compelled to do. Do it.

“If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.” – B. Franklin

Last week we broke some trail on exploring the “how” of social media: what good social media looks like in Alaska, how to get started on Twitter, and why shady deals in a transparent forum shouldn’t happen. I also gave you a summary of Jim Collins’ thoughts on social sector leadership; ideas that we should keep in mind as we strive to build movements, and sustainable organizations online or off. In between “articles” or posts, I asked for your advice on decisions and projects that I’m working on.

Whew. What a week! Where do we go next?

This week I’m hoping that we can explore a topic that I briefly touched when I rebooted this blog: engagement. After I wrote that post, a friend asked me what “engagement” really was. More often than not, social sector organizations are told to engage their base/audience/constituency for greater participation. What does this look like?

Mike Pawlowski, in response to that first post, said to engage we need to:

“Step 1. Show up to things.
Step 2. Invite someone who wouldn’t normally think of going.
Step 3. Repeat.”

Is this enough?

So let’s look at Engagement + Conversation. How can we use conversation to engage our community? I’ve invited Mindy O’Neall (co-host of The Mindy O’Nils Show on KUDO 1080 AM) to share her thoughts as to how conversation can be used as a means to engage. Also, we’ll talk about getting conversations started online, when good intentions make for bad decisions, podcasts that matter, and how to use video to have a dialogue.

Stay tuned, and please let me know if you like what you see, or if there’s something we’re not discussing.

3-by-3 is a Friday summary of some thoughts on leadership, social media, and Alaska that I’ve had a chance to read through the week. Please feel free to send me tips on stories that you’ve read on these topics.

Leadership

1. Seth Godin talks about organizations that use videos to tell a story about themselves.
   • What would it look like if instead of slides burdened with text, charts, and graphs we grabbed a video camera and showed people what we’re talking about? Would different decisions have been made prior to the Challenger launch?
2. Chris Myers Asch argues for an undergraduate public service leadership academy in the tradition of West Point. (Via AMA Government Solutions)
3. Poynter Institute’s Jill Geisler reflects on how to keep bullies out of the workplace (for her, this means newsroom).

Social Media

1. Facebook is growing at a rate of 700,000 new users a day, and over 40 million in three months.
   • Can you think of any other organization, movement, or consumer brand that grows that quickly?
2. Charles Hamilton offers suggestions on making the best use of social networks. His key point: don’t spread out, go to the sites with the largest user base.
3. American Red Cross shares their social media strategy with their staff, volunteers, and the world. I’m hoping that I might be able to use it as a model for Commonwealth North.

Alaska

1. This week in Alaska, news was dominated pretty hard by one story: Gov. Sarah Palin announced her resignation, Sen. Lisa Murkowski said was irresponsible (from the middle of a lake), Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell will assume the office, and Levi Johnston says it’s all about money.
2. Sitka got public wi-fi installed! I think this is a first for Alaska; Anchorage tried to do something similar a long time ago, but it fizzled.
3. Wildfires are blazing across Alaska, with the worst air quality in Eagle River (my hometown).

And a bonus:

• Arctic scientists made a tribute to Michael Jackson’s Thriller dance while wearing mosquito nets. (Via Alaska Newsreader)