Difference between revisions of "Weblog/CurrentPosts"

• In the San Francisco Bay area, there's a gathering at 6:30 p.m. at Citizen Space, the co-working space located at 425 Second St. #300 in San Francisco, CA. Featured speakers will be the IT team fro the local public TV station KQED, who will share how their no-profit organization uses wikis. (more information)
• The London WikiWednesday event will be held at the creative consultancy, WhatIfInnovation, The Glassworks, 3-4 Ashland Place, London, W1U 4AH. Plans for the event include gathering at 6:15 p.m. for food, refreshment and relaxed chat, with a 7 p.m. formal start for 5-minute presentations from individuals and organizations using wiki and social media technology. (more information)
• In Montréal, there will be an event at 6 p.m. at Caféo, at 4177 Rue Saint Denis (corner of rue Rachel and rue Saint Denis). (more information)
• Again this month, the Portland, OR WikiWednesday event will be held at the AboutUs offices, 107 SE Washington St., Suite 520, Portland, OR 97214. Starting at 6:30 p.m., the gathering is held as an "Open Space" meeting, attendees are invited to bring ideas for projects and help create the itinerary during the event. For those new to wiki or just looking for more information, there will be an "introduction to wiki discussion. (more information).
• While no event or location has been planned for Chicago, IL or Ann Arbor, MI; both cities have someone interested in either bootstrapping an event for this week or planning for next month. Anyone interested in WikiWednesday events in Chicago should contact Ted Ernst; for planning an event in Ann Arbor, contact Brian Kerr (Ann Arbor).

To see a list of upcoming WikiWednesday events each month, check out the Wiki Wednesdays page on Socialtext.net.

Contibutor: TakKendrick

Q&A with BryanDaugherty of Stackzilla.com

25 September 2007

Note: BryanDaugherty recently found AboutUs and is now an Active Community Member. Bryan was nice enough to answer a few questions about his experiences at AboutUs.

1. What did you think of AboutUs when you first came here, and how has that changed as you started making edits and then really became an ActiveMember over the last few weeks?

These initial edits helped introduce me to the wiki way which I found sincere and extremely productive. Not only were the edits I made increasing the traffic to Stackzilla.com but I thoroughly enjoyed the concept and ideals of participating in the AboutUs community. Reflecting back, I now consider some of my first edits “selfish” in comparison to all the work I witnessed by other active members and staff.

I began participating by taking stock in other members passions such as flagging adult content and welcoming. These first steps were rewarding because I was doing something that would make a difference outside of my own self-seeking interests. I also discovered that being a builder of portals and articles was very fulfilling and even helped introduce me to other individuals who shared the passions I enjoyed.

2. Now that you've built a few different WikiPages (from Stackzilla.com to your own PersonalPage, among others), what experiences do you have to share with others? (For example, what works, what doesn't, tricks/tips, etc.)

• What is the information you are trying to get across to those who may visit the page.
• Does the page seem to be in order and allow the reader to follow the thoughts you are expressing.
• Are there any red links on the page, if so, are they something of importance and something that will be edited/added in the future.
• If it is a domain page, have you added a logo, services, product pictures, testimonials and unique features of the domain.
• Have you added the correct categories to the page.

I think it is important to add that there is no one way to edit a page, each can be effectively unique and express the individualism of the domain or editor. Just try out different things to see what works best for you. Originality is key to attraction.

3. And now that you've taken an active role in the AboutUs community, helping with the FeaturePotentials, welcoming people and a number of other projects, what encouraged you to do this and, how do you like it?

Taking an excerpt from AboutUs that I have found genuine and indisputable (as well as unable to express better myself),

"Wikis are vibrant, fluid spaces that foster a distinct culture of Transparency. AboutUs strives to create a dynamic community of self-organizing members building the Commons by contributing Constructive Edits"

Considering the significance of the statement, there wasn’t much need for more encouragement. I have thoroughly enjoyed welcoming new users and meeting new people on AboutUs. I have met some of the most extraordinary people who have very distinct and valuable passions. There is no limit to what can be accomplished when you are surrounded by individuals who care about what you are trying to accomplish. To me, AboutUs can be defined by much more then its core values, but by the people who actually uphold these values as truths and practice them daily.

For more information about Bryan Daugherty check out his Personal Page and the DomainPage for his website, Stackzilla.com/Evolution of Thought Institute. Among the WikiPages he's worked on are: Portal:Entrepreneur Education, My Cluster Page and articles such as The State Of Security In America.

Contibutors: TakKendrick, Bryan Daugherty

She's Geeky: A Women's Tech (un)Conference

20 September 2007

Creating space for women in male dominated arenas of life is a good trend, especially for geeks. Geeks are different, and the geeky world is sometimes a lonely world. Geeks look around themselves in the world and see lots of people not-like-them. Female geeks often feel this even more acutely. They look around themselves in the workplace and professional events and see lots of people not-like-them. Which is one reason why the upcoming She's Geeky is great. She's Geeky is an opportunity for women across different areas of technology to connect, to present ideas (just show up and present!), exchange skills, swap visions, and build community.

From AboutUs friend Kaliya Hamlin:

She's Geeky (http://www.shesgeeky.org) - A Women's Tech (un)conference on October 22-23 in Mountain View, CA.

This event is designed to bring together women from a range of technology-focused disciplines who self identify as geeky. Our goal is to support skill exchange and learning between women working in diverse fields and to create a space for networking and to talk about issues faced by women in technology. ( more details regarding Kalyia's motivations and hopes.)

As with any unconference (which are solidly based in Open Space Technology), no one has prior knowledge of what topics will actually be proposed by attendees, but here are some topics that may be proposed. This gives unconferences the feel of the coffee break session common at most regular conferences (where often the most interesting discussion and activities are created). Some of the highlights for us are: open source collaboration styles and how that works or doesn't for women, balancing work/life, technology for social-purpose goals, technology usability, hardware hacks, and small-scale projects using software engineering techniques.

We personally know and respect (read: think it's awesome!) Kaliya's work (she co-facilitated the most recent Portland RecentChangesCamp with one of us), and there are many more fantastic people organizing this: Mary Hodder, founder Dabble.com; Julia French, Covered Communication; Susan Mernitt, Yahoo; Sylvia Paull, Berkeley Ventures; heathervescent, Purple Tornado; Danese Cooper, Intel; Laurie Rae; Deb Roby a BlogHer blogger; Melanie Swan, and many more awesome people that have already signed up.